Also: It would be cool if there was some way to “sign out” the videos – I remember there being something like this for files when using Dreamweaver, so if you were collaborating on a website you wouldn’t have two people editing the same file.

I should note that I used my Skype headphones (so, sound in only one ear) since my laptop’s speakers are not very good.

I had a little trouble with the accent – I’m a New Englander and her accent is very southern to me, so I think that could be why I missed some words. I don’t know if this would affect the results, but it might be worth noting the nationality or the accent of the video’s speaker before offering it up for transcription. I helped a colleague audio-record the Q&A sessions of a conference, and when looking up transcription services, I noticed that some services charge extra for “hard” recordings, such as those which contain unfamiliar accents.

And I like your suggestion (similar to Tom’s, above) of some kind of visual representation of progress.

Thanks!

Twenty minutes were spent tinkering with machines and figuring out what worked best for me. Once I settled into using my Ipod for listening (after saving the video)and the laptop for typing, things went pretty smoothly.

My typing reminded me of what using a MOO is like–I’d type as much as I could retain in memory, skip some spaces and pick up with the next idea. I had that same feeling of having to ignore what else was going on on the screen in order to finish typing my thought (or, Mrs. Maurer’s thought, in this case.) So, I typed in strips, so to speak, going back and relistening and filling in more and more of what had been said.

Would I be happy with three dollars an hour for doing this? No. Three dollars wouldn’t cover the time, the electricity and the cost of using two machines. Would I do it again for an Open Source project which was explained from the start? Absolutely.

Mark Mauer is quite easy to transcribe, whereas Pat is quite difficult. Transcribing part 04 was much more labor intensive than Part 05 and required having to repeatedly stop, transcribe, replay and double-check Pat’s speech. She backtracks quite a bit, interrupts herself, reorganizes her thoughts mid-sentence, and speaks quite quickly. She also doesn’t speak as clearly as Mark. Because of the difficulty of transcribing her speech, I’d recommend trimming the videos of her speaking down to something less than 2 minutes (1 minute?).

As I mentioned to you in a DM, it is quite difficult for me to skip the “um” aspects of speech, especially because Pat uses them so often. I relied on my previous work/study experience w/r/t run-on sentences (a lot of people speak in them, Pat in particular): I transcribed them as such. Are you looking for true speech patterns? I assumed that if you were looking for cleaned-up versions of the transcription, you would do that yourself, post initial transcription.

Vika makes an excellent point about asking volunteers for levels of help, too. People will attempt to meet your requirements if they know what goal they are trying to help you reach. And I did the same thing that Tom did with refreshing a few times to see what was being worked on prior to beginning transcription. That’s why I started on part 05 first, it looked like that area was as yet untouched.

Other than that, it was a breeze.

This is the software/site that I believe I saw at that time- although it seems more polished at this point. It’s been two years or so.

I like the ideas you share—in your first paragraph—about creating a system by which each volunteers’ contributions are tracked and added to their “reputation.” Sort of like earning points in a game, as you suggest.

As for “confidence [that you're] not re-transcribing something that’s already been done,” note that the first item in the instructions is to specify which video you’re going to transcribe so that someone else doesn’t replicate your work (or vice versa) while you’re doing it. Maybe that step needs to be rephrased for clarity?