Captions for online courses — accuracy first, throughput second.
Course audiences include non-native speakers, deaf students, and skim-readers. Captions raise course completion rate and feed your platform's accessibility compliance.
Why captions matter on Online courses & e-learning
Course completion rate is the #1 metric students see in your sales materials. Captions can lift completion by 8–15% on technical content. They're also a hard requirement on most enterprise LMS procurement checklists.
SRT only — let the LMS handle styling. Hard-burned captions cost you the language-toggle and font-size accessibility controls students rely on.
The Online courses & e-learning captioning playbook
- 01Batch your course videosUpload your entire module to SoCaptions in sequence. Whisper handles 60+ minute videos in one pass.
- 02Edit the technical vocabularyCourse content is full of proper nouns and acronyms Whisper hasn't seen. A glossary pre-edit + word-level fixes covers it.
- 03Export SRT per videoOne SRT file per lesson. Filename should match the video filename for clean LMS upload.
- 04Upload to your LMSTeachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Udemy, Coursera all support per-video SRT upload. Translate to your top student language as a separate SRT track.
- Build a glossary of course-specific vocabulary before transcribing. Edit each SRT against the same list.
- Caption your sales videos too — completion-rate uplift starts before purchase.
- Upload to enterprise LMS as SRT, not VTT. Most enterprise LMSes still prefer SRT.
- Keep an SRT archive in your course's source repo. SRTs are easier to diff than video edits.
- Don't burn captions into course videos. Students with reduced vision rely on font-size controls in the player.
- Don't auto-translate without human review for technical content. Mistranslated terminology is worse than no translation.
- Don't skip captions on bonus material or community videos. Procurement audits check every video.
- Don't deliver TXT transcripts in place of SRT. Search-without-timestamps is much weaker than seek-by-cue.
Frequently asked
Which LMS platforms support uploaded captions?+
All major platforms — Teachable, Thinkific, Kajabi, Podia, LearnDash, Udemy, Coursera, edX. Most prefer SRT; a few accept VTT.
Should I caption my course's promo videos?+
Yes. Promo videos are watched on muted social feeds — captions lift opt-in conversion 20–30% on B2B course landing pages.
How accurate are AI captions for technical course content?+
92–96% on clean studio audio with mainstream technical vocabulary. Niche terminology (specific software libraries, medical procedures) needs a glossary pass.
Are captions legally required for online courses?+
ADA Title III interpretations cover public-facing course platforms. Practically, every enterprise procurement contract requires WCAG-compliant captioning. Plan to caption everything.
How long should I budget for captioning a course?+
About 2× the video runtime to caption + proofread to a 99% standard. So a 5-hour course = 10 hours of captioning work.
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