Video conferencing services such as Teams and Zoom have been instrumental at keeping us connected througout the pandemic. However, they can be problematic for members of our community with hearing impairments, non-native English speakers and people who process written information better than audio.
Transcripts and captions are critical tools to make these services accessible and more inclusive, and now they are free and available on both platforms.
Teams has built-in closed captioning that can be turned on from the meeting controls for a meeting or live event.
Any attendee of a Teams meeting or event can view the live captions in real-time.
Note: Teams does not save the captions for accessing after the meeting or event.
Zoom provides a live transcription service that can be enabled by the host and any participants can view the captioning to easily follow the conversations.
The host of the webinar must always enable the live transcript function first so that it is available for attendees to turn on.
As an alternative to the free Zoom live transcript service, a paid closed captioning service can be managed by third party software or manually.
Third party captioning services should be paid for by the Zoom account holder.
Visit the links below to see step-by-step guides for third party closed captioning.
Please contact the UNSW Multimedia and AV team if you need further assistance.
Phone: +61 2 9385 4888 | Email: av@unsw.edu.au
