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The following article outlines ways in which to think of data and plan a strategy to maintain and record information about data (as known as metadata). At every step of your project, you can address and work with data differently, depending on how you plan to use it.
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Frequently Used TermsIn this article, there are many terms and themes around data and technology. Some of them might be more common than others. If you are unsure about any wording or terms, please consult these resources that describe many words relating to language and technology that would be considered 'jargon' or specialized vocabulary:
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Recording Practices
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Recording audio is an interactive and often fun task involved with FirstVoices projects and other language initiatives.
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A good standard is 48,000 Hz or 48kHz as a Sample Rate and 24-bits as the Bit-depth in a software called Audacity.
Related resources to this topic can be found here:
Audacity: Standards and Settings (Located on the sister DiGI Knowledge Base)
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Labelling
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Labelling might not seem like a big deal. However, once you start recording lots of audio and need to store and find individual recordings out of thousands, labelling is helpful in your workflow.
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How you arrange and track this recording information is another aspect of data management and maintenance. We can call this our audio inventory.
Related resources to this topic can be found here:
Module 6: What is Metadata? (Located on the sister DiGi Knowledge Base)
Create Finding Aids (Located on the sister DiGi Knowledge Base)
Archival Organization (Located on the sister DiGi Knowledge Base)
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Checksums
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Checksums are another aspect of data that is often used in archiving. They are also helpful to employ and adopt into your FirstVoices project. To use checksums, you will need to download and install additional software, and we recommend BWF MetaEdit.
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One important step in using checksums is the review and monitoring of changes. It will be important to establish a procedure and schedule to use BWF MetaEdit on your files again to check on these files. The software will also tell you if there have been changes to the files’ checksums that have already been embedded.
Related resources to this topic can be found here:
Module 5: Installing Audacity and MetaEdit (Located on the sister DiGi Knowledge Base)
BWF MetaEdit: Inputting Metadata (Located on the sister DiGi Knowledge Base)
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Backups & Storage
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Backups are copies of your data that are stored in multiple settings or locations to be used in a pinch and in case of data loss.
Depending on the amount of data you are backing up, it may be faster to enable automatic backups. Some software programs like ELAN, which is used for transcribing audio and videos, can backup automatically if you change the settings within it.
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Some programs that will |
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expedite the process and help you make backups quickly on your computer include: |
A backup is also only useful if it has copies of itself and if its storage space is protected.
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Backups should be easy to always locate and be available to language technology workers for their use.
Related resources to this topic can be found here:
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Check Before You Tech
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Another resource you can use to evaluate and consider your options before beginning your language technology project is the Check Before You Tech document from the First Peoples’ Cultural Council.
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