As part of Udemy’s plan to expand the global reach of instructors, and help make course content more accessible to students around the world, we provide auto-generated captions in English for English video lectures. When English isn’t the native language of a student, captions can make courses easier to comprehend. Further, captions also provide more clarity, reinforce learning, and make courses accessible to hearing-impaired students.
This article includes answers to the frequently asked questions we receive regarding the automatically generated captions program.
How are the automatic captions created?
The automatically generated captions are generated using speech recognition technology.
When will auto-generated captions be created for existing courses?
Existing English language courses on the Udemy marketplace will receive English, auto-generated captions throughout the remainder of 2017. If you would like your course prioritized to receive the auto-generated captions, however, please email instructorsupport@udemy.com.
When will auto-generated captions be added to new courses?
English, auto-generated captions will be generated for new English courses, after the course has been submitted to our review team for approval, but before the course is published and open to enrollments on the marketplace.
Once my course has received auto-generated captions, if I publish a new lecture video, will they receive auto-generated captions as well?
Yes. New, English videos that are published in your courses will receive automatically generated captions.
Will I be notified when my course has received automatically generated captions?
Yes. Once auto-generated captions have been added to your course you will be notified on the Captions page, and you will also receive a notification in the notifications bell.
How will the auto-generated captions be indicated on the course landing page?
If a course has received auto-generated captions, then “auto-generated” will appear beside the captions icon on the course landing page. If a significant amount of the auto-generated captions are edited by the instructor, however, then “Auto-generated” will be removed from the captions icon.
Steps on how to edit the auto-generated captions are posted below.
Can I request that auto-generated captions in languages other than English be added to my course?
Currently the captioning program is limited to creating English captions for English content only. Instructors are free to add captions in other languages to their course if they wish. For more information on how to do this, please click here.
Can I edit the auto-generated captions myself?
Yes. If you would like to improve and edit the auto-generated captions that were generated for your course, you can do so by following these steps:
1. Click Captions on the left hand side of the Course Management page.
2. On the English captions page, click the download icon on the right hand side of the lecture to download the .VTT caption file for it.
3. Open the .VTT file in a text editor on your machine, and make any necessary edits to the caption text (there are also a number of caption editing programs available around the web, with examples linked here). Save the changes you make, keeping the file in .VTT file format.
4. Upload the caption file to the corresponding course lecture by clicking on the upload icon (see the “How to Upload Captions to Your Udemy Course” section in this support article). Your revised caption file will automatically replace the auto-generated caption file attached to the lecture.
Can I still upload my own captions to my course?
Yes. Instructors can still upload and use captions they’ve created for the course, and these captions will be utilized instead of the auto-generated captions. For steps on how to do this, please refer to this article.
Can I disable the captions myself?
Yes. If you wish to disable the captions for your course, you can do so by clicking on Disable at the top right hand of the Captions page.
It says the automatically generated captions were disabled due to “low quality”. How is this determined?
Captions can receive a low quality rating for several reasons, some of which include poor audio levels in the video lecture, background noise, or unrecognizable words. In these cases, the automatic captions will be disabled. Students that specifically requested the captions due to a hearing impairment, however, will still be able to utilize them.
Instructors can re-enable the captions by downloading the caption file, editing it in a text editor, and then re-uploading it to the associated lectures. Steps on how to do this are posted above.