A Conference can be defined as any exchange of knowledge, information or a discussion
in a prearranged meeting with a formal agenda. The formal, professional nature of
conferences makes it important to maintain an accurate record of the discussions
that take place during its course. This can either be done by someone in the conference
who is dedicated to registering every valuable point expressed by any of the participants
or by creating an audio recording of the conference and getting it professionally
transcribed. Audio recording and transcription has inherent advantage over manual
registering as it reduces the chances of human errors.
Intelligent word to word (verbatim) transcription has become an integral part of
conference transcription. It means eliminating miscellaneous words or interjections
used in verbal language like “you know”, “like”, “err” etc without ignoring any
vital piece of information expressed in the conference. Any transcriptionist doing
Conference Transcription must be capable of accurately conducting this exercise.
However it must be remembered that intelligent verbatim may not be essential to
conference transcription, many a times customers / client want literal transcriptions
of their audio files.
Conference transcription can include press conferences, research interviews, lectures,
board meetings, seminars, focus groups, corporate meetings etc. The very medium
of conference can also vary; no more do participants need to be face to face when
it comes to conferencing. A conference can also be conducted over the Internet or
Telephone. The recordings of telephonic and online conferences are normally of better
audio quality, making the job of the transcriptionist easier.
Maintaining confidentiality becomes a far more important issue when it comes to
Conference Transcription. Many a time important internal, sensitive issues are discussed
by the participants. The transcription company as well as the transcriptionist must
take due care not to allow any data leak during their handling of the transcript
or the audio files.
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