Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 May 25

= May 25 =

Satellite radio business model
What is the business model for individual channels on Sirius XM's satellite radio service? Do they get a share of the subscription earnings based on the number of subscribers that listen to them, or a flat fee, or are they run by Sirius XM directly, or what? I could find stuff on the company's business model, but not the individual channels. Nyttend (talk) 02:22, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Most of the stations are owned and operated by Sirius them self. They play music and pay the music creators royalties (at controversially low rates.)
 * As far as I can tell, the independent stations they partner with each have separately negotiated contracts and none of them have been made public. ApLundell (talk) 14:32, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

website converts audio into paper
Is there a website that converts an audio file into a paper? I am asking this because I recorded lectures of my professors and save them on my phone. I have hard time writing them and it takes time to do so. So I want a website that analyzes the file and converts into a lecture paper. Donmust90 (talk) 23:23, 25 May 2017 (UTC)Donmust90Donmust90 (talk) 23:23, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you want a site that performs speech recognition and creates a text file with the results. Is that correct?  Nyttend (talk) 23:44, 25 May 2017 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of speech recognition software - this link is a top ten review: http://www.toptenreviews.com/business/software/best-voice-recognition-software/. Most will produce a document that you will still need to read through and correct, especially as it won't have been linked to your lecturers' voice patterns. However, I would encourage you to continue transcribing the recordings yourself - it may take longer, but you will learn the material much more effectively by doing that. Wymspen (talk) 14:00, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If the OP's object is to learn the subject taught rather than plagiarizing the professor, one idea is to ask the professor to recommend a text book (if he has not done so already). Blooteuth (talk) 19:30, 26 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Students recording lectures has been going on at least as long as the cassette recorder has been around. Rather than blindly transcribing everything (and running the risk of plagiarizing, as Bloo notes), you should re-listen to the lecture and write down what you think are the key points - just as you would while taking notes in class, with the advantage of having a "pause" button. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:57, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I question whether the concept of plagiarism extends to students either transcribing or recording a lecturer's words. In most university and other academically flavoured lectures I have ever attended (which is by no means as many as I should have attended), this was/is pretty well expected. At some, the lecturer would hand out at the end fairly verbatim copies of the script they'd just delivered (thus saving students the bother of making notes at all) – clearly such lectures and copies were not considered to be copyright. A few lecturers did/do little more than read out portions of a textbook prescribed for the course which, not by coincidence, they'd authored or co-authored. (I do not defend the latter practice as an example of good pedagogy). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.129.108 (talk) 17:20, 27 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Mere transcription is not Plagiarism. Plagiarism is quoting without attribution. If you don't show it to anyone, it's not plagiarism. If you attribute it to its source, its not plagiarism. In academic use the word usually also means that you are explicitly or implicitly asserting that you created the work. This is not necessary for it to be plagiarism, but it is a very serious transgression of academic norms and generally makes you subject to academic sanctions. Copying without permission, with or without attribution, may be a copyright violation. This is completely distinct from plagiarism. A student in a class generally has an implicit license to copy the lecture, but does not have the right to "publish" it, for example by making it available to a third party. Copyright violation is breaking the law. Plagiarism by itself is not. -Arch dude (talk) 03:43, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * "Plaigarism" seems way over the top as a description of a student's notes on a lecture. It would only be plaigarism if the student presented the lecture as his own work, without attribution. And anecdotes and examples presented by a professor may well have come from HIS previous professors or from textbooks he does not credit. One cynical professor I had said "When you are assigned to teach a new course, make sure you have a good textbook for the students to read and another good textbook to furnish additional material for your lectures." That said, I expect it is often the case that a new college teacher goes back to notes he took as an undergrad when preparing lectures he himself will give. He would find some good material in the polished lecture of some master of the subject. If he were to credit the predecessor, it would even enhance his own lecture, like saying "When I learned jazz improvization from Dizzy Gillespie," or "Feynman always said..."  When I was a college teacher, I would sometimes be granted to opportunity to look at the notes some students had taken of my lectures. I was amazing how complete the notes were, and how closely the notes of two attentive students matched each other. I did this when an exam showed some misunderstanding of the topic, and I had to conclude that I had misspoken or had said something which was ambiguous when covering something not presented in the assigned textbook. In no way did I feel they were stealing from me by writing down what I said, which is an idiotic notion. They would be lazy dolts not to take accurate notes. Accurate notes do not really require verbatim transcription, just writing down something when the teacher says "It is important to note," or "You should remember.." which amount to "THIS WILL BE ON THE EXAM!" Edison (talk) 13:26, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * There are countless examples of voice recognition software transcribing a phrase incorrectly, with results ranging from amusing to dangerous. See which gives the example of "needs a lumbar diskectomy as he has a striking foot drop" turned into. "needs a lumbar dickectomy as he has a streaking food rod." "Bland diet" in discharge instructions" turned into "plan to die."  Edison (talk) 18:51, 28 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Supporting anecdata to Edison's ante-previous para: back in 1975, one of my Physics lecturers was a very elderly professor, whose addresses usually segued quickly into amusing stories, such as how Rutherford once accidentally mugged someone in the Quad and stole his watch, or the time when Madame Einstein mistakenly ate an exotic flower table-decoration which might or might not have been the poisonous variety. These lectures were highly entertaining and strengthened the perception of academia as an enduring community, but generally failed to convey much about their purported subject matter, which was not one of the easier branches of physics to grasp. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.129.108 (talk) 19:13, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I mostly agree simply transcribing what the lecturer said for your own notes isn't generally going to be seen as plagiarism. However if you then repeat it exactly on an assignment or a test or exam, this could very well be seen as plagiarism. Note in any case, many sources recommend against simply transcribing what the lecturer said, instead they often suggest you summarise the important points down in your own words and maybe revise and re-write it later in the day or week. See e.g.    (the last one covers a wider point that of handwritten notes vs typed, but to try and reduce problems with typed notes they specifically warned students against transcribing but it still didn't work). This is because you're generally considered more likely to remember the content if you do it this way than if you just write everything down verbatim, and your notes are also hopefully easier to revise later. Nil Einne (talk) 08:56, 30 May 2017 (UTC)