The Basics

This chapter contains some basic general information about crowdsourcing that is useful for all speech applications. It uses a review of the literature to show what areas of research have used crowdsourcing and to show what has been done to deal with specific concerns, like quality control. It begins with an overview of the literature on crowdsourcing for speech processing. Then it maps out the types of alternatives to crowdsourcing that the reader might consider and describes the crowdsourcing platforms that exist. From there it discusses how to make task creation easier. Then it gives details about some basic considerations such as getting the audio in and out and payment. Prequalification and native language of the worker are also presented in this chapter and can serve as an introduction to the issue of quality control. The chapter finishes with some useful tips.