Video and audio content are not accessible to people with hearing impairments or who are deaf unless they provide an alternative format. Captions are the text version of the spoken content in a multimedia file. Accessibility guidelines require that captions are synchronized with the audio (ex: closed captioning on a video), provide equivalent content to audio (grammatically correct, provide additional detail such as music or laughter), and be easily accessed by those who need it.
Transcripts are a written script of the audio or video content. Transcripts do not need to be verbatim as long as they provide the equivalent to the audio version. They also provide additional details that help readers understand, such as, nonverbal sounds like laughter.
WebAIM provides additional information about Captions, Transcripts, and Audio Descriptions.
If you are using YouTube to host your videos, you can use and edit the auto captions yourself for free. Here are some additional resources for captioning your own YouTube videos:
If you want to create a video or a podcast for a class, it is best practice to create a script. This helps create a polished recording, and makes revising or adding closed captions much easier.
Here are some FREE voice to text programs that might be helpful:
There are a plethora of video resources available on the internet, but these may or may not be accessible to all. The following resources provide alternative ways that you can provide captions for the videos in your courses. Amara's technology enables you to caption and subtitle any public, streaming video for free. They also offer on-demand, professional captioning and translation services for a reasonable cost. To get started with the free platform, create a free account. Watch this playlist of tutorials for using the Amara subtitle editor.
These services can provide a transcript and/or captions for a video file. Here are a few commonly used vendors. This list is not exhaustive nor is it an official endorsement.
Dragon NaturallySpeaking is the industry-standard speech recognition software that works on all programs and web browsers. You can use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to create transcripts for audio files. There are several products that provide different industry-specific tools and dictionaries (medical, legal, etc.). It also provides the ability to control your computer with your voice. The cost starts at $100+.
Camtasia is a video editing program that allows you to caption your videos. The PC version has auto captioning capabilities that are similar to YouTube's auto captions. The Mac version allows you to manually add captions to videos. The cost is around $200 per license.