The series Open Tools presents openly available tools supporting mostly qualitative SAP research. This first post is about oTranscribe.

The first step in analyzing qualitative interview data is the transcription of respective recordings. With the web application oTranscribe you are able to upload different types of audio (mp3, ogg, webm and wav files) and then use keyboard shortcuts to play and pause, add time stamps, and slow down and speed up the recording. This allows you to transcribe recordings directly in your browser.

I have used the tool not only for research but also in teaching in a course on qualitative research methods. In this course, students transcribe short YouTube videos, which is also supported by oTranscribe. And aside from being free of charge, the web application just requires a browser and is therefore available across platforms.

Since oTranscribe is open source software you can check out its code at the developer Elliot Bentley’s Gitub page. For some background on the history of oTranscribe and its developer, check out this article at journalism.co.uk.

(leonhard)