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When a transcript is added, CoLoop labels who is speaking. Those labels start out unconfirmed: they are the system’s best reading of the transcript, not something a person has checked. Confirming them tells CoLoop the names and roles are right, and files with confirmed speakers are the ones that flow into analysis. You can confirm speakers one at a time from the files view, or confirm a whole batch in one action.

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Confirming a batch

Open Confirm speakers from a file’s row to confirm that file, or select files first and use Confirm speakers in the toolbar to confirm all of them. To do a whole project, select every file with the checkbox in the table header. Most of the time this just runs, and a message tells you how many speakers were confirmed. CoLoop stops to ask first only when something will happen that you did not ask for:
  • a speaker will be renamed to keep it apart from another (see below)
  • a speaker has no role yet, so it will be skipped
In those cases you get a summary of exactly what will happen, and nothing is written until you confirm. Files whose speakers are already confirmed are left untouched.

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Speakers who need a role first

A speaker with no role yet cannot be confirmed, because a missing role is exactly what still needs review. It is skipped and named for you, while every other speaker in the batch is still confirmed; one unfinished speaker does not hold up the rest. Give it a role and confirm again to include it.

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When two speakers share a name

Two speakers in the same file can end up with the same name and role, for example if a transcript names two people “Amelia”. Confirming both would make them impossible to tell apart, so CoLoop keeps them separate by numbering the later one: Amelia and Amelia (1). This is a rename, not a merge. The two remain separate speakers with their own turns. The dialog tells you how many will be numbered this way before you confirm. Two important cases where this does not happen:
  • The same name in different files. Two files can each have an “Amelia” and both keep the name. They are separate speakers until you deliberately merge them from the participants view.
  • The same name in different roles. A participant and a researcher can both be called “Ryan” in one file, since only participants are referred to by name in analysis.

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Confirming a speaker who appears in several files

If you have merged speakers across files, that speaker is one person spanning several transcripts. Confirming from a file’s context applies to that file only; the speaker’s other files are left as they were. This keeps the change limited to the file you were working in.