The Transcription Page
The Audio Player
Across the top of the screen lies the hub's built-in audio player. Here you will find:
- Play/Pause: Hitting the Play/Pause button will start and stop the audio. When you hit Play again after pausing, the audio will automatically jump back a second to help ensure you don't miss any words.
- Forward/Back: Hitting these buttons, or using the corresponding hotkeys, will set the audio forward or back 5 seconds.
- Time bar: The time bar, with its big orange dot, shows you how far you are in the audio (if it's not moving, that's a hint that the audio isn't playing). You can jump to a given point in the audio by clicking on the bar or dragging the dot, then use the Forward/Back feature to get to where you want to be.
- Speed indicator: The orange text (0.9x in the above screenshot) indicates the speed the audio is being played at. 1.0 indicates normal speed, while anything above 1.0 is faster, and anything below is slower.
- Volume: You can adjust the hub's volume here. Sometimes turning the hub volume down and turning your headset volume up can help with troublesome audio.
- Settings: Click the three horizontal bars next to the volume control to:
- Select the Loop icon so that when you reach the end of the chunk, the audio will automatically start back over at the beginning.
- See whether your foot pedal is properly activated
Right Sidebar
Job ID
To the right-hand side of the screen, under DETAILS, you will see a Job ID with a string of four numbers. When you decide to work on a chunk, click the icon to the right to copy/paste this number somewhere so that, should you lose your job due to connectivity issues or an accidental cancel, the Help Desk can retrieve it for you again.
Job IDs have four parts: Client ID-Recording ID-Session ID-Job ID. For example, 976532-26812872-19912799-23606693.
- The Client ID is the unique number assigned to each customer that registers with TranscribeMe. Every file that they upload under their portal email will have this Client ID.
- The Recording ID is for admin purposes only.
- The Session ID is the number assigned to the full file; this is the number that QAs will reference if they lose or have questions about their file.
- The Job ID is specific to the chunk that a Transcriber works on, and this is the number you will see in your Work History once you have submitted your job.
Guidelines
VERY IMPORTANT! Always check and expand the StyleGuide for each job before starting, as the style may vary from file to file. Here you will see if the job is General CV (Clean Verbatim), a First Draft file (which are sent directly to the client without going through QA), or even special instructions about speakers or a different style that you might need to follow. Maybe you even just need a reminder of the General Style Guide! You can click on the different lines within the guidelines to expand each section.
The guidelines may also specify which English spelling - US or British - to use. US English is our default unless otherwise noted. Other than NA and US, all of the guidelines listed below must follow British English spellings, with some exceptions for Aussie and Kiwi files. Note that, regardless of accent or spelling, we always use US punctuation, never British.
- NA - Not Applicable: The client did not specify, so use US English.
- US - US spellings
- British (GB) - British English (BE)
- Aussie (AU) - BE, with exceptions. Expand the file guidelines for Aussie exceptions to BE
- Kiwi (NZ) - British spelling, with exceptions. Expand the file Guidelines for Kiwi exceptions to British spellings
- Irish (IE) - British spelling
- Scottish (SCT) - British spelling
You will need to pass the appropriate Accent Exams to receive files other than US English. These exams can be found under the Exams tab.
Hotkeys
You can also expand your Hotkeys for a reminder. Clicking Manage hotkeys at the bottom will allow you to edit them. We strongly advise that you not change the default hotkeys, as this can cause issues later on.
Snippets
Click Snippets to manage them. Snippets are automatic text-expanders that can save you loads of time typing common words, and we highly recommend using them for tags. Check out our Snippet How-To for details on setting up and editing your snippets on our platform.
Settings
Be sure to have Submit confirmation enabled to help prevent accidental submissions! This means that when you click the Submit button, a popup will appear asking you to confirm your decision to submit.