Create, Caption, and Share Your Videos with Kaltura

Today’s Easy Fix focuses on Kaltura. Kaltura is a Canvas tool that makes it possible for you to add and edit captions in YouTube videos, enhancing your videos' accessibility.

Kaltura is efficient because it automatically generates captions for you, even if the YouTube video was posted online without them. Kaltura also allows you to create, share, and caption an unlimited number of self-made video and audio recordings in Canvas.

Adding YouTube Videos to Kaltura

1. Open your Canvas course and select My Media from your Course Navigation menu, on the left-hand side of your Canvas course.

    2. Select the Add New button and click YouTube.

    3. Enter the Video Page Link or the Content ID and click Preview.

4. Edit the YouTube entry as you wish, including Name, Description, and Tags (keywords you can add to a media file to help viewers easily locate the content). You’ll also be able to choose the video’s visibility status. Kaltura defaults to a Private setting, meaning the video will be visible only to you, but once it uploads, you can change this setting to Public, meaning it will be visible to other users. Click Save.
5. Click either the Go to Media or Go to My Media button to see your uploaded video.

Editing Captions in Kaltura

Kaltura provides automatic captioning for uploaded videos, regardless of who created them. If you own the video (meaning you created it or uploaded it to Kaltura yourself), have been added as a coeditor for the video, or have publishing permission with the video, you can edit the captions manually. Doing so will make your videos more accessible for your students.

You can only edit auto-generated captions once Kaltura has finished processing. To check the status, find the video you’d like to edit and click on it. Click the Actions drop-down menu and select + Caption & Enrich. Ensure the video has Ready as its status.

Editing Auto-generated Captions

1. Click the pencil icon next to the status. From there, you’ll be able to see the time stamped captions Kaltura automatically generated for your video.

2. Edit the captions directly by clicking on the text and typing. When you click within any caption text box, the video advances to that starting point. By playing the video, you can immediately confirm if the captioning is correct. You can also change the time stamps by clicking on them or add additional captions by clicking the + Add captions button that appears between the preexisting captions. You can search for specific words or add speakers by using the features at the top of the screen.
3. Make any changes and click Save when done. You may have to scroll to the right of the screen to see the Save button.

In addition to editing captions, you can add captions or change other video settings. To do so, find the video you’d like to edit on the My Media page and click the pencil icon associated with that media.

Select the Captions tab. There, you’ll find your video’s automatically generated captions. You can edit these captions but can also choose to Upload captions file, which will ask you to upload a separately created set of captions for the video. Kaltura accepts many common caption formats (.srt, .xml, .dxfp, .vtt). You can choose Create new captions to create your own captions in Kaltura and specify language and accuracy level.

Other Kaltura Features

You and your students can create your own media with Kaltura Personal Capture and Kaltura Express Capture. As with YouTube videos, Kaltura will automatically generate captions for your videos, which you can then edit. Kaltura also provides you with a variety of useful analytics.

Easy Fix Recap

Previously, the Easy Fix campaign covered Canvas’s built-in accessibility tools, as well as TidyUP, a Canvas tool aimed at improving your Ally score by detecting and removing unnecessary files. Be sure to return to those Easy Fixes as you work to improve your courses’ accessibility ratings. For more accessibility information, please see our Ally Resource Guide.