Captioning with YouTube

Video with Closed Captions

Is essential to students who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing and is the only way they can independently access video content
Allows students with cognitive and learning disabilities to better comprehend and retain information
Is helpful to international students
Increases comprehension for everyone
It is useful if the speaker is muffled or not speaking clearly in English
Is beneficial in courses where technical language is used
Is easily searchable and increases search engine optimization via the transcript file

YouTube is an easy and low-cost option to automatically add captions to a video. The accuracy of the captions will vary based on the quality and clarity of the audio from the video. For that reason, prior to recording your video, please consider the following:

If possible, add a microphone to your device and don’t depend on the built-in option. The quality of your recording will be better.
Don’t place the microphone too close to the speaker’s mouth. If placed too close, it can create static in the recording.
Desktop microphones should be positioned directly below or to the side of the speaker’s mouth. Test distance for optimal performance.
Headset microphones should be placed about an inch from the speaker’s mouth, off to the side.
Choose a quiet location to record
Test the recording setup prior to recording
Speak clearly and at a steady pace
Maintain a good internet connection if recording in a live setting
During a live recording, ask the participants to mute themselves or use the push to talk feature in the video conferencing platform being used. This will remove unwanted background noise from the recording.

The tutorials below serve as a guide to easily caption your video using YouTube.

PDF Tutorials

Video Tutorials

This tutorial from Mohawk Valley Community College also describes how to upload and caption a video manually using YouTube.