D: but I 'm most happy .
A: OK .
B: Oh really ?
A: Good .
B: Cuz Morgan said he asked you .
D: Oh , uh he did .
D: and and I approved .
B: Mm - hmm .
D: but I think that I was uh proposed before I was asked ?
D: And that doesn't matter
D: cuz I think there was probably an a uh y an indication that that I was interested in advance
A: Oh .
A: Yeah . That would be m That would be my fault .
D: and , in which case , I thank you .
A: Right .
D: Yeah .
A: Uh right .
B: And so , one of the first questions is , " do you need help ? "
A: OK .
C: Well , hang on .
A: Oh ?
B: That 's not the first question .
C: Well , Well , I guess .
A: OK .
C: Do you So , do you C: What are what are we talking about ?
C: That you 're gonna you 're gonna do transcriptions ?
C: You 're going to listen to these things and D: I 'm going to provide I 'm going to be D: once I 'm given the data , I will provide w word - level transcripts with uh indication of speakers ,
C: OK .
D: and um
D: I guess speaker change in any case ,
D: so speaker ID ,
D: and words .
A: OK . So you 're gonna do the actual transcription yourself .
D: Yeah .
A: OK .
C: D I And do you have a clear I mean , is that C: Do you sort of C: Are you going to have to make up what you do
C: or do you have a very clear idea of what you 're going to do ?
C: So I mean , is it is it Is this l Is it <comment> like something you 've done before ?
D: Well
C: or D: I 've transcribed a lot .
C: Yeah .
D: But um e you know , the I mean , there are always ways of doing things more efficiently or more uh in a more technical technically sophisticated way ?
C: And ,
C: Yeah .
D: Do you have to speak true English sentences when you do this ?
C: Yeah ,
C: because as people are going to be listening to it afterwards
C: and saying " Oh listen to her .
C: She couldn't even speak true English sentences ! "
D: " She can't speak ! "
D: " It 's terrible ! "
D: OK , So um
C: Oh , you 're meant You 're meant to speak naturally .
C: You 're meant to say " Oh , I didn't realize we were being recorded ! "
B: Ah right .
D: Yeah .
D: " No one told me that . "
D: " This microphone , what 's this doing around my neck ? "
B: Uh , that 's B: I I was saying before we don't really have to worry about people being surprised by it .
C: It 's just It 's just jewelry .
D: OK , so um typically , what I w you know I in uh i what I 've done before is I have a uh tape recorder , with a reverse button .
C: Yeah .
D: And you just , you know , if it 's word level e you know , you do a e a r I just hit the r re the rewind button every couple of words
B: Play .
D: and type what I know
C: Yeah .
D: and then and then at the end do a breeze through to be sure that everything 's correct .
C: Yeah .
D: However , they do have software these days which with a digitized uh record you can have control over replay through some sort of an interface .
C: Yeah .
D: Um . I 've never used one of those .
D: I know it would be an a wonderful idea .
D: It 's just I haven't transcribed in in awhile .
C: The problem is The nice thing about transcribers is they have foot pedals ,
D: I mean A: Right .
D: Foot pedals ? I 've used transcribing machines .
D: That 's fine .
D: um But I frankly didn't find it any more use to me than my hand - held taperecorder .
C: Oh .
C: I see .
D: However , if we have a transcribing machine I would accept it .
D: The other thing is , you know , having getting hold of a transcriber .
D: I think that CogSci has one .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Yeah .
D: And I could probably borrow one .
A: Well , one th
C: I I I actually have one .
D: You have one yourself ?
C: Well , Sarah has one
D: Oh , I see !
C: because she does a lot of transcribing of interviews .
D: Oh , super !
C: But The crazy thing is we 'd have to convert the s we 'd have to dump the audio files onto cassette . to use it .
A: The other thing is is that we might be A: Oh .
D: Oh , I see .
D: OK .
C: I mean , given that we 've already got them digitally it would be C: you know , it 's quite tempting to use some kind of uh software thing .
D: Oh , OK .
C: But but then there 's the question of the ergonomic interface , that D: I kn
B: Oh , I actually have some foot pedals for the P C .
A: Well , that 's what I was gonna say , is that Adam has foot pedals that we could probably try and rig something up to C: OK .
D: Oh , that 'd be super .
C: What do they connect to ?
B: Uh , keyboard .
B: and they generate keystrokes .
C: Oh , that 's totally cool .
C: now how how do you how do you decide which keystrokes they generate ?
B: Um There 's a little program that downloads into it .
B: Um .
C: Hmm .
D: This is great .
C: And this is Windows ?
B: But the program probably only runs in Windows ,
B: although I bet we could program it once
C: Uh - huh .
B: And and then put it on another machine and it would work .
A: Except for the fact that we would have to unplug it and pow and change it w
B: I haven't used them .
A: Does it lose the memory once you 've unpowered it ?
B: I don't know .
B: I don't think it does .
C: So hang on .
C: You have You have these foot pedals but you d you 're not using them .
B: I 'm not using them anymore .
B: I used to use them .
B: So they 're currently set up for Shift , Control , and Alt .
C: Yeah .
B: But I r I don't use them .
B: They 're not even plugged in .
C: Wow .
C: That 's so cool .
C: OK .
D: This sounds wonderful .
B: And so tha uh if that would help , uh I 'm certainly willing to donate them .
C: Well ,
D: I 'm I 'm open to C: the d the well , the uh The part that 's not wonderful is someone has to write the software .
A: Right .
D: Yeah , that 's true .
B: And it it is a PC connection ,
D: Well , you know B: so it would have to go on a P C somewhere .
C: Yeah .
D: Now , we 're at a pilot phase right now ,
B: Mm - hmm .
D: and what I was told is that beginning ,
D: you know , that the the pilot data would be something like half hour of uh or f you know half hour to forty minutes of running text .
D: And so , for the pilot thing , you know , of course this would be useful .
A: Right , this is the pilot data .
D: And I w I wou I 'm assu I 'm assuming that I would not be uh you know e eh uh transcribing all of it .
B: Yeah , yeah , you are generating it .
B: Well , that that was part of the question ,
B: is that if , for if we 're doing this regularly C: Right .
B: Imagine we 're doing a couple of hours a week of transcripts
D: Yeah .
B: um , of recording ,
B: uh , I wouldn't expect you to do it all .
D: No .
D: No , no .
B: So the question is do you know of resources that we could use .
B: So are there grad students or undergrads or just commercial services ?
D: Yes .
D: Mm - hmm , yeah , OK , so now I 've I 've been involved with some of that . At at CogSci ,
D: um So , Susan E Susan Ervin - Tripp , who you know um would typically , and I 've done this too , supervise undergrads to do this kind of thing
A: Hmm .
D: and they c you know , you can give them like D: if you give them a little bit of instruction and and make it interesting for them they can do it as a two ninety - eight or s
D: or , not two ninety - eight , what is it , one whatever , undergraduate research credit .
D: Because what you do is , you can you know , build it into some sort of a C: Mm - hmm .
B: Oh , really ?
B: So we only have to give them credits ,
B: We don't have to give them money ?
D: Well uh , you have to be sure you give them compensation for you know . of some of some sort .
B: Oh , you do have to pay them .
A: Awesome .
D: What I mean is it 's not necessarily monetary .
D: But if they feel like they 're getting something out of it , sometimes you can do it that way .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: Mm - hmm .
D: And otherwise , as part of a grant , you can you can do it .
D: some sort of minimal wage .
C: Yeah .
B: Well , we we need to We need to find out how much that will cost , so I can pass that on to Morgan ,
D: Yeah .
B: cuz right now we have almost no money .
D: Yeah ,
D: OK .
B: So so the cheaper we can do it , the better .
C: Well , D: OK . Well , you also want to get quality .
D: I mean , someone 's going to have to pass through Either a higher level person will have to pass through , or you have to be sure you get good quality to begin with .
C: Yeah , absolutely .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: Right .
D: But um , yeah , that 's quite you know we 've That 's been done .
D: I can ask Susan Ervin - Tripp what she would recommend on that .
C: Yeah .
D: She 's really She 's done Of the people that I know , she 's the one who 's supervised the most of those things locally .
B: Mm - hmm .
C: What 's her name ?
D: Uh uh Doctor Susan Ervin - Tripp .
C: OK .
D: faculty member in Psychology , recently retired ,
C: Uh - huh .
C: So D: and very well known in discourse analysis .
C: Oh , OK .
C: So , the p I mean , what I 'm hearing is that the problem of starting off with some recordings and trying to get word transcripts is kind of I mean , it 's not a it 's not an unfamiliar problem .
C: So that D: Oh , it 's very common .
C: So that I mean that basically , there are standard solutions and we should just adopt adopt them
D: Yeah .
C: and it 's going to cost however much it 's going to cost ,
C: I mean there 's We 're we 're probably not going to have a lot of flexibility in bringing down the cost
C: cuz probably the low cost solution 's already been established .
C: And so that 's just whatever it is .
B: Mm - hmm .
C: That 's how we 'll do it .
C: See what I mean ?
D: I think there 's always this question of the trade - off between uh paying more for the first pass , and then h and then editing less later .
C: Mm - hmm .
C: Uh - huh .
D: or paying less the first pass and editing more later .
D: So
C: Yeah .
C: Well , whatever they people who have had to do this C: I mean the only thing is I wonder if our requirements are different from um I mean there 's than than what 's been done in the past
C: than discourse analyzers
C: because maybe we have different requirements in terms of time align you know , how much time aligned detail we need and uh how much detail in terms of people .
D: Oh , But that 's a s
D: Mm - hmm .
D: OK .
C: I don I don't know how much ti I don't think we do need any time aligned detail .
C: I think we just have basically one text file which runs from beginning to end .
C: But .
B: Well , if in terms of transcripts , sure ,
B: but in terms of speaker change it might be nice to get the actual time .
C: Sure .
C: But not if it costs more .
B: Right .
A: Well , OK . So what happened with Switchboard was at least , I mean , the output was that they had speaker turns
A: and they um analyzed it in terms of , you know , " this is where this speaker change came in "
A: and of course that gets really difficult when you 're talking about A: I mean , this is some of the stuff that you were talking about in uh your lunch talk ,
C: Mm - hmm .
A: is that is that you know , you get backchannels and stuff like that , that that , you know , disrupt the um the segment you know the segmentation .
C: Right .
C: Yeah .
C: Right , I mean , the it 's sort of it 's a little In some sense it 's a little bit easier with it with Switchboard
C: because the telephone is so actually people are less flexible in what they do .
C: In this kind of situation where we 've got nonverbal channels then there 's a lot of overlap
C: and there 's just that it 's not a very good model .
A: Right .
B: Oh , in terms of data format , what are we going to do about that ?
B: I mean , you have the S T M format , where you have you know , every phrase , every utterance is is a single speaker .
B: I mean , is that the right way to do it ?
B: Or C: Well , every utterance is a single speaker ,
C: right ?
C: It 's just that utterances can overlap .
C: I mean ,
B: Is that the right way to do it ?
C: I think so .
B: OK .
C: I think I think I mean , I think when I 'm when C: Like , So , Eric made a s made a sentence , and that should be like one utterance
C: and then I had a couple of backchannels in there
C: and they should be just overlapping things that C: I don't think that we should break Eric 's sentences for those . I think B: OK . So that means that for each utterance , we 'll need the time marks ,
A: Right .
B: the start and end of each utterance .
D: Yeah .
A: So . So C: Well , we 'll have to go in from somewhere
C: but we can't necessarily I mean , we we may be able to get the transcriber to give them to us if we give them software
C: but we may not
C: in which case we 'll have to get them some other way ,
C: like with forced alignment later ,
C: I mean you know all this can be done .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: So we maybe we should look at the um the tools that Mississippi State has .
C: Yeah .
A: Because , I d I I know that they published um i <comment> annotation tools ,
A: you know , for their ins
B: Well , X Waves have some as well ,
B: but they 're pretty low level .
B: They 're designed for um for phoneme - level
A: Yeah .
C: Phoneme phoneme phoneme transcriptions .
C: Yeah .
D: I should 've B: Although , they actually have a nice tool for that could be used for speaker change marking .
C: There 's a there are there 's a whole bunch of tools .
C: There 's a some web page , where they have a list of like ten of them or something .
D: Yes .
D: Are you speaking about Mississippi State per se ?
A: OK .
D: or are y
C: No , no , no . There 's some I mean , I just there are there are a lot of a lot of @ @ these things .
D: Yeah .
D: Actually , I wanted to mention There are two projects , which are international , huge projects focused on this kind of thing , actually .
D: One of them 's MATE ,
D: one of them 's EAGLES .
D: and um . And both of them have C: Oh , EAGLES .
C: Yeah , that 's the European one .
C: Yeah .
D: You know , I saw I know you know about the big book .
A: Yeah .
D: I think you got it as a prize or something .
C: Mmm .
A: Yeah .
D: Got a surprise .
D: And um and they have you know , a lot of D: and MATE is a project which is being run out of Denmark
D: and um they have a lot uh big uh , e
D: you know , they 're trying to set up a a work bench or something or other .
D: And they have a whole bunch of tools that are associated with them .
C: Mm - hmm .
D: So , I mean , there are things that in terms of like the time alignment issue
C: Mm - hmm .
D: I mean , you guys are more expert on that , I mean , than I am ,
D: but I want to say that I know for a fact , I keep running across these ,
D: and those would be my first two choices of looking at . EAGLES and MATE .
D: And I have the documentation downstairs .
B: OK .
D: I didn't think to bring it .
B: Ha - Have you looked at it already ?
D: Oh , I have ,
D: but I wasn't interested in that particular issue .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: a a is this D: So , we 're talking now , once you have words you know , how do you time align it .
D: and that 's .
B: Oh . So , these are p particularly for time alignment ?
D: Well , these are uh tools D: So , MATE and EAGLES are both within the so - called uh Language Engineering branch ,
D: and um so they 're intended for this kind of a comp compu s computer science application type of approach .
C: Yeah .
D: These are not discourse types of tools .
C: Right .
D: So . They B: Right . are they just for time alignment or are they for transcription as well ?
D: Can I be excused ,
D: and I 'll go down and get my stuff ?
D: because um I I do think C: You don't C: Just take the thing with you .
B: Th - i It 's wireless .
D: Are you serious ?
B: I mean it won't C: Well , I don't know what will happen ,
C: but you may as well .
D: I but but D: what uh I mean , can you spare like a minute or two of a C: Sure . Sure . Sure .
B: Sure .
A: Sure .
D: OK .
D: And I go get my books and I 'll be right back .
D: I didn't think of bringing this .
D: Do I need this ?
D: I need my keys .
D: OK .
C: My uh My s
D: Oops !
D: I need my card key .
A: We can hear all your conversations along the way .
C: Yeah , so be just D: I 'll try not to say , " So , Oh dear , Boy ! That 's itching there ! "
B: Yeah , don't talk to yourself too much .
C: Yeah .
D: So ,
C: Yeah ,
C: that 's true .
C: You can leave it behind as well if you want .
B: So , For the digits For the d
C: I I assume that these are projects where they do the whole thing ,
C: right ?
B: Right .
C: So they probably will have tools to address the actual the the the transcriber support
D: Oops .
C: and then automated alignment of what the transcribers give you ,
C: which is , you know , exactly the problem we have .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Right , but we can do automated alignment .
A: That 's not a problem
D: OK
C: Right .
A: I think
C: Right .
C: But then again we don't have to do it .
B: Well , I 'm not sure if we can do automated alignment or not .
C: and B: I mean , e especially in e with speaker change in a meeting like this , where we 're overlapping so much ,
A: I th
B: I don't think we 're gonna have a a prayer .
C: Oh sure , we are .
C: We 've got individual microphones .
A: Well , to get to get the r to get the actual transcript , I think we 'll do OK
A: because of because of the separate channels .
B: Oh , that 's true .
B: Right .
B: We could just do it through these .
C: Yeah .
A: Right .
B: I hadn't even thought about that .
B: Sure .
B: Um . In terms of data formats , uh what I did for the Digits stuff was just to hand - rolled my own . That looks like this form .
B: You know , it 's just uh something that 's easy to parse in Perl .
B: Um . Probably for the full one , we 'll want to do something like S T
B: I mean , some format that our tools already work with .
C: Yeah .
C: Well ,
C: Yes ,
C: although that might @ @ presumably we 'll have one we 'll have several formats that you can interconvert between .
A: Right .
B: Yeah , presumably .
C: When we want to do recognition we 'll do STM ,
C: but if we 're rather than rather than designing our own format , we 'll just take whatever comes out of the tools that we can find to use , I think .
B: Yeah , I guess that 's true .
B: Yeah .
C: I I I 've got no idea what that 'll look like .
A: Right .
C: but
A: Well I know that I know that um the Mississippi State tools , at least th what the produce does not come out in STM format .
C: on our speaker phones .
C: Right .
A: They they basically give
A: um They subdivide into WAVE files
A: and then they give for each , they give a one oh , you know , a WAVE file that g indicates where the start and stop times are ,
C: Mmm - hmm .
A: and then um and then give the uh whatever the sentence information .
C: Yeah .
A: But I mean Ni - i i i it as you said , it was easy to convert back and forth between um that file and STM format ,
A: in fact what I did is I took the Mississippi State data , and just made STM files out of it .
C: Mm - hmm .
C: OK .