Captions

If you used live closed captioning in your session, there are captions with your recording already! 

Captions with videos add another opportunity for students to access the information they need in the way they need or want it. And while captions improve the accessibility of content for individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired, captions truly benefit everybody.  

Examples 

  • Anyone working in a noisy environment can read captions.
  • Non-native speakers can read captions to reinforce their understanding. 
  • Students learning to read can follow along with the speaker. 
  • Students can see the spelling of terms that will be on a test. 

Create a computer-generated caption or upload your own caption file source. Video Text Tracks (VTT) and SubRip Subtitle (SRT) files are supported.  

Create auto-caption

If you don't see this option it means it hasn't been switched on by your institution. Usage of this feature may incur costs for the institution depending on the contract. 

Collaborate is leveraging AI powered speech to text recognition to generate a transcription of what is said during the session. While automated captioning can’t match captions created by humans, it is an easy solution to start with.

The speech to text service and the resulting captions are hosted in the same data center as your Collaborate session.

Use the Auto-generate captions to have captions created for you, as the session owner:

  1. From Collaborate scheduler, select Recordings and find the recording you want.
  2. Select the Recording options menu and select Recording settings.
  3. Select Enable captions, if not already on.
  4. Select Create auto-caption and Save.

    It may take time for the auto-captions to generate. You can leave the screen and come back later to view and share them.

Recording settings screen open with all of the fields visible.

After the captions are created, you’ll see that captions are available from the recording list. The captions will also immediately appear in the recording player for anybody having access to the recording.

Moderators can review the captions. If you want to improve or correct anything in the captions, download the caption file to edit. Upload the new file when you are done.

Upload your own caption file

Collaborate supports Video Text Tracks (VTT) and SubRip Subtitle (SRT) files. VTT and SRT files are simple text files that you create and commonly include these elements:

  • The number of the caption
  • Timestamp of the caption
  • Text of what was said in the session

To learn more about VTT caption files, visit W3C WebVTT and Mozilla WebVTT.

To learn more about SRT files, visit the SubRip topic on Wikipedia and How to Create an SRT File by 3Play Media.

  1. From Collaborate scheduler, select Recordings and find the recording you want.

    The Collaborate Scheduler is available in Blackboard Learn and LTI compliant LMS courses. The Collaborate Scheduler is not available in the Blackboard Open LMS Collaborate activity module.

  2. Select the Recording options menu and select Recording settings.
  3. Select Enable captions, if not already on.
  4. Select Upload/Overwrite captions.
  5. Browse for the VTT file and upload it.

    The Save button is inactive but don't worry, captions are uploaded and saved automatically.