It has been agreed that the IASM-A CORPUS should contain no speaking errors. Further the inter-utterance pauses should be captured in their entirety and there should be no DISCONTINUITIES within a TAKE.
PROMPTING STYLE 1 WILL BE USED TOGETHER WITH RECORDING MODE 1. THERE SHALL BE ONLY ONE TAKE PER FILE.
The recording system will be integrated with the prompting system and this is to be as automatic as possible (see EUROPEC Section III below). It is clearly possible for the prompting system to start the recording system before the first prompt. In the general case of RECORDING MODE 1 as discussed in the earlier part of this document, the end of the final utterance is not defined. However, it has been agreed that a base level annotation will be automatically produced during the TAKE. This will consist of the prompted orthographic text along with the endpoints of each utterance. As each endpoint is known to the prompting/recording system, then this information can be used to stop the recording process at the end of the final utterance.
A TIME ALIGNED ORTHOGRAPHIC ANNOTATION WILL BE PRODUCED AUTOMATICALLY DURING THE TAKE - THE RECORDING PROCESS WILL BE STOPPED AUTOMATICALLY AFTER THE FINAL UTTERANCE.
However, if in the light of experience, it is found that significant SESSION time is wasted in re-recording TAKES or subjects are being excessively stressed by the ``ABORT TAKE on error'' style then the next most appropriate technique would be to ``BACKUP-ON-FLY'' and excise any errors from the TAKE. This technique will require an addition to the previously agreed standard of annotation file, namely a label to indicate the position of the DISCONTINUITY so caused.
PROMPTING STYLE 2 AND RECORDING MODE 2 WILL BE USED ONLY EXCEPTIONALLY AND WITH THE AGREEMENT OF OTHER MEMBERS OF THE CONSORTIUM - A DISCONTINUITY MARKER TO BE ADDED TO THE ANNOTATION FILE. ONE TAKE PER FILE.
It has been suggested that a regular timing strategy puts too much stress on some speakers and that there is evidence of excessive speaking rate when endpoint timing (i.e. speaker driven prompting rate) is used.
MIXED TIMING STRATEGY WILL BE USED
The exact value for tP (the minimum prompting interval in this strategy) depends on the display time (DLA: [time in seconds] in the prompt file) plus the stop back-off time.