EchoVideo Automated Transcripts and Closed Captions
Important notes on the automated transcription service (ASR).
- The University is subject to regulatory requirements to provide accessible video and audio content. For more information on these requirements, please visit the Creating accessible video and audio content guide.
- All new materials uploaded to EchoVideo via Lecture Capture or Universal Capture will have a transcript generated automatically by the ASR system.
- The time it takes a transcript to generate will depend on the length of the video and current load on the ASR system. The minimum processing time is 30 mins.
- Automatic transcripts are not 100% accurate, especially when dealing with specialist topics.
- Transcripts are not captions. A transcript can be enabled as Closed Captions on your video content.
Generating Transcripts
All video and audio up to 8 hours in length created on or uploaded to the EchoVideo system will automatically have a transcript generated. You can also add your own transcript by following the EchoVideo guide Upload a Transcript file for Editing.
There is no way to switch off automatic transcription for individual recordings. You can request that recordings are not made available straight away, which allows for amendment/replacement of the automated transcript before it is made available to students.
Reviewing and editing a transcript
Where it has not been possible to review the accuracy of transcripts, ensure students know that transcripts have not been human-edited and clearly indicate who they should contact if they have any queries about transcript content.
Automatically generated transcripts are not 100% accurate. The accuracy of transcription will be impacted by several factors including, but not limited to, quality of audio, background noise, intonation, accent and use of technical or specialist language.
Who can edit transcripts?
As an owner of a video, you will be able to edit the transcript. That means if you recorded or uploaded it yourself, or you are listed as the Instructor of a module in EchoVideo you will have permissions. If you would like a colleague to assist you with checking automated transcriptions for accuracy and be able to edit, they must be given access to your Moodle space with one of the following roles:
- Editing Teacher
- Non-Editing Teacher
- Course and Gradebook Viewer
- Course leader
- Manager
Our guide to enrolling participants onto a Moodle space will help you with this and to choose which role to assign them.
Allowing your students to edit transcripts
The option to allow students enrolled on your course to edit transcripts is turned off by default. Turning this on will allow all students enrolled on the Moodle space to edit the transcripts. Permission cannot be granted to individual students.
- Access the captures for the course via the EchoVideo block on the relevant Moodle page.
- Click Settings in the top right-hand corner of the page.
- Click Features on the left of the page.
- Scroll down to Student Transcript Editor.
- Click the toggle to turn this option on.
To edit a transcript:
- Access the list of videos associated with your module/course via the EchoVideo block on the Moodle page or via the EchoVideo home page.
- Click the green button next to the video and click Edit transcript.
- Review the transcript, click the blue Edit transcript button in the top right-hand corner of the page to begin editing the transcript.
- Click Save as new version once the transcript has been reviewed and changes made.
Alternatively, you can download a transcript and edit it in a separate program such as Notepad, before re-uploading.
When a transcript is edited it is saved as a new version, preserving the previous version. The most recently edited version of the transcript will be used as the active transcript displayed on the video by default.
You can change the version you want to be displayed on the video using the dropdown found in the top left of the transcript editor page. You also use this dropdown to select a version you want to edit.
The author and date of the version of the transcript currently selected are displayed in the transcript editor.
While editing the transcript, a slider will display at the top of the panel. This can be adjusted to mark words that fall below the percentage of confidence with a double red underline. This helps to identify inaccuracies in the transcript.
Enabling Closed Captions
While a transcript appears separately from the recording, captions are displayed on screen with the video or audio. Once a transcript is available in EchoVideo, it can be applied as Closed Captions on the video.
- In the transcript editor, click Apply to CC.
Understand that the transcript-based captions will not have non-speaking elements such as "music" or "paper shuffling" as visual indications of non-spoken sounds (like closed captions may have), but it will provide visual indications of the spoken sounds of the speaker for users (as text).
Downloading a Transcript
Once the transcript is available, the file can be downloaded.
- Access the list of videos associated with your course via the EchoVideo block on the course Moodle page or via the EchoVideo home page
- Click the green button next to the required video and click details.
- Click Edit Transcript found below the video.
- Click Export to download as a .VTT or .TXT file