Watch Otter.ai in Action (Online Version)

In this video I demonstrate the Web version of Otter.ai, including the AI Summary features.

Note: Otter.ai works in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Mozilla Firefox. It may not be able to record in Apple Safari or the old Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.

Using the Online Interface

Note: You need an active internet connection to use Otter.ai on a laptop or Chromebook. If you are having difficulty with Wi-Fi on campus, I recommend recording the lecture with the Otter mobile app.

Go to the Otter website and sign in with your my.smccd.edu student email address and your Otter password.
To record, click the Record icon.
You will see the transcript in real time while recording.
To pause the recording, click the Pause icon.
To resume recording, click the blue Mic icon.
To stop recording, click the Stop icon.
Once the recording has been stopped, the conversation is saved automatically with the name "Note" to My Conversations.
To change the name, click the conversation, then click the name and type a new one.
The conversation needs to be processed before you can view and download the transcript on the Otter website. You'll get an email telling you it's ready.

Note: Once a conversation is processed, you can assign names to each speaker. Click on the icon by the temporary name (Speaker 1, etc.) and type in a name. After doing this a couple of times, the software will automatically tag the rest of the recording.

Otter's AI Summary

When Otter processes a conversation, it does a few things:

Completes the transcription process and fixes errors as possible
Lists common keywords at the top of the transcript
Generates a summary

When you come back to a processed conversation, it will likely open in the Summary view. (Click the Transcript tab to go straight to the recording and transcript.) Depending on the length and complexity of the recording, it may have one or all three of the following sections:

Summary paragraph - typically not detailed enough to be useful in a college course
Action Items - sometimes helpful. Although it seldom pulls out tasks that you actually need to complete, usually it does highlight important points from a lecture.
Outline - most useful part of Otter's summary view.

I suggest focusing on the Outline section in the Summary view. You can get a good overview of key points in the lecture, then click a photo or text to go straight to that area in the Transcript and listen to the original recording. I recommend checking your own notes (handwritten or typed) against this outline, and adding to them as needed.

If you were not able to take notes during class, you could use the Outline to get started with your own notes. Click the Copy Summary link at the top of the page to copy all of the text, then open a new document in your word processor and paste the text in to begin working on your notes.