The start of the academic year often brings new research projects, fresh funding and a busy programme of interviews or focus groups.
Transcription can easily be treated as something to organise later. Planning it before data collection begins can save time, control costs and prevent difficulties with ethics, consent and data handling.
Include transcription in your ethics application
If your research involves personal or sensitive information, the ethics application may need to explain how recordings and transcripts will be transferred, accessed, stored, retained and deleted.
If you intend to use an external transcription provider, include this in the application where required. You may also need to explain how the provider meets your university’s data-protection, security and procurement requirements.
Our research ethics guide provides questions and suggested wording to help with this process.
Check your participant documents
Participants should understand that interviews or discussions will be recorded and transcribed.
The participant information sheet and consent form should explain what will happen to the recording, who may access it, how long it will be retained and whether names or other identifying details will be removed from the transcript.
It is much easier to establish these arrangements at the outset than to seek additional consent after interviews have taken place.
Set a realistic budget
Transcription prices are affected by the recording length and quality, number of speakers, required turnaround and level of detail.
Estimate how many interviews or focus groups you expect to conduct and their likely duration. If you are applying for funding, include a realistic transcription allowance rather than assuming that the research team will have time to complete the work internally.
Choose the required transcript
Not every project needs the same transcription style.
Intelligent verbatim is suitable for many interviews and focus groups. Strict verbatim includes additional speech features such as hesitations, repetitions and false starts. Conversation analysis may require detailed Jefferson notation.
Projects may also need timestamps, particular speaker labels, anonymisation or a university-specific template. Our transcription editing levels guide explains the principal options.
Include transcription in the timetable
Submitting recordings in batches can allow coding and analysis to begin while later interviews are still taking place.
Leaving every recording until the end can cause avoidable delays, particularly when working towards a funding deadline, publication date or dissertation submission.
University Transcriptions provides secure human transcription for universities, researchers and students. Request a personalised quotation or contact us before your first interview for practical advice.
