OpenSpeaks/toolkit/av/faq

1. There exists many tools and processes like StoryCorps. Why can they not be used here?

There indeed exist many tools and processes—both proprietary and open—but they might not be fully usable for achieving what we are trying to achieve here. Our goal is to document native languages with a goal to create digital tools out of them. When StoryCorps can be a great resource to help with "what to ask in an interview" it does not help with tools, techniques and the process that is used for recording. That part is probably their own trade secret simply because they charge for conducting the sessions. It is not an open and reproducible process and is heavily staff-dependent. When it's true that the staff is professionally trained and the work that they would produce is going to be of really high quality, it might not be a sustainable practice because not all the communities can afford to spend money even though they want their languages to be documented. Communities need to be enabled with digital tools and provided with education so that they can document their own languages.

This process is pro-community empowerment by creating open source tools, open educational resources and datasets, and open practices, and promote it widely so that anyone can translate the content and use it for their own language. One of the reasons to host it on a wiki is also to allow integration of Mediawiki's collaborative translation processes.

2. What about using existing and easily available tools and platforms like the Hangouts On-Air?

That and many other tools can be and will be used. In fact, it is important to keep in mind that many indigenous people might not have good access to a fast Internet and they can record offline. In cases where it is not feasible to travel and have the community's time, one can even record remotely (the process is documented here and the output of this experiment is available here). The idea is not to restrict everything into one solution but to allow diverse tools and processes as not one process will fit into all situations.

In this toolkit, the focus is really high to maintain good audio quality because it is still fine if there is low quality video or no video at all. But if there are issues with the audio then the audio recordings can never be used to create speech synthesis tools like text-to-speech. In fact, the 30-40 mins interview is designed keeping in mind that the sole purpose is collecting diverse kinds speech of different emotional levels and different content so that there is a good amount of vocabulary, intonation and accent.

Attribution

These questions are not a product of one mind but multiple people that have experience in the domain of language documentation. Their questions make this page a resource for sharing in details how this toolkit can be used. Below are a list of people/organizations that have given their consent to publish their names.