Teaching · Special Education

What is said, shown and heard,
in one transcript

Enter the video’s title and length, then add a cue for each thing said, shown or heard, with its time. The page sorts the cues by time, labels speech with the speaker and marks [Visual] and [Sound], then flags long gaps, missing speakers, malformed times and a transcript with no visual description.

Build a transcriptWhat you get
$12one-time · every device you sign in on
Buy · $12

Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the Special Education toolkit, $99 for 143 items.

Transcripts

The worked example is made up: a two-minute science video about mixing colored light, with speech, visual and sound cues, and a read-aloud entered out of order, with one malformed time and no visual cues yet.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
A saved record per video: title, length, speakers, timed cues (speech, visual or sound) and six checks. The page writes the descriptive transcript in time order with speakers and [Visual] and [Sound] labels, a short link text and summary, and counts of each kind of cue; it flags cues out of order, malformed times, gaps over 30 seconds, speech without a speaker, cues after the end and missing visual description. Prints the transcript on its own.
Who it is for
Teachers, special education teachers, teachers of students who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or deafblind, media and accessibility staff publishing classroom video.
Format
Browser tool with a saved record per transcript. Prints the short text and long description together, the full record, every transcript in a table or a blank form; downloads a spreadsheet (.csv); exports and imports a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the Special Education toolkit ($99) and the Teaching Suite pass ($199), and 1 more bundle. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about access, an order or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.

How to use it

  1. Enter the title and length.
  2. Add a cue for each thing said, shown or heard.
  3. Describe what is seen that the speech does not say.
  4. Fix the gaps and times the page flags.
  5. Publish the transcript beside the video.

Build a transcript

Three ways to make a video accessible

Captions, audio description and a descriptive transcriptCaptionsSpeech and importantsoundsOn screen, in time withthe videoFor people who cannothear itAudio descriptionWhat is seen, spokenaloudIn pauses in thesoundtrackFor people who cannotsee itDescriptive transcriptSpeech, sounds andvisualsAs text, in time orderReadable in braille oron a pageCaptions, audio description and a descriptive transcriptCaptionsSpeech and important soundsOn screen, in time with the videoFor people who cannot hear itAudio descriptionWhat is seen, spoken aloudIn pauses in the soundtrackFor people who cannot see itDescriptive transcriptSpeech, sounds and visualsAs text, in time orderReadable in braille or on a page
A descriptive transcript is the only one of the three that works for someone who can neither see nor hear the video.

What goes in a visual cue

Describe what someone who cannot see the video would miss: actions, settings, on-screen text, charts and results, like the wall turning yellow where red and green light meet. Skip what the speech already says. Keep each cue short and in the present tense.

Where it fits the standards

WCAG 2.2 asks for captions on recorded video and for audio description or a media alternative, a text version with all the information, for video content. A descriptive transcript is that text version, and W3C guidance notes it is the only form that serves people who are deafblind.

Sources

  1. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Transcripts, including descriptive transcripts (w3.org/WAI/media/av/transcripts).
  2. W3C. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, success criteria 1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded), 1.2.3 Audio Description or Media Alternative and 1.2.8 Media Alternative (w3.org/TR/WCAG22).
  3. Described and Captioned Media Program. Description Key and Captioning Key (dcmp.org).
  4. National Center on Deaf-Blindness. Accessible media for people who are deafblind (nationaldb.org).

The worked example is made up, including the video and the read-aloud. The transcript is assembled by fixed rules from the cues you enter; this page does not listen to or watch the video. Nothing you type is sent to Caveat. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.