ISCI 761 Post 4: Automatic Captioning on YouTube

July 07, 2024

ISCI 761 Post 4: Automatic Captioning on YouTube

YouTube’s Automatic Closed Captions

Closed captions are “a text version of the spoken part of a television, movie or computer presentation” (Hanna, 2022). They were originally added to assist those who are deaf or hard of hearing but many people without hearing impairments use them too. Subtitles are often confused with closed captions. They are similar but not exactly the same. The main difference between closed captions and subtitles is that subtitles do not include sound effects or other noises and closed captions do.

Automatic captions are closed captions that are automatically generated by some type of technology that processes the video sounds and adds the captions.

YouTube Logo

Automatic closed Captions on YouTube are a way to make videos more accessible for all users. This is a service that was added to YouTube in 2009 but video creators have been able to add their own captions as early as 2006. The addition of the automatically generated captions means that captions are on all videos not just some. To make them the most accurate video creators need to go back and edit them to make sure the speech recognition software got all the of words correct. Unfortunately, without doing this “automatically generated captions realistically average 60-70% accuracy, which means that 1 in 3 words are incorrect” (Lewis, 2024).

While this is a great addition to videos it is important for the video creator to still go back and edit the captions. “Studies have shown that even 95% accuracy is sometimes insufficient for accurately conveying complex material. In an average sentence of 8 words, a 95% word accuracy rate means there will be an error on average every 2.5 sentences” (Lewis, 2024).

How To:

Automatic captions are added to a video automatically on YouTube but sometimes they are not ready by the time the video is uploaded. It can take a little while for the technology to process and add them to the video. YouTube has more detailed information and instructions on Google.

In the Classroom:

If a teacher or librarian were making lecture videos or other instructional materials thought YouTube this would be something they need to know about. I think it would be more important for them to know that the automatic captions are not perfect, and they need to go back and edit them to make sure they are correct. This would be a helpful tool for anyone watching the videos. I personally love to pull up the transcript of the captions to the side of video I watch to help me take notes. Utah State University says, “captions assist in comprehension and memory, and help users pay attention to the video” (Utah State University). They have many more benifits listed on their Benefits of Captions page on their website. This is something that will benefit all students.