Comparison of Transcription and Captioning Options

Notes

1. Students acting in a teaching or staff capacity can be granted elevated access to service features if requested or approved by a staff or faculty member. Sponsoring staff or faculty must submit an IT service request for the appropriate service to request this. Teaching assistants, if their status as such is properly registered in Cornell directory services, may have access to Zoom Cloud Recording.
2. Engagement with, and payment to, approved captioning services is done directly between the customers and vendors.  Students with appropriate purchasing permissions may be able to purchase service directly, or arrangements may be made by the purchasing staff or faculty to allow designated students to request transcription services directly. Customers should check with the specific vendor for details on how requests need to be made and authorized.
3. Transcription files can be manually edited to remove participant names. Zoom participant display names can also be changed prior to enabling live captions or starting recording, so that transcriptions use the changed display names.
4. Option only includes transcript and closed caption files included with local recording (when live captions is also enabled); however, note that manually saved copies of live captions done in addition to the recording *will* include speaker names.

"WebVTT" is a format for time-marked text display, such as captions and transcripts. WebVTT format can be read and edited with any text editor.

Summary of Web Conferencing Services that Offer Captioning and Transcription Options

Zoom Live Transcription

The Zoom live captions / transcription feature can be enabled for a meeting, even if the meeting is not recorded. To do this, enable live captions at the start of a meeting, then manually save the transcript before you end the meeting–once you end the meeting, the transcript will no longer be available. To save a transcript before ending a meeting, click the small up arrow on the Show Captions button in the Zoom toolbar, then select "View Full Transcript." At the bottom of the Transcript panel, click "Save Transcript." This saves the transcript to that point—be sure not to save until everything you want to capture is done. Participant names are included in saved transcripts. For more, visit Zoom Live Automated Captions and Transcriptions.

Zoom Local Recording with Live Transcription

If you record a Zoom session locally and enable in-session live captions, the saved files for the local recording include both a WebVTT (Web Video Text Tracks format) file and plain text copy of the live captions/transcript. These files do not include speaker identification; however, if participants identify themselves verbally during the meeting, that would be captured by the transcription. See links in additional resources for more info on Zoom recording and live captions/transcription. For more, visit Zoom Live Automated Captions and Transcriptions.

Zoom Cloud Recording

All Zoom cloud recordings automatically include a WebVTT format recording transcript. Cloud recording transcripts include participant names, so if anonymity is required, you will either need to edit the transcript to remove them or set up the Zoom meeting to anonymize participants before recording. For more about Zoom cloud recording, visit Zoom Cloud Recording.

Zoom Cloud Recording with Live Transcription

If the in-meeting live transcription is enabled for a cloud-recorded Zoom session, the saved recording files will include both the cloud recording transcript and a separate closed captions file, both in WebVTT format. The closed captions file is the live transcript version. The content should be the same for the closed captions file, except that time breaks may be more frequent (to accommodate closed captions line breaks) and the closed captions copy will not include speaker names or designations. See links in documentation resources below, for more details about Zoom recording and live captions / transcription.

Video on Demand, Automated Speech Recognition (Machine) Captions

If you have a recording (including audio only), whether from Zoom or elsewhere, that does not include a transcript or captions file, that media can be uploaded to the VOD service to automatically receive machine (Automatic Speech Recognition) captions.  For more details, visit Video Hosting and Sharing Platform Features. 

Human Captioning/Transcription, Post-Recording

If automatic machine captions are insufficient for your needs, human captioning and/or transcription is available through a number of contracted vendors.  More information can be found here: https://it.cornell.edu/video-accessibility-captioning/contracted-third-party-vendors-human-captioning-and-transcription. For more details, please visit the vendor's web documentation or contact their support directly.

Human Captioning/Transcription, Live

Some captioning / transcription vendors also offer live human transcription. For details, contact the specific vendor.

Anonymity Details

Most of the Zoom transcription alternatives will capture participant names in both the live transcript and audio recording transcript.

To avoid this, the host could edit these transcript after the fact, to remove any personal identifying information. Alternatively, a host can change an attendee's display name during a meeting to something anonymous. This Zoom documentation How to manage participants in a Zoom meeting details changing a participant's name (see step 5, bullet item “Rename”). Similarly, the host can change their own name for a meeting. Renaming of participants should happen before beginning a meeting recording or starting live captions, to avoid having the saved transcript(s) include instances of the participant or host name prior to being changed.

Hosts can also advise participants to change their own display name (see Zoom's documentation Changing your name on Zoom). However, be aware that some Zoom security settings can prevent participants from changing their own name, so hosts should be aware of the settings for a particular Zoom meeting to make sure participants are allowed to do this.

Documentation Resources

• Video Accessibility and Captioning landing page
• Zoom Live Automated Captions and Transcriptions
• Zoom Recording Help
• Add Automatic Captions in Video on Demand
• Provide Manual Closed Captions and Transcription in Zoom
• Create Closed Captioning as a Participant in Zoom Meetings
• Using 3Play Media for Captioning and Transcription Services