Will the Conference Videos be Captioned?

[christopher_phi]

It is great to see many of the videos published on Youtube, however I noticed that they do not yet appear to be captioned. Is there a plan to caption all of the videos? 

[Stef_retired]

 @christopher_phi ‌, it's my understanding that all of the videos have been captioned. I just clicked on the specific YouTube video for which you provided the link, and turned on captions, and I can see them there. Are you not seeing them as well? I also navigated to that same video here in the Community— —and again, I can see captions. Please elaborate?

[christopher_phi]

Thanks for looking into this Stephanie - much appreciated. All of the videos do have the YouTube automated captions enabled. This is a great first step and depending on the audio can sometimes provide a fairly accurate transcript. However, for purposes of accessibility the general consensus is that they are inadequate and that professional captions are required. A humorous example of the challenges of automatic captions can be seen here: 

More info here:

• YouTube Adds Automatic Captions to to 1 Billion Videos - But That Doesn't Mean They're Accessible
• YouTube: We know automatic subtitles aren't good enough

It looks like Instructure has professionally captioned the presentations in past years, so hopefully that is coming. You can tell if the captions have been done by a human or not by clicking on the caption button and noticing whether the label says "English" or "English (auto-generated)". 

Thanks! 

[Stef_retired]

Absolutely,  @christopher_phi ‌, and thanks for clarifying! I'm looking into this additional wrinkle now.

[Stef_retired]

 @christopher_phi ‌, I've confirmed with Marketing that the auto-generated captions are the only ones that are available. They've offered to upload caption files to the YouTube videos for presenters who would like to provide them.

[christopher_phi]

Thank you so much stefaniesanders‌, I just submitted my video for captioning and will have the file within a day or two - do you have the contact info for someone I can send that to? 

You may want to pass on to the marketing team that there is an option in YouTube that you can turn on to allow community members to submit captions for a video (including translations!), could be a great way to make the content more accessible and provide access in different languages. 

[kmeeusen]

That statement is rather inconsistent with Instructure's stated position on accessibility amply reinforced at the very conference from which these videos originated!

I am disappointed, because YouTube auto-captioning is terrible, and does little to improve accessibility.

Kelley

[laurakgibbs]

Kelley is right about how terrible the autocaptions are. Sometimes in ways that are funny, but not funny for anyone who is depending on the text. I usually don't watch videos without transcripts because it's usually not a good use of my time (I'll partly read, partly watch, and then of course I have the transcript for future reference). TEDTalks with transcripts: that's what I like. 

Anyway, I'm glad to volunteer to correct the autocaptions for the presentations I am most interested in, but I would need the video owner to download the autocaption file to correct it.

Is that possible?

If so, I'll check through the list of titles to see which ones i am most interested in. I might as well make good use of the time spent watching the videos, and correcting the autocaption would be one way to do that. 🙂

[kmeeusen]

That is an incredibly generous offer, my friend!

[christopher_phi]

Agreed, this is pretty frustrating - especially given that they have done so before. While I greatly appreciate the effort that Canvas puts into making their software accessible, it does seem like their marketing materials often do not receive the same level of attention when it comes to accessibility. 

Hopefully they will at least turn on the ability for the community to submit captions or facilitate a way for the auto captions to be corrected. 

[thompsli]

I am extremely disappointed in this choice by Instructure.

I use captions to follow video content, and  I want to re-iterate what others have said: auto-captions are not a high-quality way to make videos accessible, in much the same way that machine translation is not a high-quality way to provide material in other languages.

Yes, it is better than doing nothing. Yes, I use the auto-captions when they are what is available.

"Do nothing" is not an appropriate default stance from which to begin deciding which accommodations are necessary in this day and age, particularly in an education-related space and from an institution rather than an individual doing something "on their own time". It's particularly disconcerting if, as others have said, Instructure took the time to do this properly in past years and is no longer willing to accommodate its non-audio-consuming users in this (pretty straightforward) fashion. This makes me worry about their continuing commitment, as a company that provides an LMS used my many institutions committed to serving people with disabilities, to prove accessible tools and services to all users of their product.

[DeletedUser]

 @thompsli ‌ and  @kmeeusen ‌, I couldn't agree with you more.

<snark alert>

Instructure decision-makers, you seemed to spare no expense for the conference in other ways -- I'm thinking of a keynote speaker's flying entrance, two concerts, the Austin Powers lookalikes, etc. These elements contributed to the fun atmosphere, but come on! The sessions are the heart of why people attend a conference. How many of us would gladly give back the swag if doing so meant the videos would be properly captioned?

</snark alert>

Making content accessible is a must for Canvas clients, who do so not only because federal law requires it, but also because it's the right thing to do. I encourage the powers that be to reconsider the decision for Instructure to forego cleaning up the automatically generated captions.

[laurakgibbs]

I share your feelings,  @DeletedUser ‌. I'm an adjunct with no travel support from my school, and I could never afford to pay for a conference as expensive as InstCon.

Transcripts are what make videos truly useful for EVERYONE; I honestly don't have time to watch them all, but if there are transcripts, I can quickly read them to find what is most of interest.

If Instructure were to post the videos here at the Community with transcripts, it would increase the usefulness of the videos immensely; having transcripts here would mean that the Community search would return the videos as part of the search results when people search, and more people would benefit from all the effort that people put into their InstCon presentations.

[Stef_retired · Accepted solution]

We want to thank everyone who has participated in this discussion for their patience as we gathered more information behind the scenes. A key part of our company's InstructureCon plan has been and continues to be to professionally caption the InstructureCon 2017 videos, and we're in the process of working with our outside vendor on this process—which is taking some time. We'll update this conversation periodically with specific information about the timeline for completion. 

[DeletedUser]

stefaniesanders‌, I'm sure others join me in saying thank you for pursuing this question further and for letting us know the videos will indeed be professionally captioned.

laurakgibbs‌, research by Canvas client Oregon State University supports your statement that transcripts are helpful for all. In its study conducted in collaboration with 3Play Media, Student Uses and Perceptions of Closed Captions and Transcripts, Oregon State learned that 

• 98.6% of students find captions helpful 
• 75% of students who use captions do so as a learning aid
• 71% of students without hearing difficulties use captions at least some of the time

(Hint: On the page linked above, you can scroll down to see an infographic of the report).

 @christopher_phi ‌, I finally took a moment to watch the Jamaican Vacation caption fail video. Hilarious! Nothing like biting satire to prove a point.

Crystal

[kmeeusen]

Hi  @DeletedUser ‌

Thank you for sharing this info. It will be very helpful to folks.  I had already seen the study, because our state system has a contract with 3Play Media, and they use that study for promotion, which is fine by me because it helps sell faculty on the importance of captioning and transcripts.  Captioning and transcripts are not an accommodation for students with documented disabilities, they are a UDL practice that benefits all students.

Kelley

[christopher_phi]

Thank you so much stefaniesanders‌, that is great to hear that the videos are being captions, much appreciated!! 

[laurakgibbs]

And it's not just human beings who need help with audio: bad auto-captions mean bad indexing by the search engines like Google or our own Canvas Community search. The search engines need text too!

To get the most use out of any video, people need to be able to search for the video and find it. Adding an accurate transcript and/or captions means that the search engines will accurately index and retrieve the video for people to watch and use.

Given all the time that people invest in making conference presentations, and all the money that Instructure invests in the conference itself, making that extra investment to increase the usefulness of the videos is a very good idea IMO.

[scottdennis]

FWIW; many moons ago I went to a conference presentation delivered by personnel from a university accessibility office.  They we're captioning lecture capture but they were providing transcripts upon request (I don't know why).  They did some checking and found that 95% of the transcripts request were coming from students who didn't have a formally filed accommodation.  Upon further sampling they found that an overwhelming majority of transcript requesters reported still watching the videos but also found it helpful to scan the transcripts as well - just an additional way to consume and hopefully retain the same information.

[laurakgibbs]

YES, that's me too! And the odds of me watching a video are sooooooo much lower if there is not a transcript I can snag. 🙂

[kmeeusen]

laurakgibbs‌ and  @scottdennis ‌

That is the power of UDL - everybody benefits!

I have twice attended the University of Washington DOIT Centers's Accessible IT Capacity Building Institute, and they live caption the entire 2 days, and I read the captions while listening to the speakers and viewing the slideshows. Greatly improves my retention and thus my understanding.

[laurakgibbs]

YES! When I am with my dad, we usually turn on the captions (he has enough trouble with his hearing that the captions really do help), and I find that I pay attention to some things in the dialogue that I might not have caught just listening. So, making that available as a choice, for whatever reasons (focus, hearing, English-language learners, etc. etc.), is great, and then people can turn it on or not as they prefer. Freedom of choice!

[christopher_phi]

Good news everyone, it appears that the conference videos have now been professionally captioned! The Playlist for those videos is available here: 

Mission Possible: Accessible Course Materials- Christopher Phillips - YouTube 

Thank you to everyone for the feedback and to Instructure for taking care of this! 

#accessibilitywin