Web-based automatic speech recognition service - webASR

Abstract

A state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition (ASR) system was developed as part of the AMIDA project whose core domain was the transcription of small to medium sized meetings. The system has performed well in recent NIST evaluations (RT’07 and RT’09). This research-grade ASR system has now been made available as a free web service (webASR) targeting non-commercial researchers. Access to the service is via and standard browser-based interface as well as an API. The service provides the facility to upload audio recordings which are then processed by the ASR system to produce a word-level transcript. Such transcripts are available in a range of formats to suite different needs and technical expertise. The API allows the core webASR functionality to be integrated seamlessly into applications and services. Detailed descriptions of the system design and user interface are provided. Index Terms: speech recognition, interface, api, transcription, web service