Kaltura: Request Additional Captioning Services

Audience: Media owners in Kaltura (faculty and staff/departments)

At the University of Minnesota, media (video and audio recordings) uploaded to Kaltura in Canvas and Kaltura MediaSpace receive auto-generated captions. Auto-generated captions improve accessibility but do not meet the standards of a disability accommodation. It is a good practice for media owners and co-editors to edit auto-generated captions to ensure accessibility for all users. 

For media captioning accommodations, follow the paths described below to work with your campus Disability Resources office, which will coordinate and/or pay for humans to caption media in Kaltura. You can also request human-generated captions within Kaltura and have the cost billed to an EFS string.

In this article:

Requesting Human Generated Captions from Campus Disability Resource Offices

If you are an instructor who received a media captioning accommodation letter from a student, or were notified by your Disability Resources office, follow the steps below for every media recording that needs caption editing: 

  1. Go to My Media using one of the following two options:
    • Log in to Canvas, then from the Account menu, select My Media (Kaltura).
      Canvas side menu. "Account" selected. Account pop-out open with "My Media (Kaltura)" selected.
    • Log in to MediaSpace.
  2. From the My Media page, select the link to the media that needs human generated captions.
  3. From the ACTIONS menu, select Caption & Enrich. 
  4. Select Request Services.
  5. Under Optional: Request Caption & Enrichment Services, next to Request Type, select your campus and follow the steps that appear. Notes for each campus:
    1. Crookston campus: Email [email protected] to discuss your needs.
    2. Duluth campus: Email [email protected] to confirm you have a student who needs an accommodation.
      • If directed, proceed to step 6 below to request services.
    3. Morris campus: Following the Adding a Media Collaborator steps, add morris_drc as a co-editor on your media, then email [email protected] with the name of your media recording and ask that the captions be reviewed.
    4. Rochester campus: Following the Adding a Media Collaborator steps, add rochester_drc as a co-editor on your media, then email [email protected] with the name of your media recording and ask that the captions be reviewed.
    5. Twin Cities campus: Submit a request through the Request Media Captioning form so staff are aware of your needs.
      • If directed, proceed to step 6 below to request services.
  6. Duluth and Twin Cities campuses (if directed):
    1. For Service, select Human Generated ($$).
    2. For Source Media Language, select the language of the media.
    3. For Cost and Turnaround Time, select one of the values; if requesting captions for media you just uploaded and are sharing with a Canvas course, a good option is $1.50 per minute of footage, 24 hour turnaround.
    4. Select Submit.

The request will be sent to your campus Disability Resource office. You will be notified by email when the request is approved or denied, and/or when the work is completed. Completed captions will be added to your media automatically.

Campus Contacts

Paying for Human Generated Captions Outside of the Disability Resources Process

Even if you do not need to meet a specific person's accommodation requirements for media captions, to adhere to the University's Accessibility of Information Technology Policy, media owners and departments can pay to have their media in Kaltura captioned by human professionals. The cost is based on the turnaround time requested for the work, and the duration of the media being captioned, which is rounded up to the next minute. 

Prerequisite: Establishing a Billing Relationship

Before requesting professional captions for media in Kaltura, submit a Kaltura Professional Captioning Billing Information Form and provide your Enterprise Financial System (EFS) billing information. Office of Information Technology (OIT) staff will verify the information and email you to confirm. After that point, you will be able to request professional captioning using the steps below.

Requesting Professional Captions

After establishing a billing relationship (see above prerequisite):

  1. Go to My Media using one of these two options:
    • Log in to Canvas, then from the Account menu, select My Media (Kaltura).
    • Log in to MediaSpace.
  2. From the My Media page, select the link to the media that needs human-generated captions.
  3. From the Actions menu, select Caption & Enrich. 
  4. Select Request Services.
  5. Under Optional: Request Caption & Enrichment Services, next to Request Type, select General request for accessibility.
  6. For Service, select Human Generated ($$).
  7. For Source Media Language, select the language of the media.
  8. For Cost and Turnaround Time, select the least expensive method to meet your needs.
  9. Select Submit.

The request will be sent to Kaltura administrators. You will be notified by email when the request is approved or denied, and/or when the work is completed. Completed captions will be added to your media automatically. At the next billing cycle, the EFS number you entered previously will be charged for the work.

Additional Resources

TDX ID
3372