Sharing videos and podcasts

Unitube is a service available to all members of the University community that enables viewing, publishing and managing videos. The publishing and management of videos are carried out in the Unitube Uploader. Captioning videos can also be done in the Uploader. The features used in teaching include captions that comply with accessibility requirements and limiting the visibility of videos by using sharing links or sharing on specific Moodle course areas. If you publish a collection in Moodle “Unitube (all videos from a series)”, all the videos included in the collection will be displayed in Moodle. In other words, you don’t have to make changes to Moodle, but simply add the video to the series in the Unitube Uploader to share it.

Unitube’s strengths in sharing videos include

• Limiting the visibility of video collections to specific Moodle areas
• Possibility to embed videos into material published in other services
• Material stored in Unitube facilities will automatically end up in the Download Room
• Uses University of Helsinki user accounts
• Built-in captioning tools with optional translation

Unitube may not be a good choice if

• You wish to update your videos so that the publication link does not change.
• Not all people managing videos have University of Helsinki user accounts
• You wish to publish audio files or other material on the same platform.

Among the services centrally supported by the University of Helsinki, the OneDrive, the Wordpress blog service and the Wiki service are other options for publishing videos and podcasts to the desired audience. Below are some examples of use cases where the above three services have worked well. Please note that, as a rule, videos on both blogs and wikis need to be stored elsewhere, for example in UniTube, and embedded or linked to other material. Of these options, blogs are currently the most suitable for publishing podcasts.

OneDrive

OneDrive’s particular strengths include flexible file user management and indifference to file types. For example, OneDrive has worked well in courses where participants publish videos, recordings and other files occasionally for just a few people and occasionally for all participants. The videos saved in OneDrive are opened in the Microsoft Stream service, which provides you with captioning and other tools.

Blog service

The blog service is a good solution for publishing videos and recordings as part of more diverse online material. The blog service offers restricting users’ access to various materials and defining user rights. The storage space used in the blog service is sufficient for compressed audio files, but as a rule of thumb videos must be stored elsewhere and embedded or linked into the blog. The blog service is the most suitable option for publishing podcasts using the University’s services, as it supports the feeds and is able to automatically embed a media player if you add audio files to a page or post. See the example course in Podcourse for a practical demo.

Wiki

The speciality of the wiki service is collaboration with users outside the University. Logging in to the wiki service can be done with both HAKA and eduGAIN trust networks, as well as with user credentials created separately in the wiki. The storage space available on the Wiki service is not sufficient for storing videos. In other words, you need to save your videos and recordings elsewhere and link or embed them on Wiki pages. Xwiki used in the wiki service has dedicated macros for adding videos. JW Player macro works for videos hosted in Unitube and for videos in OneDrive the macro is called Microsoft Stream. 

To connect videos to ThingLink, you can use either a link or an embedding code. When embedding Unitube videos into ThingLink, you need an embedding code from the Unitube Uploader.

In MOOC.fi you can add an embedding code to the iFrame block to include a video hosted in Unitube.

If you use other hosting services, you are also responsible for information security and data protection related to their use. At the moment, the need to use a third-party hosting service typically comes up when creating interactive videos with H5P.

Videos and recordings are often a good way to increase the accessibility of teaching. By default, an alternative must be provided for time-based media, such as videos and audio files. Such captions must include not only speech, but also sounds relevant to the content (e.g., “fire alarm sounds”).

Captioning, text alternative or both?

Legislation requires captioning only in the language of the video. Unitube offers the opportunity to create translation captions as part of automated captions.

Captions can also be replaced with text alternatives (e.g., a PDF file or a copy of the text under the video) offered in connection with the video, which contains all relevant information from the video. For example, if a video contains a lot of material that needs to be described or explicated, a sufficient and understandable presentation of such content can be challenging in captions. In such cases, it may be better to add a more verbose text alternative to the video. In many cases, providing both captions and text alternatives is particularly user-friendly.

Understandability of speech and automatic captioning

The University of Helsinki offers several automatic captioning tools based on speech recognition. You can explore the options available on the Helpdesk page on captioning and transcription.

The functionality of speech recognition is significantly affected by the quality of the recording. When you speak calmly and clearly close to the microphone, speech recognition makes far fewer mistakes. In addition, listeners will find it easier focus on the content as well. Recording in a space with as little background noise and echo as possible helps.

You can also purchase captioning and transcription as a service. At the moment (August 2025), this produces the most polished result.

Captioning videos using ScreenPal

The videos can be subtitled in two ways. A more user-friendly option is to create Closed Captions captioning, which produces a separate caption file that is uploaded with the video to the publishing platform (e.g., Unitube Downloader). When using closed captions, the viewer can decide whether the captions are displayed. The selection is made using the caption button under the video player, which is usually marked with a CC abbreviation. This is also available on Unitube. We cannot recommend open captions as a default option. Open Captions captions are saved as part of a video image, which means that viewers cannot turn captions off or use them, for example, in a screen reader.

Video-based instructions for creating closed captions with ScreenPal (in Finnish)

You can import virtual captioning files to the Unitube Download Room to download videos associated with them. Helpdesk instructions for exporting subtitles to the Unitube Downloader are available on the Helpdesk website. Captions can also be used on other video platforms (e.g., YouTube and Vimeo).
When does the text equivalent not have to be provided?

In some cases, exceptions to accessibility requirements, such as text equivalents, may be made temporarily based on an unreasonable burden. However, automatic captioning is not very time consuming. A few years ago, the policy for teaching was that if the videos are available to a limited group with a maximum of one course or equivalent (e.g., a single Moodle course), they need not be captioned.

In situations where a video is a media equivalent of text, it does not need to be captioned. In such cases, the video supports other material in the course area and plays the same content accurately in video format. A clear indication must be added to the video that it is a media equivalent of a specific text section.

Direct video and audio streams need not be subtitled. If they are recorded and published online, captions or other text alternatives should be available within two weeks of the publication of the recording.