I just downloaded the Otter app (free version; limited to 600 mins of recording) for iOS and did a quick trial using open access archived audio interview. The cost for Otter premium right now is $8.33 per month and it provides 6000 minutes. The interview recording I used was of Walter C. Adams reflecting on the May 4, 1970 Kent State University shootings. The quality was nowhere near usable, but, on the other hand, it was surprisingly accurate in spots. It was interesting to watch it self-correct as the speaker continued. If you listen to the recording (click on the link above), you will notice that it is not of the highest quality, there is some noise through the whole recording. On the other hand, he speaks very clearly. I do not know yet whether having this framework as a start for a transcript will be beneficial, harmful, or make no noticeable difference when compared to transcribing from scratch myself. For those people who grew up thumb typing, a program like this is probably going to be helpful. For an old, I mean experienced typist/keyboardist like myself - and when I describe myself as a "keyboardist," I refer to computers and musical instruments - any time savings via this program is likely to b highly variable depending on the recording and the speaker(s). I also personally like the sensation of typing-while-listening, maybe it reminds me of doing music dictation (writing-note-while-hearing-music) many years ago... I recorded just over one minute, and the processing time is pretty slow. It took about 18 mins to generate these few lines. It was a lot like waiting while exporting a screencast video (I use Screenflow) from the program format to Mp4 - basically you should just find something else to do instead of watching the minutes tick away. Pluses - it looked for and tagged keywords that you can use to generate a search. Maybe this would be beneficial to start first cycle coding. Otter also records - so for a live interview is an interesting option (although using a tablet/phone is not necessarily secure). Minuses - free version will only export to plain text, but maybe this is not really so bad. If you click on readmore, I have screenshots of some of the alternative ways to save as text files. These can obviously be pasted into word processing, so that in itself is not a good reason to upgrade. And 600 minutes per month may go pretty far for some people... This is nearly the default - although it can also show time stamps (when you export a note, you can see the save options). The speaker identifying information (I left the default - "unknown" on) shows up for each line. Default minus speaker names. Still shows choppy lines. On the other hand, it might be an OK format (with wider margins) to use for qualitative coding. And this is what Otter calls the "monologue." It is pretty nice. I do not know what it looks like with a longer transcript or what happens when the interviewer or another speaker cuts in - this segment of tape essentially is a monologue.
Note the black background here is due to my choice of "dark" on both iOS (iPad mini 5) and Catalina (Macbook Pro). There are Otter produced txt files, saved in Pages for iOS. I used the keyboard shortcut to make screenshots, as opposed to uploading the actual files. The file names are mine - .ai.txt is the default file suffix and "Transcribed by https://otter.ai" is shown on all notes or file exports from this program.
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AuthorI am Sheryl L. Chatfield, Ph.D, C.T.R.S. I am a member of the faculty in the College of Public Health at Kent State University. I also Co-coordinate the Graduate Certificate in Qualitative Research and I am a member of the Design Innovation Team at Kent State. Archives
February 2024
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