What is Closed Captioning?
Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio portion of a program as it occurs (either verbatim or in edited form), sometimes including descriptions of non-speech elements.
Over 28 million American adults are deaf or hard of hearing. For those individuals, having accurate captions is vital to conveying information. Without captions, they are kept from accessing the same information. However, captions also help those who are listening to the video in a noisy room, are commuting on a bus, have better reading than listening comprehension or simply prefer to have the captions running. It is estimated that 85% of Facebook video is watched without sound.
Why is it Important?
In keeping with our convictions of Pursuit of Truth, Dignity, Diversity, and Personal Attention, the University of St. Thomas is committed to providing a website that is accessible and barrier-free to the widest possible audience. We do this by striving to comply with best practices and standards defined by Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA.
As a community, we work to meet and exceed these standards and recognize this is a constant work in progress.
The University of St. Thomas is required to comply with Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation act. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation act requires that persons with disabilities have comparable access to and use of information and communication technology (ICT), which means all the digital content of a university.
Options for Generating Captions
Below are three options available to university community members for adding closed captioning to videos they produce.
Auto-generated
- File type: .srt file for download
- Available on YouTube, Zoom recordings and Panopto using tools built into their system
- Timing: varies based on length, but can be done within an hour
- Please make sure you review auto-generated captions
Professional captioning (Verbit) for academic video content
- Assistive technologies can help make resources more available to individuals on campus.
- ITS supports accessibility by following ADA guidelines and providing appropriate technologies to individuals through the Office of Disability Resources
- Instructors can upload their video content to Panopto and submit a request via the Accessibility Support service request form.
- Currently, only videos that live on Panopto and YouTube can be captioned by the Accessibility Support Team.
- Note: Accessibility Support can only caption academic video content on YouTube that was NOT created or uploaded by the instructor. Submit a request using the link above.
Professional captioning (Verbit) for non-academic video content
- File type: .srt file for download
- External vendor the University has contracted; can be used on any videos
- Cost: $0.85/minute (if exceed $100/year)
- Embedded MICers have access to a Verbit account; reach out to Brad Jacobsen for a new account (bdjacobsen@stthomas.edu)
- Timing: 3-5 days, but can be done within 2 days
- Recommend you review captions, particularly names
Adobe Premiere
- File type: .srt file for download
- Self-generated, purchase of Adobe Creative Cloud license required
- Easiest if you have an existing transcript
- Timing: immediate, but may take longer than using YouTube auto generated captions
Additional Details
Title Placement
Use the graphic below as a guideline for proper placement of closed captions over your video content.
Video Training
Social Media