How,the,Internet,Changed,Rules business, insurance How the Internet Changed the Rules of Transcription (Part 1)

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Transcriptionis a service that is necessary to many different fields, such as the medical,legal and business sectors. In the past this had been both time consuming andcostly; the equipment involved in analog audio before the digital age was morecumbersome than most people today have to deal with. Add this to the time ittook to mail or hand deliver an audio recording to a transcription office andback again and you can see how the delays can pile up quickly. There was a goodreason why so many organizations, however reluctantly, set up their own in-housetranscription departments.Fortunatelyfor us, technology continued to advance, which included a shift that broughtthe internet into mainstream use - and with it a much faster way ofdistributing information (including audio and video). With this new tool, thein-house transcription office has become virtually obsolete.The powerof the internet allows a business to upload all of the work they needtranscribed onto a secure server, where a trusted transcription service canaccess the files, perform the necessary operations, and upload the finishedproject to the same server - all without the cost of postage or shipping (notto mention the time that is saved.)PuttingFeet to the PavementOf courseit wasn’t always necessary to mail the hard copy. In most cities there were transcriptionservices of varying skills, specialties, and experience. When a company neededtranscription handled for analog audio they often had an office worker orcourier hand deliver the hard copy to the transcription service. Sometranscription companies even offered pickup and delivery services. However, allof this travel by the tapes and finished paper transcripts meant it would takelonger for the final product to be in the hands of those who needed it. Andregardless of who did the pickup and delivery - it added cost to the service.Even transcription companies that offered free pick up would have to factor itinto the overall prices charged by the company.Anotherdownside to dealing with hard copies is that many companies didn’t have the timeor inclination to make backup copies. The transcription service had to dealwith an original recording. This was sometimes necessary anyway because analogcopies of analog tapes always resulted in inferior recordings. However, themore a cassette was handled and used in a transcriber, the more likely it wouldbe damaged.SeekingOutside HelpOutsourcinghas long been a viable and attractive option for organizations and individualstrying to squeeze every penny for what it’s worth. While most organizationsthat required regular transcription understood the benefit and turnaround ofusing a local transcription company, they also knew what it meant to savemoney.As theinternet grew in popularity and advances were made in download speeds andsecurity, online transcription became more widespread which increased the levelof competition and drove prices down. It also became easier for professionalsand companies to find more specialized transcription services. It takes littletime to do a national search for forensic, financial, technical, foreignlanguage, verbatim, edited, autopsy, budget and many other types oftranscription.Crossingthe BorderLessskilled and off-shore transcription services began to appear on a national andinternational level. Unfortunately, in many cases, these agencies lacked thenecessary skill to manage audio files that contained technical or specializedtranscription requirements. They could however, provide a cost effectivealternative for general and other transcription projects where security oraccuracy wasn’t the primary concern.For thoseorganizations that require regular transcription services, it can be appealingto have an option that is a fraction of the cost. Budget transcription servicesproliferated in other countries such as India. Unfortunately, forprofessionals and companies looking for specialized or secure transcriptionservices, the quality and/or security of the project was in danger of beingcompromised for the sake of trimming costs.In-HouseTranscription by Non-TranscriptionistsFor thoseorganizations that didn’t have a local option for analog audio transcription,but refused to mail what they deemed to be sensitive material in an effort tosafeguard original copies, they frequently turned their attention in-house.However, to save on costs, a number of these organizations imprudently chosenot to hire experienced transcriptionists and instead turned to their existingemployees.Officestaff, secretaries, accounting, and payroll – a warm body would do the trick inmany cases. At least that was the idea. Employees were frequently taken awayfrom their normal duties and used for transcription. Due to a lack ofexperience and an untrained ear, the quality of the transcription was oftenless than ideal.Manypeople assume that anyone who can type can transcribe. However, a goodtranscriptionist will have an above average knowledge of grammar, punctuation,spelling, vocabulary, and a deeper understanding of the field he or shetranscribes (e.g., medical or financial). In addition, speech can sometimesbecome difficult to decipher and someone without experience listening to (andpossibly manipulating the audio) will include more entries of ‘unintelligible’or ‘inaudible’ than necessary.Faster,Easier, SaferWhile theweb has been around for about two decades, the transfer rate of data wasnowhere near capable of handling the size of most audio files. When this typeof file transfer was attempted just 15 years ago, it would take hours to uploadand/or download audio and video files such as .wav and .mpg.More recently,with broadband transmissions of digital information over newly created fiberoptics networks, many organizations are able to quickly and safely transferlarge digital audio and video files. With the advancement of technology,equipment used to digitally record is not only affordable but quite reliable. Audioformats have advanced with regard to convenience from the very large .wav filesto more compressed and transfer-friendly formats such as the .mp3. However,even large .wav files generally don’t take an unreasonable amount of time totransfer – especially if you just have one or two 1GB files. Many businessesthat deal with quality audio recordings regularly transfer .wav and other largefiles online.Unless acompany is still recording to and handling analog audio, digital formats cannow be easily managed through a secure upload process which virtuallyeliminates the need to deal with couriers or shipping hard audio copies tolocal, national or international companies in order to get data transcribed.Now, withoutsourcing readily available online, it’s easier than ever for an organizationto locate the right transcription service for the job.