Zoom meetings allow you to interact with your students synchronously via video conferencing. When setting up your Zoom sessions, you can choose to record them to the cloud. These cloud recordings can be configured to automatically generate audio transcripts.
Important Notes:
- Transcripts are only available for Zoom meetings recorded to the cloud.
- The audio transcription feature must be enabled before the meeting is recorded.
- Transcripts will not be generated for recordings made prior to enabling this feature.
- If you need transcripts and/or captions to support a student with a disability, please direct the student to Disability Services to arrange for professional captioning services.
Transcript Standards
Transcripts are a valuable tool to help students locate key information, improve their study habits, and engage more deeply with your course content. The accuracy of auto-generated transcripts may vary depending on factors such as:
- Audio recording equipment
- Recording environment
- Speaker’s voice and speech clarity
- Use of discipline-specific terminology
You can review and edit the transcripts to improve clarity and create effective study aids for your students.
To ensure transcripts are effective, accessible, and easy to use, please follow these guidelines when providing transcripts to students:
- Accuracy: Transcripts should be at least 99% accurate and closely reflect the spoken content, maintaining a near-verbatim record to preserve meaning.
- Speaker Identification: Clearly identify all speakers throughout the transcript so students can easily follow who is speaking.
- Clarity and Readability: Use correct grammar, punctuation, and formatting to make the transcript easy to read and understand.
Following these standards helps create transcripts that serve as effective, reliable, and inclusive learning resources for all students.
Turn on Audio Transcripts for Your Cloud Recordings
To enable the generation of audio transcripts for the recordings of your Zoom meetings, you will need to edit your account settings in Zoom by following these steps:
- Navigate to UMass Amherst Zoom and sign in with your NetID and password. The Zoom page will open.
- On the Zoom page, select Settings from the left-hand navigation menu..
- On the Settings page, select the Recording tab on the top. The Recording page will open.
- On the Recording tab, under General - Advanced cloud recording settings, check the box for Create audio transcript to enable transcription.
- Select Save.
Once enabled, Zoom will automatically generate transcripts for future meetings recorded to the cloud.
Record a Zoom meeting to the Cloud
In order to be automatically transcribed, your meeting must be recorded to the cloud. Automatic transcription is not available for local recordings or previously recorded meetings. You can set your meetings to automatically record to the cloud, or you can set them to record to cloud while you are in the meeting itself.
To schedule a meeting to record to the cloud automatically
- Navigate to UMass Amherst Zoom and sign in with your NetID and password. The Zoom page will open.
- Select Meetings from the left-hand navigation menu. The Meetings page will open.
- On the Meetings page, select Schedule a New Meeting.
- Enter the meeting information, including name, date, and time.
- Under Meeting Options, select Record the meeting automatically, and then select In the cloud.
- Click Save.
- Run your meeting. The cloud recording will begin immediately and you will hear the announcement that the meeting is being recorded.
- To pause a meeting recording, select the Pause button in the meeting controls.
- To resume a paused recording, select the Resume button in the meeting controls.
- To end the recording, select the Stop button or End Meeting for All.
To begin a cloud recording while in a meeting
- While in your Zoom meeting as the host, select Record.
- From the Record menu, select Record to the cloud. You will hear the announcement that the meeting is being recorded.
- To pause a meeting recording, select the Pause button in the meeting controls.
- To resume a paused recording, select the Resume button in the meeting controls.
- To end the recording, select the Stop button or End Meeting for All.
View and Edit Your Meeting Transcript
Once you have ended a meeting recorded to the cloud, you will receive 2 emails. The first email will alert you that the cloud recording is available. The second email will alert you that the transcription of the cloud recording is available. There may be a significant time delay depending on the length of the meeting between these two emails.
- Navigate to UMass Amherst Zoom and sign in with your NetID and password. The Zoom page will open.
- On the Zoom page, select Recordings & Transcripts from the left-hand navigation menu.
- Select the Recording you want to review. The recording page will open.
- On the My Recordings page, click the Media player to open the recording.
- Once your recording is open, the transcript will appear on the right hand side of the page.
- To edit a line of text, hover your mouse over the line, a pencil icon will apear to the right. Click the pencil icon to edit.
- When you have made your edits, click Save.
- Repeat steps 6-7 for each line you need to edit.
Share your Zoom recording with students
If you have created your meetings using the Zoom integration for Canvas, your students will access the recordings in the activity.
If you do not use the Zoom integration for Canvas, you will need to share the recording link with your students.
- Navigate to UMass Amherst Zoom and sign in with your NetID and password. The Zoom page will open.
- Select Recordings from the left-hand navigation menu. The recordings page will open.
- select Share for the meeting you want to share.
- In the Share window, configure your sharing link. When you have finished, select Copy sharing information to clipboard.
- Paste the copied information into your LMS course, discussion forum, email, or other communication tool to send to your students.