Stanford
Stanford Sites User Guide

Adding a Video

Stanford Sites supports the ability to add videos from YouTube and Vimeo.

Once videos have been added to your site's media library using the instructions below, they can be added within the text area paragraph type, or to any paragraph type with an Add media option. 

  1. After selecting “Video”, you will be redirected to the “Add Video” page:
    add video file
  2. Enter the name of your video in the corresponding text field.
  3. Enter the Video URL in the corresponding text field. You can copy the video URL from the address bar:
    Add Video Browser link
  4. Click Save.

Important: Do not use the embed URL from YouTube or Vimeo (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/embed/UYyEmEDACgU) for the Video URL. The video uploader does not support those URLs. When you attempt to save you will get an error message: "The given URL does not match any known oEmbed providers."

Video Error Message

Accessibility Tips

Remember, most videos require captioning. Review these tips from the Office of Digital Accessibility on using captions and transcripts with video prior to posting media to your website.

Use the W3C transcript checklist to see if your content requires transcripts and/or captions.

Captions

While the terms "captions" and "subtitles" are often used interchangeably, subtitles do not provide the same information and are designed for different purposes. Subtitles provide a text version of the dialogue only. Subtitles assume an audience can hear the audio but also need the dialogue provided as text.

For video content with audio, ensure that synchronized captioning is available. While YouTube can auto-generate captions using voice recognition, these are typically not of sufficient quality to be considered equivalent.

Transcripts

A transcript is the same word-for-word content as captions but presented separately from the video. It provides a text alternative of the audio presentation and is not synchronized with the audio timeline. A transcript should contain relevant speaker information to distinguish who is saying what information.

Transcripts are not required for videos. However, it's a good idea to include them as some people may not be able to watch the video (for example, if they have bandwidth issues) or some people may want to convert the text into another language/format.

The screenshot below is an example of one way to include an embedded video and transcript on a page.

Screenshot of embedded video with transcript

View the page with the embedded video and transcript