Audio mining

I work an educational facility, and have been asked by a director to look into a solution that would allow us to record classroom activity both visually and audibly, and then allow us to "search" the recordings later for key words/phrases. From what little research I have done to this point, it appears I will need some sort of audio mining software; I am wondering if anybody is familiar with any software solutions availbale that can accomplish this ?

Any help/thoughts/comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Google brings up a few. Being on the educational end like yourself I use a cheaper method - a key logger. Anything typed on the keyboard is saved as a text file, including the users name. I know that's not as specific a solution as the one your looking for. Just an alternate idea.

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Originally Posted by shamus

Google brings up a few. Being on the educational end like yourself I use a cheaper method - a key logger. Anything typed on the keyboard is saved as a text file, including the users name. I know that's not as specific a solution as the one your looking for. Just an alternate idea.

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yeah, but they're looking to observe teachers instructing and then be able to search the conversations, so the keylogger doesn't help in this case.

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Originally Posted by 3fingersalute

yeah, but they're looking to observe teachers instructing and then be able to search the conversations, so the keylogger doesn't help in this case.

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I didn't realize you wanted to spy on the teachers!...:p
Here's an interesting site I found. Good explanations and software is listed at the bottom of the page. Maybe this'll help you out:
http://www.jmdl.com/howard/audio-mining.html

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Originally Posted by shamus

I didn't realize you wanted to spy on the teachers!...:p
Here's an interesting site I found. Good explanations and software is listed at the bottom of the page. Maybe this'll help you out:
http://www.jmdl.com/howard/audio-mining.html

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The idea here is that the classroom activity is monitored and recorded both visually and audibly, and everything is recorded and stored digitally, and then later, a software program can scan the files for keywords or phrases. The software needs to be able to scan through the video files, and translate the audio to text and then search the text for whatever search term the user desires.

It sounded far fetched to me, but a little research has shown that it is possible, and has actually been in use since about 1999. Nexidia seems to be the leader in the field of "audio mining" so we are going to take a look there as well as Dragon's Audio Mining software.

Aurix - Aurix audio miner

Aurix audio miner - phonetic audio mining software.

BBN

BBN audio indexer - LVCSR audio mining system.

CallMiner

CallMiner - Speech analytics software.

Nexidia - FastTalk

FastTalk - phonetic audio mining software ("phonetic search engine").

ScanSoft

ScanSoft speech indexing - LVCSR audio mining system.

Witness Systems

Witness systems - Speech analytics for call centres.

whilst I'm not well versed in this technology, I assume the teachers will be aware of this... will they be wearing a microphone? cause I'm just thinking the background noise would be quite immense if the microphone is located far away. Though the programs may compensate for this as we've all seen on CSI :P From a brief look at the websites provided I think most of the software is assuming the voice is near a microphone such as a phone... just thought I'd point that out...

While it may not be your department and perhaps this isn't quite the place to discuss it (or you don't want to hear it :), have you discussed the legal ethics of this? To my knowledge where I am, unless all parties are aware they are being recorded it is illegal to record the conversation. Plus if this is involving children the parents or guardians must sign off on it first... I have heard there are different precidences set concerning the difference between video and audio records, doing both I'd be sure the legal stuff is checked out first...

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Originally Posted by arch0nmyc0n

whilst I'm not well versed in this technology, I assume the teachers will be aware of this... will they be wearing a microphone? cause I'm just thinking the background noise would be quite immense if the microphone is located far away. Though the programs may compensate for this as we've all seen on CSI :P From a brief look at the websites provided I think most of the software is assuming the voice is near a microphone such as a phone... just thought I'd point that out...

While it may not be your department and perhaps this isn't quite the place to discuss it (or you don't want to hear it :), have you discussed the legal ethics of this? To my knowledge where I am, unless all parties are aware they are being recorded it is illegal to record the conversation. Plus if this is involving children the parents or guardians must sign off on it first... I have heard there are different precidences set concerning the difference between video and audio records, doing both I'd be sure the legal stuff is checked out first...

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I'm not sure on the mics, we're just doing preliminary research right now, I've looked at some conferencing style mics as well as individual mics that the instructors could wear on their shirts.

This is a project that will be funded by a major university, it is going to be used to study teaching habits and then used as an educational tool from what I gather. The legalities won't be a concern, the instructors know this project is in the works, and anybody attending the class will be given the option to attend a different class that is not being observed from what I've been told.

I figure it was something to that fact, but I felt it proper to point it out. Very interesting idea and I'd like to know the final solution when the time arrives...

Audio mining software is of course some voice recognition software & a database, & lots of folks understand databases, so I'd have thought if you want to do it on the cheap, that its possible with some voice recognition software, & a few pc's with webcams ?

How are you wanting to analyse movement ?

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

Audio mining software is of course some voice recognition software & a database, & lots of folks understand databases, so I'd have thought if you want to do it on the cheap, that its possible with some voice recognition software, & a few pc's with webcams ?

How are you wanting to analyse movement ?

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I'm not entirely sure, details are kind of sketchy at the moment. I should hopefully know more within the next week or two.