Online classes increasingly rely on video lessons. However, studying from long videos can easily overwhelm students. Imagine how helpful it would be for students if you used an academic transcription services provider to transcribe your online courses. Creating accurate transcripts for your video lessons by hand is hugely time-consuming for students and course creators, though. That is where outsourcing online course transcription to professionals is your best course of action.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- You can make your online course content easily referenceable with accurate video and audio lecture transcripts.
- Transcripts can translate complex verbal content into comprehendible written documents (i.e. PDFs) that are easier to access and organize.
- Work with Ditto Transcripts to maximize the benefits of online course transcription. We offer 100% US-based, human-powered transcription with 99% accuracy guarantees, fast turnaround times, competitive rates, and customizable features.
What are Online Course Transcription Services?
Online course transcription converts spoken video and audio files from online classes into written text documents. It requires us to attentively listen to video lectures and course materials, pause and rewind as needed, and type the verbal information into transcripts.
Transcripts transform online curriculum into searchable, editable, shareable, and readily referenceable text for easier consumption. Online course transcription makes retaining and utilizing the core instructional materials much more manageable and easier to consume.
Types Of Online Courses Where Transcription Is Crucial
Here are some courses where transcription for audio recordings is essential.
| Online Courses | Why Transcription Is Crucial |
| Foreign Language Courses | Allow reviewing proper pronunciation and grammar at your own pace |
| Lecture-based STEM Courses | Let you search key formulas, definitions, and diagrams referenced in lectures |
| Coding Tutorials | Enable easy copying of complex code samples from the audio |
| Business Presentation Courses | Help note essential data, statistics, and exam requirements |
| Creative Writing Workshops | Let writers conveniently reference and utilize examples shared verbally |
| Math Refresher Classes | Help following along with the step-by-step workings of problems solved audibly |
| Self-Improvement Seminars | Make impactful advice, insights, and techniques easy to find, remember, and apply |
| Cooking Tutorials | Allow cooks to follow measurement quantities and multi-step preparation methods accurately |
Types of Transcription Available For Online Courses
Transcription for online courses comes in various forms:
Verbatim Transcription
Verbatim transcription records every spoken word from an online lecture, including filler expressions like “um” and “uh,” as well as laughter, pauses, and other vocalizations. This approach best captures all the verbal details and nuances that provide vital context.
This type of transcript is helpful for classes like law, or medicine where precise terminology, and accurate quotes matter.
Intelligent Verbatim Transcription
Intelligent verbatim (or “Cleaned up verbatim”) transcription captures the important spoken content from online lectures while removing unnecessary elements. Unlike word-for-word transcripts, it takes out most filler words, false starts, and verbal tics, keeping the original meaning and flow.
This approach balances comprehensive documentation with clarity, as key instructional ideas matter more than precise quotes or vocal patterns for online classes like business, technology, or personal development.
Automated Transcription
Automated transcription uses speech recognition technology (AI) to generate audio and video transcripts from online courses. Such programs can go through large volumes of content.
However, one big caveat is that AI transcription is far from perfect.
AI transcriptions’ lack of perfection makes it unsuitable for official or professional purposes, as human transcribers will have to go through every line and listen closely to every audio second to look for and correct mistakes.
AI can be perfect for quick notes or simple reminders, not for online courses.
Cross-Language Transcription
Cross-language transcription translates an online course’s spoken English lectures and materials into other languages within the same transcripts. This multilingual approach promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by making programs accessible to more students globally.
Learners can reference side-by-side translated transcripts in languages they understand better as they take courses predominantly instructed in English. This means that institutions could save costs by developing localized curriculums while still catering to varied demographics.
Time-Stamped Transcription
Time-coded transcription inserts time stamps at regular intervals in the written transcript. This approach indexes the text to the matching audio/video playback times so readers can quickly navigate to specific lecture moments to revisit ideas, track progress, or pinpoint sections when coordinating discussions.
Time codes connect the textual transcript to the rich media context it documents. They act like an interactive table of contents for scanning long videos, jumping between topics, comparing notes, or focused reviews. Adding speaker identification can further
The Benefits of Transcribing Online Courses
Transcribing online courses comes with many benefits. Here are a few that educators and students can experience.
| Benefits | Description |
| Helps in Retention | Transcripts boost comprehension and retention of verbal lectures by allowing increased exposure, review, note-taking, and sharing. |
| Supports Multimodal Learners | Transcripts cater to visual and textual learners’ preferences, allowing more students to process lessons effectively. |
| Boosts Accessibility | Transcripts increase access for the deaf/hard-of-hearing, helping online courses meet ADA compliance standards. |
| Elevates Learning Experience | Transcripts raise overall course experience and satisfaction by facilitating content navigation, retention, discussion, and knowledge application. |
| Meets Accessibility Standards | Transcripts satisfy legal accessibility requirements, enabling wider enrollment by learners with disabilities. |
| Enables Searchability | Transforming spoken lectures into text makes every word searchable, helping students efficiently find key sections. |
| Facilitates Content Reuse | Structured textual transcripts allow easier repurposing of course materials into derivative works like study guides, tweets, blogs, and newsletters. |
| Expands Multilingual Reach | Translated transcripts break down language barriers, inviting more global student enrollment through increased comprehension. |
Don’t believe me? Actual research backs this up. Dommett et al. stated, “Data suggest that the use of captions and transcripts may be beneficial to students by allowing dual processing of visual and audio content, and a searchable resource to help consolidate their learning.”
This study focused on college students and found that the vast majority considered transcripts and subtitles very useful for their learning.
Is Using AI Transcription Services For Online Courses A Good Idea?
We briefly touched upon AI transcription earlier. This time, let’s take a deeper look.
Automated audio transcription converts audio or video recordings to plain text content using artificial intelligence (AI) or automated speech recognition (ASR) technologies. This type of transcription leverages the speed of AI and produces lightning-fast audio and video transcription. Automated transcription software and speech-to-text services are often cheaper than manual transcription.
However, AI transcription carries one giant flaw: it’s not accurate.
The best automated transcription programs can only achieve 86% accuracy. Again, that’s perfectly fine for occasional personal use. However, 86% accuracy is not acceptable for online courses.
Each benefit discussed earlier largely depends on the accuracy of the transcripts; having 14% or more errors completely negates them.
Automated transcription also doesn’t have document format options. The text will come in one unbroken stream, devoid of punctuation and other important elements, taking more time to fix.
Furthermore, AI transcription doesn’t know how to think or have linguistic or contextual understanding. It is at the mercy of background noise, overlapping speakers, heavy accents and dialects, and poor audio file quality. AI cannot identify nuance and utilize context to create a more accurate verbatim transcription—things that come naturally to experienced human transcriptionists.
Human-Powered Transcription Is Still The Standard
Get a human-powered transcription provider to avoid the pitfalls of AI transcription. However, don’t just choose the first one that pops up in your Google search.
To get the most out of transcription, you need the best. The good news is you already have the best right here.
Ditto Transcripts can save you from the headache of inaccurate transcripts, ridiculously extended turnaround times, and missed deadlines. We offer transcription solutions for academics of all types and ensure accurate, timely, and affordable documents for your projects. All our transcripts are guaranteed to be 99% accurate.
Why Choose Ditto Transcripts For Your Online Course Transcription Needs?
Never settle for anything less than the best. With Ditto, you get to enjoy:
- 99% Accuracy: “Accurate enough” won’t cut it. Our human transcriptionists ensure precision, even for complex materials.
- Faster turnaround times: With Ditto, get your transcripts in 3-5 business days. Let us know if you need them faster, and we can get them in 24 hours or less.
- US-based Transcription: All our transcribers are American residents and native English speakers who can understand colloquialisms, cultural subtleties, and heavy accents.
- Subject Mastery: Our team understands complex academic terminology.
- Customization: Transcript format, labels, style, and extra features tailored to your needs.
- Affordable Pricing: Fair pay-as-you-go service costs that work on tight e-learning budgets.
- Secure Process: We protect sensitive course data. While not likely necessary for transcribing a course, it’s nice to know we are HIPAA, FINRA and CJIS-compliant. Our transcribers also sign non-disclosure agreements for your peace of mind.
- Mobile App: Elevate ease of access to the next level through our mobile app integration.
The Best Transcription Service Is Right Here
Whether you’re on a tight schedule or budget, we’ve got you covered. Need something rushed? We can turn transcripts around faster than most. And we keep our pricing affordable so quality transcription doesn’t break the bank. 99% accurate transcription isn’t something we “just say”; it’s our standard, no matter what service you choose.
Ditto Transcripts is a 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.
