Automated captioning for video on Panopto/Glow starting 3/29

Closed captions can aid learning through increased student comprehension, accuracy, engagement and retention, and it’s invaluable for students with disabilities and those for whom English is not the first language (details). 

Starting on Monday, new audio and video uploaded to Panopto and to the Course Media Gallery in Glow will have machine-generated captions available in English. Previously uploaded audio and video won’t automatically get captioned, but captions can be turned on by the media’s owners on a file-by-file basis. For viewers, captions will be available but off by default. 

At this point in the pandemic, many of us are familiar with machine-generated captions and the fact that they’re not completely accurate – and Panopto is no exception! Captions tend to be better when the audio is of good quality, for people with lightly accented English, and with language that isn’t too technical or discipline-specific. In many situations, the value of the captions are realized even when they aren’t completely accurate, and viewers tend to be forgiving when they’re not. However, captions can be turned off or manually edited if needed, and there’s a link to instructions below. 

At the moment, automated captioning is available only in English, and will be inaccurate for other languages. We know this isn’t ideal. We’re working with Panopto to provide multi-language support (it’s currently in the works). If your media is characteristically in a non-English language though, you can disable the English captions for your Panopto directories. Again, there’s a link to instructions below. 

If you have any questions, please contact the ITech liaison to your department.