By Laura Hamrick
January’s Tech of the Month is YouTube’s captioning tool. Using this tool increases the quality and usability of your videos, while also helping CU Boulder become more accessible online to all individuals.
After you upload a video to YouTube, you can use YouTube’s built-in caption editor to make your own captions from scratch or fix the auto-generated captions that are provided. Changing the duration or placement of captions is easy with the editor’s drag-and-drop timing bar. When you’re done, you can even export your caption file for use in other programs or websites.
Learn how to create your own captions with the captioning service’s DIY YouTube captioning tutorials, or by scheduling a one-on-one training. Make sure to also check out the Captioning Standards for Quality Checklist for tips for creating high quality captions.
Alternatively, if you have multiple people creating captions for the same video, consider using Amara.org to create captions collaboratively. Using this tool, you can crowd-source a video for captioning to your students, or have your TA’s easily work together to caption a long documentary.
Check out the tutorials on the CU Boulder Captioning Service website for more details or schedule a free consultation with the captioning service at help@colorado.edu or (303) 725-4357 (5-HELP).
