Support for Closed Captioning

This update introduces Closed Captioning support for Cornerstone Classroom clients. Currently, only manual captioning is supported. Closed captioning allows organizations to fulfil some of the accessibility requirements.

To enable this feature, Cornerstone Classroom administrators need to configure the required Event domain property.

Note: To enable the feature, submit a request. For more details, contact Support.

Event leaders and co-presenters can assign any participant or co-presenters as the 'Closed Captioner' for an event. Only one person can be assigned as the Closed Captioner at a time. To assign a user as the Closed Captioner, right-click the user's name in the Attendees panel and click Assign as Closed Captioner.

The leader or co-presenter can also remove the user as the Closed Captioner any time and assign another one. To remove a user as the Closed Captioner, right-click the user's name in the Attendees panel and click Remove as Closed Captioner.

The Closed Captioner is identified by a CC icon next to their display name in the Attendees panel.

Figure 3. CC indicator in the People panel

Once a person is assigned as the Closed Captioner for an event, the CC button is enabled for the Closed Captioner as well as all event participants with one or more of the following actions:

Table 1. CC actions
Action	Description
Show subtitles / Hide subtitles	Displays or hides the closed captions or subtitles in a Cornerstone Classroom session. Clicking Show subtitles displays a subtitle bar at the bottom of the client window. The subtitles bar disappears 10 seconds after the last closed captioning message and re-appears when the next message is received. Clicking Hide subtitles hides the subtitle bar from the bottom of the client window. Tip: You can directly click the CC button to show or hide the subtitle bar.
View CC transcript	Displays the CC transcript for the event in a separate window. Figure 4. CC transcript The transcript for an event includes closed captions entered by all captioners during the entire duration of the event. The names of the captioners are indicated in the transcript. Each caption is prefixed by a date and time stamp.
Open broadcast window	Displays a separate window where the Closed Captioner can type the subtitle text. As it is being typed, the text is immediately broadcast one word at a time to all the clients in the event. Every blank space pressed by the Closed Captioner displays the word preceding the blanks space in the subtitle to all users in the event. So, they must take utmost precaution while typing out the closed captions correctly. When the Closed Captioner presses the Enter key, the subtitle text is updated in the space above the captioning entry text field and logged in to the session's CC transcript. The Open broadcast window option is available only to the Closed Captioner. Figure 5. Broadcast subtitles

Depending on whether you have the Premium Video mode enabled or not, the Closed Captioner and other participants can see the CC button and its actions as illustrated below.


CC button and actions in Premium Video mode
Figure 6. CC actions available to a Closed Captioner	Figure 7. CC actions available to a normal participant
CC button and actions in Standard Video mode
Figure 8. CC actions available to a Closed Captioner	Figure 9. CC actions available to a normal participant

The Closed Captioner and the participants in the event can see the captions only if they have clicked the Show subtitles option in the CC button.

Closed captions are displayed in the subtitle bar as the Closed Captioner is typing them.

Closed Captioning in Breakout Rooms

Closed captions are supported in breakout rooms as well. When breakout rooms are started in an event and if the person assigned as the Closed Captioner is moved to one of the breakout rooms, the CC button is available only to people in the breakout room that holds the Closed Captioner. The CC button is not displayed to participants in other breakout rooms, and is disabled for leaders and presenters in other breakout rooms.

CC button is disabled in Main room when the Closed Captioner is in a breakout room — Figure 11. CC button is disabled

The leader or the presenter cannot assign a Closed Captioner once they are in a breakout room. The Assign as Closed Captioner context menu does not appear for them in the breakout room.

Note: Only one Closed Captioner is allowed per event and so only one of the breakout rooms, which has the Closed Captioner, can use closed captioning.

Closed Captioning in Event Recordings

If Closed Captioning is enabled during the live event and if the event is recorded, then Closed Captioning subtitles are available in the playback of the event recording.

The seek bar in the playback client displays the CC button with Show subtitles / Hide subtitles actions, which allows users to control the display of closed captions during playback.

The CC button also displays the View CC transcript action, which displays the same transcript window as shown during the live event. The time stamp in the CC transcript displays the recording time when the caption text was sent by the captioner.

Download CC Transcripts for an Event

Cornerstone Classroom Event Managers can download all CC transcripts for an event.

To download a CC transcript, click Manage Events menu under the Event manager section and click the Reports link for the selected event. The Reports page displays a new Closed Captioning Transcripts section, which lists all the CC transcript entries for the event.

Click the Download link for a CC transcript entry to download a text file of the transcript.

Figure 13. Download CC Transcripts for an Event

Here's how a downloaded CC transcript text file looks like:

Closed Captioning in Express client

The Cornerstone Classroom Express client supports Closed Captioning as well. Participants attending an event in the Express client get the options to show or hide closed captions and see the CC transcript. They can see the subtitles in the subtitle bar at the bottom of the client window.

However, participants in the Express client cannot be assigned as a Closed Captioner for a session.

Figure 16. CC subtitles and transcript in Express client

Figure 17. Participant in Express client cannot be assigned as Closed Captioner

Limitations

Currently, Closed Captioning has the following limitations:

A person who is assigned as the Closed Captioner cannot perform AppShare simultaneously. However, the Closed Captioner can continue to caption the audio while another person in the session is performing the AppShare. So, participants in the session will continue to receive closed captions.
Participant attending a session in the Express client cannot be assigned as a Closed Captioner.