Some Tips on Accurate and Accessible ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition):
Monitor your voice volume and be conscious of your microphone distance
"The closer users are to a microphone, the louder they will sound. The further away users are to a microphone, the softer they will sound. Ideally, their mouth should be between four to six inches from the front of the microphone (touch your thumb to your chin, and then touch the microphone with your stretched-out pinky). If a user happens to speak more loudly than most, move farther away from the microphone to avoid the distorted sound caused by overloading the microphone. If they speak quietly, move closer to the microphone to avoid the pickup of excessive room reverberation, which can cause them to sound distant, and lowers the intelligibility of speech." (Panopto.com)
Talk Naturally
"You need not talk like a robot to be understood by one," says Vlad Sejnoha, chief technical officer at Nuance, maker of the Dragon speech-to-text software for Windows, Macs, iPhones and iPads. It is important to always speak slowly and clearly in a normal voice when using a microphone. Project, enunciate, and be aware of your tone.
Repeat Asked Questions
Unless you are using a second microphone to capture the questions of your students, it is important to always repeat the questions asked of you so that those who use Echo360 can later understand what you are explaining.
Record Everything
While it might be tempting to turn off the microphone for throat clearing or unimportant asides, it is possible to forget turning the instrument back on and potentially neglecting to record an important portion of a lecture
How to Access Echo360 and Edit Transcriptions:
Once you have received your Echo360 confirmation:
- Log into Echo360 HERE, be sure to select McMaster from the dropdown.
- In the Courses tab, click on the course you would like to edit the transcription for.

- Go to the row corresponding to the particular recording you would like to edit and click on the play icon.
- Next, click on Details.

- By the recording details in the bottom left, click on the drop-down menu next to Transcript and click Download Original.

- Open up the downloaded file with Notepad++. (Note the format of the .vtt file. Open with Notepad++ and edit the transcript as necessary while the video plays.
- Go through your recording and the .vtt file making sure the text is right and the timestamps are relatively proper.

- Save the .vtt file and upload it both for transcript and captions. To upload the .vtt file as a fixed transcript follow steps 1-5 and click Upload next to Transcript.

- To upload the .vtt file as closed captions follow steps 1-5 and click Add next to Captions.
