What is Otter.ai and Why would I use it?

Otter is a leading tool for creating transcriptions and summaries. Otter is voice-to-text transcription software that uses artificial intelligence, and it has several great features:

You can install the Otter mobile app on your phone and record your thoughts or interview anyone on the go.
If you have audio or video files with voice, you can upload them to Otter, and it'll start turning everything into text.
When you're dealing with lots of video meetings, you can set up OtterPilot to join each call with you and automatically transcribe everything that's said.

Producing transcripts using Otter.ai

Otter licenses can be obtained for members of staff or research-focused students on request, via the IT helpdesk. This is particularly helpful for those who need to transcribe interviews or other fieldwork.

Otter.ai should not be used to transcribe videos which contain sensitive data such as student interviews or recordings where student names or data is included. Otter.ai is an appropriate tool for recorded lectures.

Once you have created your video or audio file you can upload this to http://www.otter.ai to create a transcript file. Otter will accept many video file formats including MP4 and .MOV (Quicktime). Alternativey playback the audio on your computer and Otter will transcribe it live.

You can output a text file (txt). This can then be copied into MS Word for further use and formatting.

Here is a guide to getting started with Otter.ai: