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Methodology

Quality you can inspect. Results you can reproduce.

Every dataset and evaluation follows the same documented pipeline, with written guidelines, two-reviewer verification and measured error rates in every delivery.

On this page
  • Pipeline
  • Annotation standards
  • Evaluation metrics
  • Failure handling
  • Sample report format
Pipeline

From recruitment to delivery

01 · RECRUITSpeakers

Local coordinators recruit by district, dialect and the mix agreed with you.

02 · CONSENTAgreement

Purpose and uses explained in the speaker's language; signed and indexed.

03 · RECORDCapture

Guided sessions with level, clipping and silence checks.

04 · VERIFYTwo reviewers

Native transcription plus independent second review.

Annotation standards

Written down before work starts

GUIDE

Project guidelines

Spelling convention, normalisation, tags and edge cases, versioned per project.

ADJUDICATE

Disagreement resolution

A senior linguist resolves conflicts; each decision is logged with a reason.

VERSION

Change control

Guideline changes are dated and applied to all affected files.

Evaluation metrics

What we measure and how

MetricDefinitionWhy it matters
WERWord substitutions + deletions + insertions ÷ reference wordsStandard, comparable recognition accuracy
CERSame at character levelFairer for languages with variable spelling
Meaning-critical error rateShare of utterances where the intent changesCaptures failures WER hides
Subgroup breakdownMetrics split by dialect, condition, age band, code-switchShows who your model fails
ExclusionsClips removed and why (e.g. unusable audio)Keeps results honest and reproducible
Failure handling

When something is wrong, we fix it

01

Corrections

Errors found by you or our QA are corrected and redelivered.

02

Replacement

Clips failing audio or consent checks are re-recorded with new speakers.

03

Acceptance

We agree acceptance criteria up front and measure against them.

Sample report format

What a delivery contains

A full specimen report will be downloadable at launch. The structure is below.

phonivra_delivery/ report.pdf # methodology, metrics, subgroup results, limitations utterances.jsonl # id, audio path, reference, hypothesis, errors errors.csv # one row per error with class and severity metadata.csv # speaker band, dialect, district, condition, device guidelines_v1.2.pdf # annotation rules used licence.txt # permitted uses consent_index.csv # consent IDs, no personal data

Illustrative example of our format. Live consented samples publish at launch.

Start small

Test your model on 100 real utterances.

A fixed-scope pilot across Saraiki, Pakistani Punjabi and Urdu with a full error report. You keep the findings.