Adding Captions To Your Blackboard Collaborate Sessions
Blackboard Collaborate lets you add a caption file to a session recording, so you can use Rev to caption your Collaborate recordings. Download your recording, order captions from Rev, then upload the SRT or VTT caption file to the recording in Collaborate. If you need captions that stay on screen in the video itself (for example, to share the video outside Blackboard), order Rev’s burned-in captions instead.
In this article
- Download your recording from Collaborate
- Order captions from Rev
- Download your caption file
- Add the caption file to your Collaborate recording
- Use burned-in captions instead
Download your recording from Collaborate
In your Blackboard course, open Collaborate and go to Recordings. Find the recording you want to caption, open its Recording options menu, and select Download to save the video file to your computer. If you don’t see Download, ask the session moderator or your Blackboard administrator to allow recording downloads.
Order captions from Rev
Go to Rev’s captions checkout. Under Where are your videos?, choose one of these options:
- Upload files: Select the recording you downloaded, or drag and drop it onto the page.
- Paste a URL: Paste a link to a publicly accessible video, one URL per line, then click Add. Links that require a Blackboard sign-in won’t work, so upload the downloaded file instead.
Then complete checkout.
Download your caption file
When your order is complete, open the file in your Rev account and download the captions as an SRT or VTT file. Collaborate accepts both. If you download the wrong format, you can download the file again in a different format at any time. For more download options, see Download Your Files.
Add the caption file to your Collaborate recording
- In your Blackboard course, open Collaborate and go to Recordings.
- Find the recording and open its Recording options menu.
- Select Add caption source.
- Choose the SRT or VTT file from Rev, then click Submit.
To replace the captions later, open the recording’s Closed captions options menu, select Overwrite caption source, and upload the new file. To turn captions off, select Disable.
Use burned-in captions instead
If you plan to share the video outside Collaborate, or you want captions viewers can’t turn off, select the Burned-in Captions add-on when you place your order. When the order is complete, download the video with the captions burned in, then upload it to Blackboard, YouTube, Vimeo or another video platform the same way you’d upload any other video. For appearance options, see Burned-in Captions and Subtitles.