The challenge
The U.S. Army Reserve Command's Office of the Inspector General runs investigations whose recorded interviews and testimony become part of the record — material that has to be rendered in full, word for word, because it can be relied on in legal and administrative proceedings. Digital audio had built up faster than it could be transcribed in house.
The recordings were sensitive. Everything transcribed carried appropriate markings, so it had to move, be worked on, and come back under controlled procedures — not a general-purpose transcription workflow — and it had to be accurate, because errors in a transcript of sworn testimony carry weight.
The solution
DCLS provided verbatim transcription of the Inspector General's recorded interviews, testimony, and oral histories — recordings that ran from 20 minutes to eight hours each — under a multi-year contract. Every transcript was produced to the accuracy standard the contract set, through DCLS's quality-control process, and returned on one of three turnaround tiers, down to the next business day when an investigation needed it fast.
The work ran on procedures built for the material: U.S.-citizen transcribers under non-disclosure agreement, files exchanged only through the government's secure system, appropriate markings on every page, and tracked handling from receipt to delivery. DCLS acted as guardian of the record for every assigned file.
The results
- More than 5,000 pages of verbatim interview, testimony, and oral-history transcription delivered to the Army Reserve Inspector General.
- Transcripts produced to the accuracy standard the contract sets for testimony that supports legal and administrative proceedings.
- Three turnaround tiers, down to next business day, so time-critical investigations aren't held up waiting on the record.
- Appropriate markings maintained end to end — U.S.-citizen transcribers under NDA, secure government file exchange, tracked custody, verified on every page.
