Instructional Support

Captioned Media on YouTube

YouTube

Don’t be fooled by YouTube’s auto-generated captions. Almost all YouTube videos have a CC button, but be warned, they could be auto-generated captions that are not completely accurate and are missing punctuation. Machine generated captions are not considered adequate for the public website or for instructional materials when a student needs them.

To search for videos captioned by a human and not auto-generated, follow this easy search technique.

  1. Enter your search term (for this example, let’s say I’m searching for videos on volcanoes) in the YouTube search field.
  2. Add a: , CC (that’s a comma, CC)
  3. Hit Enter or click the magnifying glass icon.

youtube search with the letters "cc" added after the search term

Verifying captions are not auto-generated

To determine if a YouTube has auto-generated captions (consider these as uncaptioned) or captions done by a human (much preferred),

  1. Click on the Settings button in the bottom right corner of the video player.
    Close Captioned options within the youtuble player
  2. Choose Subtitles/CC
  3. Make sure there is an English option, and not just an English (auto generated) option.
    Close Captioned settings which include languages and whether captions are autogenerated or applied by uploader