Mobile Application for Improving Speech and Text Data Collection Approach

Abstract

This paper describes our work in developing a mobile application for collecting language speech and text data. The application is built to assist linguists or researchers in simplifying their tasks in data collection who of native speakers living in remote interiors. Researchers rely on numerous apparatus to carry out their tasks to capture audio or text from far to reach places, but with this mobile application, they would only need to carry one device, which can ease their logistics troubles. The mobile app, named as Kalaka, is designed for users to store details of native speakers, record speech and insert speech transcripts all in one platform. Kalaka is built on the Android platform, which allows data stored in the mobile device to be transferred to a cloud storage using WiFi networks. Usability tests performed in respondents shows, all participants in the evaluation are able to use the application to record their voices and save texts. We also received positive feedbacks on the mobile application from our survey, with more than half of the respondents gave their confidence using Kalaka and they would use the system frequently.