GailBot awarded for innovation in conversation analysis, five other emerging software tools receive support

Sage has announced the winners of the 2023 Sage Concept Grant, with £15,000 awarded to GailBot, an automatic transcription system for conversation analysis. Five further grants of £2,000 were awarded to early-stage software ideas that support social scientists during the research process.

Researchers studying human interaction rely on detailed transcriptions to analyze language use. GailBot is designed to help social scientists in generating conversation analysis transcripts for their research. By automatically transcribing paralinguistic features like overlaps, intonation, and silences, it offers researchers a deeper understanding of the subtle nuances and complexities of communication.

The funding from Sage will enable GailBot to work closely with social science researchers at major academic centers of conversation analysis to help them use GailBot in their research, while also setting up a pipeline for ongoing user feedback to support the continuous improvement of the tool.

“I am really excited to see how scaling up GailBot might allow us to begin working with larger corpora,” said Saul Albert, co-creator of GailBot. “And to see how people with different projects and approaches integrate it into their workflows."

Five grants of £2,000 were awarded to software tools in the early stages of development, to enable concept testing and software development. The winners are: 

• SocSci Tools in BoKMap Analyst by Dr André Skupin. Advancing the discoverability and integration of social science tools through knowledge ecosystem services

• Swara by Mrs. Husnul Fitri. Supports survey data collection from participants with disabilities.

• Annotiva by Nako Abdullah, Basit Ansari and Vahid Goodarzi Ardakani. An AI-based coding system that carries out and supports qualitative data analysis.

• Gorilla’s Shop Builder by Dr Johanna Tomczak. A tool that allows researchers to easily create a simulated and interactive online shop to gather rich behavioral datasets.

• Protolyst by Dr Nicholas Dacre. Notion meets Roam Research. Protolyst optimizes the management, analysis, and extraction of insights from extensive qualitative data for the social sciences.

"I am thrilled to announce GailBot as the main recipient of this year’s grant. GailBot is a truly innovative tool for researchers studying human interaction - from conversation analysts and linguists to psychologists,” said Katie Metzler, Vice President of Books and Social Science Innovation at Sage. “We've also awarded five grants of £2,000 each to early-stage software tools that present fresh, creative approaches to research challenges. From improving data collection for participants with disabilities to optimizing qualitative data management, these tools represent the future of social science research. Sage is committed to enabling impactful research, and we’re excited to see how these tools will help support social and behavioral science researchers."

Learn more about the Sage Concept Grant 2023 winners.

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Sage is a global academic publisher of books, journals, and library resources with a growing range of technologies to enable discovery, access, and engagement. Believing that research and education are critical in shaping society, 24-year-old Sara Miller McCune founded Sage in 1965. Today, we are controlled by a group of trustees charged with maintaining our independence and mission indefinitely. 

Our guaranteed independence means we’re free to:

• Do more – supporting an equitable academic future, furthering disciplines that drive social change, and helping social and behavioral science make an impact

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