Academic and education transcription is now an indispensable part of the learning experience.
Academic transcription services can help improve learning outcomes, allow students to review without hassle, help bridge the gap between languages, and ensure students can concentrate on what matters most.
In this article, we’ll discuss the various benefits of transcription for educational and academic institutions, and by the end, you’ll learn how:
- Transcripts serve as valuable ways of improving learning across all educational levels.
- Educational transcription has many forms; not all may be appropriate for academic institutions.
- Educational transcription goes far beyond lectures.
What is Academic Transcription?
Academic transcription is the process of converting audio or video content from educational events into text. Educational institutions often resort to transcribing these recordings themselves using in-house staff. However, choosing that option has several disadvantages.
First, in-house transcription is costly. The institution needs to spend money finding and hiring competent transcriptionists, providing a decent salary and benefits package, supplying them with the necessary equipment, and providing continuous training and development so their skills do not stagnate.
Overall, these costs can rack up to over $100k per transcriptionist per year.
Outsourcing to a transcription service provider allows you to save on operational and overhead costs. They take care of hiring, training, retaining, and providing equipment. You only need to send them the audio files, and they’ll transcribe them. The key is finding the right transcription provider for your needs.
AI Transcription vs. Manual Transcription
Automated speech recognition (ASR), speech-to-text transcription programs, and AI transcription software are available almost everywhere. However, they’re filled with transcription errors, which is not the best option for academic institutions. They have problems transcribing audio and visual content with multiple speakers, longer audio content, low-quality audio clips, or words and phrases that sound like many other words.
There’s no point in discussing academic transcription benefits if the transcripts you receive are inaccurate.
Human or manual transcription service providers, like Ditto Transcripts, have the highest accuracy rates today. They can leverage their experience and listening skills to create more accurate transcripts. Moreover, they can utilize contextual understanding and deep language skills to provide intelligent verbatim transcripts even if unsure of a certain passage or pronunciation.
Manual transcription turnaround times can be long (although reliable transcription companies offer reasonable timeframes). They’re not as fast as automated transcription with their instantaneous results. However, accuracy should never be sacrificed. Video or audio transcription requires high precision, regardless of its use.
Benefits of Using Academic Transcription Services
| Feature | Benefit |
| Cost-effectiveness | Outsourcing to a transcription service provider allows you to save on operational and overhead costs. |
| Accuracy | Human or manual transcription service providers, like Ditto Transcripts, have the highest accuracy rates today. |
| Completeness | Academic transcription allows you to get the full event without any cuts. Educators can record and upload transcripts of lectures to make the experience even better for students. |
| Comprehension | Transcripts and subtitles in academic videos allow students to get all the details they need in one go. It can also make it easier for students to grasp difficult or complex words or help them keep up during fast-paced discussions. |
| Accessibility | Professional transcription companies offer higher accuracy rates than automated speech recognition software or ASR. ASRs can achieve only about 80-86% accuracy. Our human transcriptionists can achieve 99% accuracy. |
| Research support | Transcriptions can be used to reference specific participants in your paper. |
| Accessibility for online courses: | Transcriptions can be used to make online courses and webinars more accessible. Students can read along with the spoken content, aiding understanding and making the material accessible to those with hearing impairments or different learning requirements. |
| Transparency and compliance for administrative meetings | Transcriptions can be used to make administrative meetings more transparent and compliant. Transcribing such meetings allows everyone access to complete events and can be useful for legal, transparency, and compliance purposes. |
| Enhanced learning for presentation practice | Transcriptions can be used to enhance the learning experience for students giving presentations. Transcripts can help students improve their presentation skills and allow them to review and understand their material better. |
| Engagement and accessibility for multimedia content | Audio and video content can be transcribed to enhance that experience further and support accessibility and engagement. |
Aside from the benefits discussed above, academic transcription has several other noteworthy advantages.
Getting The Whole Picture
Missing key points is common when note-taking during a lecture or a seminar. Your professor or presenter may rattle through ideas while you’re furiously typing away on your computer. It can be tough to keep up for learners. One of the advantages of academic transcription is it allows you to get the full event without any cuts. Educators can record and upload transcripts of lectures to make the experience even better for students.
Improved Comprehension
Transcripts and subtitles in academic videos allow students to get all the details they need in one go. Aside from serving as a visual aid, it can also make it easier for students to grasp difficult or complex words or help them keep up during fast-paced discussions.
Ensures Accurate Transcription
Professional transcription companies offer higher accuracy rates than automated speech recognition software or ASR. Most ASRs can get to about 80-86% accuracy. Human transcriptionists can achieve 90-95% accuracy.
The best and most competent transcription service providers, like Ditto Transcripts, offer 99% accuracy.
To be clear, that doesn’t mean they’ll ensure that there’s always a 1% error in your transcripts. 1% is a formality to capture the rare errors when, in reality, we consistently produce 100% accurate transcripts.
Accessibility
Higher education institutions are often equitable, providing the same opportunities for everyone and accommodating students with disabilities. Having audio and video recordings transcribed makes your content accessible to students with hearing impairments. Captions can be placed on the video themselves, or lecture transcription can be prepared and provided to those who need them. Both students and teachers benefit from such arrangements.
Excellent For Academic Research
Anyone conducting academic interviews or focus groups and gathering all kinds of information for research purposes will greatly benefit from getting research transcription, like as follows:
Market researcher: When asking the opinions of different people from varying demographics, it would be easier, quicker, and more organized to record your interviews, phone calls, or focus groups and have them transcribed afterward. It’ll allow you to better participate in your research if you’re recording them and not scrambling and worrying about taking notes.
Qualitative researcher: When studying the human side of the equation, you need to ensure you don’t miss anything. That little thing could be why the subjects answered the questions the way they did. Recording those interactions and interviews will be an important step in your process.
Psychology professionals: When conducting studies on different disorders and ways that behavior modification or certain medications can help or hinder patients, free up time to do more interviews or studies by using transcription services.
Different Learning Styles For Students And Educators
Recording audio and video and transcribing your educational content can get you the best of both worlds. Students who learn better visually will have access to transcripts and subtitles. Others who learn better when listening can do so without a hitch. This promotes a better learning environment for everyone involved.
Events That Can Benefit From Transcription For Educational Institutions
Now that we’ve covered the benefits of academic transcription, let’s talk about what types of academic events can benefit from such advantages.
Lectures and Presentations
Students often record lectures on their phones and listen to them again at a later time. Lecturers can also make their recordings available for students who may not have been present during the lecture. Transcribing these recordings increases accessibility, improves comprehension, and provides students with a digitally searchable learning resource. Furthermore, students can use transcripts as an alternative to note-taking. This also allows educators to review their teaching techniques.
Seminars and Workshops
Seminars and workshops are excellent ways to learn new skills and meet new people. The discussions can go on for hours, though, and transcribing such events can make it easier to circulate information to attendees. Plus, participants can revisit key points by searching the transcript instead of going back and forth on recordings.
Conferences
Transcribing conference sessions allows attendees to revisit discussions and presentations. These transcripts can also be valuable for researchers, scholars, and those who couldn’t attend in person.
Interviews for Academic Research
Having transcripts makes referencing specific participants in your paper easier. Accurate quoting and referencing can enhance the validity and credibility of your arguments. Doing so ensures that context is maintained and every nuance is observed and recorded for referencing. Furthermore, this is important from both a researcher’s and a participant’s standpoint.
Online Courses and Webinars
Transcribing or subtitling online courses and webinars enhances accessibility. Students can read along with the spoken content, aiding understanding and making the material accessible to those with hearing impairments or those with different learning requirements.
Board Meetings and Administrative Discussions
Administrative meetings used to be logged in paper form, which is inefficient and can show an incomplete picture of discussions and decisions made. Transcribing such meetings allows everyone access to complete events and can be useful for legal, transparency, and compliance purposes.
Language Courses and Pronunciation Practice
Non-native English speakers can follow along with the discussion, review pronunciation, and practice language skills with accurate written transcripts.
Student Presentations
Student presentations can be transcribed to enhance learning, help students improve their presentation skills, and allow them to review and understand their material better. Other students may also use these transcripts for review material.
Multimedia Content Creation
Studies worldwide have found that offering multimedia content can help students learn better. Audio and video content can be transcribed to enhance that experience further and support accessibility and engagement.
Ditto Transcripts Can Enhance Your Learning Experience
Enjoy all the benefits of academic transcription without the pitfalls. Ditto offers 100% U.S.-based transcription, more than 99% accuracy, fast turnaround times, top-notch customer service, unparalleled flexibility, affordability, and the highest level of security money can buy. Contact us today for
Ditto Transcripts is a HIPAA-compliant and CJIS-compliant Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and companies of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote, and ask about our free five-day trial.
