ViaScribe™ is a leading speech recognition technology designed to enhance learning while increasing end user satisfaction and reducing the costs of learning systems.
In a world where technology is changing dramatically, and cultural boundaries are blurring, enterprises are challenged with keeping up with the pace…
More and more enterprises employ multi-national workforces and provide service across an ever-expanding set of geographies.
Achieving maximum ROI and adoption rates on costly knowledge management and training information systems can be difficult. Classroom-based instruction and associated travel increases overhead costs. Yet, efficient knowledge transfer and keeping skills up-to-date are critical success factors for companies wanting to transform and innovate.
Businesses often struggle to maintain consistency in customer service. They offer more self-service options for customers and end users via their websites to reduce customer service costs. End users often prefer the convenience of browsing through support content on the web anytime they need it.
Users who are deaf, hard of hearing, or not proficient in the content language may have diverse accessibility needs. For example, they may require content in visual, auditory and textual formats in order to use it effectively.
In addition, many jurisdictions have laws or regulations that mandate captioning for videos and other multimedia content.
ViaScribe™ technology from IBM can offer solutions to many of these client challenges.
There are four main steps to using ViaScribe™:
ViaScribe™ uses an innovative “voice recognition engine” to convert live or recorded speech to text with a high level of accuracy.
In the Configuration & Setup Step, recorders can train ViaScribe™, creating unique voice models for themselves or other commonly used speakers. This can be done using either live or recorded speech. Custom vocabularies can be included, to account for industry or domain-specific terminology. In addition, voice models can be shared amongst separate recorders.
The voice models and custom vocabularies help increase the accuracy of ViaScribe™ speech recognition engine in specific contexts.
In the Recording Step, ViaScribe’s voice recognition engine converts live or recorded speech to text with natural pauses in the speaker’s speech.
ViaScribe™ automatically synchronizes the text with the audio, video or presentation materials.
ViaScribe™ outputs the captioned media to standard formats such as Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL), XML, RT and RTF.
In the Editing and Packaging Step, stenographers review the transcribed text, correcting any inaccurately transcribed text.
After completing this editing, the stenographer can upload the synchronized, captioned media files into a variety of content management systems.
This captioned media, along with full text transcripts resulting from ViaScribe can provide a foundation for translating the content into multiple languages, and can also be indexed for search engines and data mining applications.
Finally, the captioned media and full text transcripts can be published in web-based training and other applications.
In the Deployment Step, users who are deaf, hard of hearing, or second language learners of the language used in the content can access the media via websites or e-learning systems. This includes access to:
This material is invaluable for e-learning, data mining, knowledge management applications.
ViaScribe™ is a valuable digital content creation tool that can be an integral part of online training, customer service or knowledge management applications.
Clients can realize many benefits from ViaScribe™ including:
End users can also benefit from ViaScribe™ as it helps them:
Liberated Learning© is an innovative application of speech recognition technology designed to equalize access to information for diverse learners. In Liberated Learning© classrooms, lectures are transcribed in real time using IBM ViaScribe™ and projected to the class, enabling students to "see" the lecture. After the lecture, comprehensive, software-generated class notes are available to students online in various accessible, multimedia formats
Canada’s Saint Mary’s University and IBM collaborated to create a global Liberated Learning Consortium of university partners dedicated to advancing speech recognition technology and techniques targeting accessibility. Under Saint Mary’s and IBM’s leadership, 15 of the world’s leading universities from Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, UK, and the USA are working together to advance this first of a kind concept.
Liberated Learning has been successfully used in university classrooms around the globe to provide greater accessibility. Recognizing that learning occurs throughout our lives, the Consortium also initiated a number of exciting pilot projects to explore applications of ViaScribe™ in the corporate environment, in the secondary school system, and in public settings. Liberated Learning continues in its mission to advance this ground-breaking technology in various educational settings.
As part of the Liberated Learning© Consortium, the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Canada – in conjunction with Cape Breton University – has successfully used IBM ViaScribe™ technology to offer accessible museum tours that reflect Bell’s vision and goals.
Museums are often challenged with making guided tours and other real-time presentations accessible to visitors who are deaf and hard of hearing. In addition, museums need to accommodate visitors who have different learning styles and who speak first languages other than that of the guide. Providing museum content that is accessible is often a critical success factor for museums trying to increase their membership base.
At the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, interpreters and tour guides use wireless microphones and ViaScribe™ to capture their speech in real-time and convert it into text. Handheld devices are used by museum visitors to read what the tour guide is saying. Real-time captions, generated by ViaScribe™, are presented on the handheld providing the visitor an enhanced museum experience.
By using these innovative IBM technologies, the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site has been able to offer first-of-a-kind real-time captioning experiences for its visitors. Other IBM clients are pursuing opportunities to use IBM ViaScribe™ to automate the transcription of employee training content and provide synchronized media in strategic training applications. For many businesses, providing classroom-based training can be too costly and time-consuming. Certain business process areas such as customer service suffer from high employee turnover, which in turn increases the amount of training needed to assist new employees to perform their jobs.
IBM ViaScribe™ captures spoken lectures given by corporate trainers, educators or executives. ViaScribe™ converts the spoken lecture into text and synchronizes the text with presentations and video. The synchronized content can then be stored in content management systems and deployed in web-based training systems. IBM CaptionMeNow™ services are additional technology innovations that can be employed in these web-based systems to offer real-time captioning of videos and presentations via an on-demand pricing model.
By using ViaScribe™ and CaptionMeNow™, businesses can reduce employee training costs, while enhancing the accessibility of training content for more users. In addition, the textual information stored along with rich media can be mined or searched to improve knowledge management and skills transfer.
Find out how IBM Accessibility Services and Technology can help solve your business challenges. Contact an IBM Worldwide Accessibility Center consultant by visiting our website and filling out this form at the URL shown here.
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