intro to doing digital oral history
TRANSCRIPT
Doing Oral History in the
Digital EraInnovations | Complications | Tools | Tech
StacksBrooke Bryan, Antioch College
2015 “Catching Stories” Ohio Humanities Oral History Institute at Kenyon College
Locating my practiceO Instructor of Cooperative Education at
Antioch College; IRB, Strategic Planning, Accreditation
O Author, Oral History in the Digital Age, Collecting and Disseminating Groups (IMLS)
O Editor, Oral History in the Digital AgeO Co-PI, Experiential Pedagogy: Oral History &
Digital Scholarship for High-Impact Undergraduate Learning (EXPOH)
O program development and methodology O fringe, phenomenological, digitally-oriented
What do we mean we say “Digital Era?”
O Living in a time when average people carry smart phones around in their pockets that are capable of recording the world around them in rich media
O Auto-ethnographic ‘selfie-generation’ rising while the Fourth Estate is falling
O Private spaces versus public spaces; Privacy and identity concerns with digital files
O Exciting array of tools and platforms that allow us to think about narratives in new ways
What is “Digital Oral History?”
O are we talking about the technicalities of digital files, recording speeds, naming conventions, and digital preservation?
O are we talking about doing oral history in the digital era— new gear, ethics, best practices?
O are we talking about what we can do with oral history when we think through the lens of the digital humanities— tools, platforms, speech to text, algorithms, new questions?
Digital-Era Oral History:
O Born-digital technologies impact decisions made during project planning, collection, curation, and dissemination
O Complicates Informed ConsentO Holds promise for use and access—
new kinds of finding aids allow us to move through media in new ways— primary document, retaining gesture, intonation, etc.
Planning Oral History Projects in the Digital Era
OHAThe Oral History Association is the professional organization providing
resources and best practices for community oral history work.
Oralhistory.org
Oral History Reviewhttp://ohr.oxfordjournals.org/
Informed ConsentOne cannot possibly interview another in the name of oral history without going through a rigorous informed consent process.
O go over brief project statementO why they should be interviewedO explicit understanding of how the interviews will
be used and shared*O how they can decide to opt-out, and when an
opt-out is no longer feasible*O sharing of release forms which are signed after
the interview*O if you are affiliated with an IRB, they may require additional IC signature before interview
What do we mean when we say “Informed Consent?”
LEGAL ETHICAL
The federal government requires institutions receiving federal funds to be certain that elements of informed consent are in place before their affiliates can commence research involving human participants.
Professional organizations, scholars, and public intellectuals recommend protocols for best practices, in keeping with contemporary ethical sensibilities and possibly applicable legal landscapes.
What do we mean when we say “Informed Consent?”
LEGAL ETHICAL
Institutional Review Boards are a mandated entity at institutions that receive federal funds. They exist to be sure that all projects affiliated with the institution have rigorous informed consent practices in place for projects involving people. The Principal Investigator is the responsible party.
Practicing oral history in accordance with the standards published by the Oral History Association is a voluntary decision to act in accordance with the professional community of practitioners.However, certain funding agencies will often only fund projects that adopt/abide by professional best practices.
Informed Consent is both when working in Higher Ed
LEGAL ETHICALThe Office for Human Research Protections* Is your Oral History
contributing to Generalizable Knowledge
?
HHS.gov Flow Charts *Known Participants?
*Audience?
Oral History Association Guidelines
OHA Statement on IRBs
Revision of Guidelines 20015-2016 may lead to new best practices
The Digital Era Complicates Informed Consent
O Reveals a larger audience than your interviewee may imagine for their recorded narrative
O Makes it hard to promise access restrictionsO Opens participants up to more social
liabilities than ‘dark archive’ daysO You’ll want to know what you intend to do
with the recorded interviews (archive/website/personal harddrive with no access) before you begin recording them (informed consent)
Informed Consent is not Copyright Release
INTERVIEWS ARE DUAL COPYRIGHTED FROM THE MOMENT OF CREATION
Informed consent is established through conversation before the interview. Some project partners will require you to get a signature.A release form— a Deed of Gift— is signed after the interview is recorded. Most releases legally establish your right to archive, publish, and make derivative works from the interview, excepting restrictions.
Interviewing in the Digital Era
The Art of the Interview
O an interview is a conversation between two people on a pre-established topic/theme
O a willing interviewee (IC!) wants to share their experience, don’t overestimate your role as interviewer (who is ‘doing’ what?)
O Interviewing LISTENING is an art form that becomes more refined with practice
O a refined interview style comes from how you structure the interview time, and how you ask questions/follow-up questions
Thus, before embarking on a busy interview schedule one needs to be oriented to one's question or notion in such a
strong manner that one does not get easily carried away with
interviews that go everywhere and nowhere. ~Max van Manen
The ‘abbreviated life story’ interview model is just one example of how to
structure the interview space. Developed over a few years of project coordination, it can be a resource for student and volunteer interviewers
who join a project with subject matter interest/expertise but little methodological training.
The abbreviated life story model suggests interviewers frame their
questions into six domains: the introductory lead, early
life/context, the Purposeful Turn toward the theme, Depth Questions,
the Reflective Turn towards generalized meaning, and the Wrap-
up.
The Lead
Reflective Turn: towards
implications and meaning
Purposeful Turn: towards
the topicDEPTH QUESTIONS
Early Life
Wrap-Up
The LeadO After sound checks, always start an oral history
interview with a lead that establishes the identity of interviewer and interviewee, the place and date, and implicit consent to participate in the stated project for the stated purpose.
O Your lead will be directly related to your project statement & informed consent documents.
“This is Brooke Bryan for the WYSO Civil Rights Stories Project, interviewing Jane Doe to speak about her life experience before, during, and after the civil rights
demonstrations that led to the riot in downtown Yellow Springs in March of 1964. Jane, thank you for your willingness to participate. Can you please state your full
name, your birth date, and today’s date?”
Early LifeO Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about
your family and where you grew up…O What family values were passed on to you?O Who were your key mentors or teachers?
O Seek sensory descriptions (visuals/sounds/smells). Family dinner times, neighborhood friends, early learning experiences.
O Just be interested! The follow up questions will reveal themselves if you are engaged.
The Purposeful TurnO Bring the interview to the topic at hand, gently
towards the particular project themes. O For place-based or event-focused projects, you
can bring about the ‘purposeful turn’ with questions like:O “How did you come to find yourself in Yellow Springs?”O “I know you experienced the March ‘64
demonstrations, but let’s get a sense of the community before those events unfolded. Where did you go for social events, where did people go for fun? What music did you listen to, what did you wear? What was the community zeitgeist?”
The Purposeful TurnO For thematically-oriented projects
exploring ideas, broad themes, or communities of practice:O “how did you first become involved with ***
organization?”O “when did you first realize you were perceived
by others as different?” O “what is your first memory of being ***?” O “when did you know you wanted to be a ***
(English major, marine biologist)?”O “how did you come to be involved with ***
(person/institution/community)?”
Depth QuestionsO An interview project— especially one that
has multiple volunteer or student interviewers— must have a core set of questions that get at the heart of the project’s intent
O Depth questions provide continuity across interviews
O Depth questions should be carefully researched and are probably established by the project planners and advisory group
The Reflective TurnO Once the topic is explored through structured Depth
Questions, bring the interview to the reflective stage by giving the interviewee space to ponder what it all means, why it matters. O “Bring us to contemporary times. Where did things go
from there? Have things changed?”O “Would you do something differently if you could do it all
over? Do you have regrets?”O “Were your actions/responses enough?”O “Have your experiences
O —changed your perspective?”O —impacted the trajectory of your life?”O —caused you to think differently?”O —brought change to your family?”
The Reflective TurnO Certain oral history projects have clear
contemporary connections and/or implications. Your interviewee may be more interested in reflecting or drawing connections than talking about the project’s intended goals.O A person interviewed as part of a civil rights
project really wants to talk about being a high-ranking African American in post-WWII America, reflecting on the struggle to purchase property in the same country you fought for.
O A person interviewed for a civil rights project really wants to talk about educational parity (or lack thereof) in the local public schools today.
Wrap-UpO “Is there anything we didn’t talk about today
that you would like to touch upon?”O “Is there anything you’d like to clarify?”O “Oh. Earlier you said something very
interesting— I wonder if we can go back to...O Thank the interviewee for their time and
willingness to participate in the projectO Present release form and sign. You have no
legal right to share or archive or make available the interview until the release form is signed.
What can you do with the recorded interviews?
Storing InterviewsO Your informed consent process will have
already communicated your intentions and set parameters for what you can do with the interviews. Uphold them, they are both legal and ethical mandates.
O Redundancy; keep multiple copiesO Consider using physical & server based
storageO Archival (.wav) versus streaming (.mp3)
copies
Processing InterviewsO Automatic speech to text
transcriptions provide fast access to meaning within the media
O Machine generated transcriptions sync the text to the time coded media
O Ideal for collections that will be accessible on the internet
Automatic Transcriptions
O YouTubeO First algorithm for free use O Can generate automatic captions for
uploaded videosO Can be downloaded and edited, re-
uploaded
Automatic TranscriptionsO PopUp Archive
O Developed at Berkeley for the radio community who have large collections of audio files on harddrives
O Provides a collaborative platform for teams to upload audio in collections
O Highly accurate with high quality studio audio
O Not very accurate with accents or low quality audio
Automatic TranscriptionsO PopUp Archive
O Hosts your media in two ways:O Private setting keeps audio on PopUp archive
servers with password protectionO Public setting contributes audio to Internet Archive
which has some preservation standards in placeO One hour of processing is free. Transcribing
many media files will require a monthly packageO Once the transcription process is complete,
synced media will remain viewable and embeddable, even once paid package is downgraded to free package.
Automatic TranscriptionsO PopUp Archive
O Once processed, transcriptions can be edited line-by-line in the synced user interface by collaborative teams
O Adding tags to interviews allows thematizingO Collections can be viewed at PopUp Archive
siteO Audio and synced transcripts easily
embedded in other web pages with embed code
O Wordpress plugin available
Automatic TranscriptionsO PopUp Archive
O WorkflowO First tool in the stackO Download plain text transcriptions and port
to next toolO Can be used alone for audio projects
O DrawbacksO Audio only. Requires audio to be stripped
from video for automatic transcriptions. O Low accuracy with non-Western speakers
or heavy accents of any type.
Automatic TranscriptionsO 3Play Media
O Developed at MIT to meet media accessibility standards for institutional broadcast of speeches and presentations
O Provides a collaborative platform for teams to upload audio and video in projects. Users can be restricted to particular projects.
O Two layers of human intervention, 90% accuracy guaranteed in paid service
Automatic TranscriptionsO 3Play Media
O Allows uploads of up to 2GBO Hosts high quality source media for 60 daysO Prices are per linear minute or hourO Upgrades available for same day turnaround
and ‘difficult’ media including poor source audio and significant accents
O Once the transcription and caption alignment process is complete, synced media will remain viewable and embeddable
Automatic TranscriptionsO 3Play Media
O Once processed, media with synced transcriptions and captions can be viewed and manipulated through provided tools
O Transcript viewer tool provides embed code for crisp video player with transcripts and captions
O Clipmaker allows for isolation of segments and new media files of stacked segments cut from interview collection
Automatic TranscriptionsO 3Play Media
O WorkflowO Comprehensive toolO Single stack, or first in the stack for videoO Download plain text transcriptions and port to
OHMS for a more archival-minded presentationO Clipmaker provides next level interaction
O DrawbacksO ExpensiveO No preservation standards, can only be
considered streaming copies
Working in OHMSO Oral History Metadata Synchronizer
O For many in the professional oral history community, the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer is the emerging standard and tool of choice for those envisioning a more archival environment and workflow for their interview collections.
O WorkflowO Must have a streaming media file (audio or
videoO ) Use with or without transcriptions
Working in OHMSO The back end interface of OHMS allows for
a video-game like experience of indexing your interview media. Indexing, in OHMS language, is like chapter marking— taken to a scholarly level.
O You can segment the interview into meaningful chucks, summarize the narration, tag it, and apply keywords from a controlled LOC thesaurus.
O Documentation: three levels of indexing with increasing intellectual and pedagogical complexity.
Working in OHMSO Teams of users can work on a series
of interviews in a collection, and OHMS provides some internal features for tracking completion and quality control workflows.
O can create a significant number of entry points into a series of interviews without providing a full transcription, replete with optional controlled thesaurus and prompts for archival metadata.
Adding Transcripts to OHMSO Still the holy grail of oral history publishing
online rests somewhere in the 'natural language mapping'— the magic that happens at the interstice of a full transcription (the actual words spoken) and the thematic coding and summaries applied by a careful researcher with broad access in mind.
O If you bring a transcription to OHMS (in the form of a properly formatted plain text file), the end result is a fully searchable interview, where the narrator's sentiment can be accessed in context while the end listener toggles between the summary index and the full transcription.
Technology StacksO The ideal solution for working with
digital narrative collections won’t always be found within one tool.
O The OHLA tech stack (in it’s first draft) is redundant storage (cloud and physical) >> PopUp Archive public (which also places a copy in the Internet Archive) >> download plain text transcript >> OHMS >> collaborative indexing >> cache file embedded in Wordpress website
Redundant Storage
Collaborative Indexing & Synthesis
portable plain text transcript
OHMS/Wordpress
PopUp Archive
Cache file