Subtitle your videos – the Accessibility Act applies to all of us

Subtitling your public film is not only a legal requirement from September 2020 but also provides your viewers with several benefits.

All videos that are published publicly within government agencies must be subtitled from 21 September 2020. It is part of an accessibility adaptation that not only benefits those with disabilities but is also helpful to everyone who looks at them, including staff and students.

By subtitling your videos, you also make it easier to search because subtitles are included in the search engine. It also helps you when you are looking for material you have previously recorded.

We have access to both subtitling of films via LnuPlay and separate transcription of audio and film files via a secure portal. The cost of this is taken centrally at Lnu and is not charged to the individual or their organization.

What needs to be subtitled?

All videos that you produce intended for a public audience, including students, must be subtitled. This applies to videos that you want to show to others than just colleagues. The publication may take place on a web page, inside Moodle, in a channel on play.lnu.se or via social media.

Some examples of videos that need subtitles:

Lectures
Guides and instructions for students
Recordings from seminars or similar
Meeting Recordings
Presentations
Marketing a course
Podcasts
Music videos (with lyrics)

There may also be a need for audio description, if your video contains a lot of visual information. This is especially true for videos published to the public. See the frequently asked questions on the page about digital accessibility.

Audio description – think before you record!

If your video is intended to be shown publicly somewhere, i.e. outside the intranet and/or Moodle, the video must also be audio described if there is important visual information that is not described in the video's own sound. This requires a lot of extra work where either the audio track is replaced with one where even a narrator describes what is happening on the "screen" or a separate audio track is recorded with just one narrator.

However, there is a way to avoid this by thinking about how you verbalize what is shown already in the planning stage for your video shoot and in the script work. Here are some tips:

If the video contains text in the image (e.g. name tags or questions), make sure to read them aloud.
If you have images in the presentation that are important for the message, you should describe them verbally. Start by describing what is being shown before going into details about what is shown. "Now I show a graph with bars that represent...".

If you show a graph, describe it in words, don't just say "as you see in the graph, the development is strong" but describe what you see. If it is a photo you are showing, describe what the photo shows and in what context. "This is a photo of researcher XXX that was taken in the lab XXX in the year XXXX".

If you are at a location that is important in the context of the video, you should also describe where you are. "I'm sitting right now on a bench outside the main building that towers behind me and next to me sits ...", or "We're now in the XXX lecture hall and in front of me I have a group of students..."
Test your script by just recording your voice and presentation a little quickly. Then play it and close your eyes. Do you understand and can you visualize what is happening in the presentation?

If you need help with audio description, contact the media production at KOM.

Subtitle your video in LnuPlay via play.lnu.se or Moodle

The Play service has excellent support for subtitles and how they are presented. You can even have subtitles in multiple languages if you want.

There is a service for automatic machine transcription of what is said in videos, which can be ordered directly from play.lnu.se or from My Media in Moodle. SUNET delivers the Scribe subtitling service via Kaltura.

It is also possible to subtitle the video via other programs and then manually upload the subtitle file.

The captions are then presented in the player and can also be expanded with an accessibility feature that makes it possible to see the entire text at once. As a viewer, you can also follow along with the text to see where you are right now. There is a search box to find words in the text and then the video jumps there. You can also download the entire subtitles as a text file.

Learn more about subtitling at serviceportalen: https://serviceportalen.lnu.se/en-us/article/1477741

SUNET Scribe – our transcription service

SUNET Scribe is the service we use to both subtitle films and transcribe audio files to text.

The service is based on an AI model developed by the Royal Library and is called "KB Whisper". The model is trained on KB's massive archive of audio and film files and is well suited to handling academic material.

The service is run entirely in Sunet's own data center in Sweden and is built for secure, fast and cost-effective transcription of audio and video material in education, research and administration. All processing takes place locally, without transfers to external suppliers or external cloud services.

Sunet Scribe offers machine transcription, speaker identification, subtitle generation and export to multiple formats, and works both independently and integrated into other Sunet services, such as Sunet Play.

Transcribe audio via SUNET Scribe

At the portal https://scribe.sunet.se staff at Linnaues University can have their audio and/or video files transcribed in a secure way.

Transcription means an account of what is said in an audio track where the AI model behind tries to separate different speakers and what is said ad verbita.

You log in to the portal (an admin needs to approve your first login), upload a media file and request transcription or captions and get a textfile in return that you can download.

You can have your transcription in one of the following formats:

TXT (pure text file, unformatted)
JSON (universal format for interchange between systems)
RTF (Rich Text Format - with formatting)
CSV (Comma separated text file)
TSV (Tab separated text file))

The transcription service is entirely run and maintained by SUNET on their own servers with a high security level. It is only you who can view and interact with your transcriptions. Not even SUNET's own administrators can get access which means that the service is well suited for sensitive material.

Learn more about the transcription service at serviceportalen.

F.A.Q on transcription

Who can access what I uploaded to SUNET Scribe?

Only you, using your encryption key, can access your material. Not even staff at SUNET can access it, which means that if something goes wrong, no one can help you with your files.

How long will my material remain there?

After seven days, both your uploaded file and your transcription will be deleted. It is not possible to extend, but you must download your transcription before then to avoid having to redo the transcription. If you want, you can enable email notifications that warn you when it's time for deletion. You do this via the account symbol in SUNET Scribe.

I want to be able to transcribe research material I have on SUNET Drive. Is it possible?

SUNET Scribe is currently not connected to SUNET Drive, but there are plans to connect later this year. It will be the same service in the background, so you can use SUNET Scribe with a clear conscience already now for research material, but you will need to manually upload audio files to Scribe. Once the connection to Drive is in place, the idea is that you will be able to transcribe existing files there directly from Drive without having to take the detour via Scribe.

I have students who need to transcribe interviews. Can they do it via SUNET Scribe?

At present, students cannot transcribe their material with us. There is no technical limitation in allowing students to transcribe, but becomes an additional cost for the university. At the moment, no decision has been made regarding students' ability to transcribe, but they are referred to other services, for example via Word in Office 365, which all students have access to.

F.A.Q. on subtitling

Transcription, subtitling; What's the difference?

Both transcription and subtitling mean that a computer tries to interpret what is said in the soundtrack of a video or audio file. The difference is that a transcription is set up to handle what is said a little differently from a subtitle. For example, the language model tries to determine when there are different people speaking and divides the text into different speakers. A transcription can also be set to be more "ad Verbatim", i.e. it writes out exactly what is said, including filler words such as "uhhhh", "like" and other things, while a subtitle tries to make the text more readable and perhaps simplifies the text somewhat.

Also, another difference is that subtitling divides the text into timed blocks of about 4-5 seconds and prints timestamps for the beginning and end of each block. This is then interpreted by video players to present the correct text at the right place in the video.

How do I subtitle a video?

You order subtitles by selecting one (or more) video(s) in your media list via the small box on the left and then going up to the "Actions" menu and selecting subtitles. See our guide on the service portal: https://serviceportalen.lnu.se/en-us/article/1477741

Do I have to subtitle older videos as well?

We cannot subtitle all historical material, it falls on its absurdity (there is an exception rule, "Exception for unreasonably burdensome adaptation"). Especially not material produced before September 23, 2020. If, on the other hand, you know that videos are still used, for example in your courses, you should subtitle them. It's never a disadvantage.

Can I subtitle multiple videos at a time, or do I have to do it one by one?

You can select multiple videos at a time and choose to subtitle them in one go. This is done from the My Media page either in play.lnu.se or via Moodle.

How do I know which videos I've used in Moodle?

You can use filters available on My Media in Moodle to sort out videos in different ways. Select the Publishing status "Published" and you will see all the videos in use. Click on the publication status of the video to see in which course rooms that video is used.

What do I do if I want to download a transcript from a video?

A subtitled video is different from a transcribed video in the format itself, but you can get the subtitles out as plain text. What distinguishes subtitled from transcribed is that the text is not divided into spoken paragraphs with the designated speaker, but what is said is written correctly up and down in a single paragraph. If you click on the video itself and start it, you can click on the transcript button at the top of the player. It looks like a screen with rows below it. Inside you will find three dots that allow you to download the text.

I want to get a genuine transcript of my video that is available in LnuPlay. Is it possible?

It is not possible to get a genuine transcript from LnuPlay, but you need to upload the video to the transcription service SUNET Scribe. First, you download the video from LnuPlay and then upload it there instead. See the following article on how to download a video: https://serviceportalen.lnu.se/en-us/article/2115314

I've heard that the transcription is encrypted and secure. Does this also apply to subtitling in LnuPlay?

Although it is the same service that handles subtitling in LnuPlay as transcription via SUNET Scribe, they differ in a few points. The subtitles are not protected by encryption nor is it stored encrypted at SUNET Scribe, but the text file ends up in LnuPlay together with your video. It is thus normally protected in the same way that your video is there. You should therefore not use the subtitling function in LnuPlay to subtitle sensitive material, but instead you should use SUNET Scribe.

Can students subtitle their videos?

At present, students cannot subtitle their material. Since their videos are not of a government nature in the same way as teachers' material, they do not normally need to be subtitled. The students usually use videos to submit some work for assessment. There is no technical limitation in allowing students to text, but will be an additional cost for the university. At the moment, no decision has been made regarding students' ability to subtitle.

Can I order professional, human, subtitling

Manual professional subtitling is no longer available

Earlier we had the possibility to order a professional subtitling but that service has stopped since the contract with Amberscript has expired.

Should the need still exist you need to shop for that service on your own.