Getting Started With Third-Party (CART) Captioning in Zoom

Overview 

Communication Access Realtime Transcription (CART) involves human transcription in real time while someone is speaking or playing a video. Most D/deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals require the level of accuracy that CART provides.

Zoom supports professional CART providers through the built-in manual captioning feature, allowing an assigned meeting or webinar participant/attendee to share live captions. When this feature is enabled for a meeting/webinar, captions can be typed directly into Zoom or added via an integration with a third-party software/service.

Purchasing CART Services

Purchasing CART or ASL services for your unit from a third-party provider is negotiated exclusively by those two parties, without any university intermediary, unless otherwise stated.

• U-M has a universitywide agreement for translation services, including CART, under University Translators.
• Another option would be to refer to the following spreadsheet managed by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for a list of vendors: ASL Interpreter/CART contacts.
  • ​Source: Mikalia Dennis, Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Contact: [email protected] or 734-764-3620.
• Please contact third-party vendors directly regarding HIPAA-compliant solutions for special use cases.
• If further guidance is needed from Michigan Medicine, please contact the HITS Service Desk.

Instructions for the Host

To assign a third-party captioner:

1. Start/join your Zoom meeting or webinar.
2. Click the carrot icon next to "Show captions" in the bottom toolbar.
3. Select Set up manual captioner under "Host controls."
4. Click On under "Enable manual captioner."
5. Click Assign a participant to type.
6. Hover over the participant who will be assigned to type the live captions and click the three-dot icon. 
7. Select Assign to type closed captions from the drop-down menu. A notification will appear on that individual's screen above "Show captions" in the toolbar.

Note: If you unassign the participant as the manual captioner, Zoom will automatically reassign you as the captioner. Additionally, if you use breakout rooms, only one participant can be assigned to type closed captions in a meeting, so it's only possible to have one breakout session with closed captioning.

Instructions for the Third-Party Captioner

Once the host assigns you the ability to type closed captions, a notification will appear on your screen: "The host has assigned you to type closed caption."

To enter closed captions as a participant:

1. Click the carrot icon next to "Show captions" in the bottom toolbar.
2. Select Show caption window. This will open the closed caption text window.
3. Type the closed captions in the field provided and press Enter to submit them.

Captions will appear for all participants viewing captions as the captioner types in the text box. There may be a delay when viewing live captions.

Refer to Zoom Support's Managing manual captions for additional information.

If CART transcription isn’t a good fit, refer to Videoconferencing Captioning Tools for Zoom for more information on the other transcription tools in Zoom to determine which works best for your specific situation.