7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 1/6

Welcome!

We here at Open Source Solutions are proud to welcome the Society for Environmental

Journalists (SEJ) to our clientele. We look forward to working with your organization and are

happy to introduce you to the wonders of open source software. To start this relationship on theright note, we’ve compiled some background information on open source software for you and

would like to highlight a piece of software that will help you reach an increasingly auditory

audience.

Background on open source software

The ter m “open” can be used as an adjective applied to any other term, such as source, access,

science, etc.; to indicate a certain level of accessibility or availability to individuals. Forexample, the openness of software lies in having the source code accessible to consumers withthe understanding that anyone is free to alter the code to his or her own benefit, and in some

cases, he or she then makes the code available to other consumers (“What…”). In other words,open source software often has to meet 4 criteria: the freedom to run the program for any purpose, the right to adapt it to your needs, the freedom to redistribute, and the freedom to

release any improvements you make to the public for community benefit (Lessig). Supporters of

the “open” movement believe in collaborative participation, creating transparency, communitydevelopment, and information sharing at all academic levels.

Benefits and risks of open source software

There are many controversies surrounding the “open” movement. People argue aboutwho “owns” information and whether intellectual property is a right. Having such a

degree of openness can also have negative cultural implications (Christen). Also,

instituting the increased accessibility of information and the capability of anyone to postinformation to the web will come at the expense of accuracy and efficiency; it will take

more time to sort through information and identify credible sources. In addition, those

who oppose “open” systems often have a large stake in owning the research or content

that is put online and feel that their privacy is breached. For example, scientistsresearching alternative energy solutions or attempting to design things more sustainably

could benefit greatly from sharing ideas during the actual process, but they are probably

more inclined to keep their work to themselves until completion; “openness” would savetime and money because there may be no need to improve upon their products after initial

 prototypes due to the collaboration and multiple perspectives that dreamed up the design.

Open source software has many benefits outside of the controversies shared above. It promotes collaboration and communication among diverse groups of users, as people are

encouraged to share changes they make to the code with the community. It is also often a

more cost-effective way of obtaining the tools necessary to create awesome products for professional or personal use. We’d like to introduce you to such a piece of software. 

7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 2/6

Open source software useful to your organization - Audacity 2.1.0

The Society of Environmental Journalists lists its mission as endeavoring to strengthen the

coverage of environment, energy, health, and climate news, by supporting the journalists who

report that news (“Society…”). Journalism is an ever -evolving field, and we’d like to supportyour cause by helping you stay at the forefront of trends. Podcasts are rapidly becoming more

 popular with the increase in the amount of smartphones as well as cars with internet access.They’re becoming the new public radio, in a sense, and the market is becoming morecompetitive (Clark). To keep up with this increasingly auditory audience base, we suggest using

the open source audio editing software known as Audacity 2.1.0.

Audacity brands itself as “a free multi-track audio editor and recorder.” Unlike GarageBand,

which is sold by Apple and only compatible with Mac computers, Audacity is free to download

on Audacityteam.org or SourceForge.net and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and GNU/Linux, as

well as other operating systems; the interface has also been translated into many languages, sothe software is available to a very wide range of users (“Audacity”).

Fig. 1 –  Drag audio file into Audacity. Fig. 2 –  File can be worked on as a new project.

If you’re simply looking to clean up the audio and cut bits and pieces here and there, then this is

definitely the software for you; but Audacity also has the capability to splice or mix soundstogether, change the speed or pitch of your recording, silence some parts of the track, add music

underneath the track, etc. Audacity also gives you the option of recording sound live and adding

it to another track.

7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 3/6

 Fig. 3 –  Select audio to cut. Fig. 4 –  Record audio live over a track.

These features make creating podcasts a cinch! Audacity also offers a Quick Help option and a

Manual, both of which can be installed locally with the software; as well as a Wiki which offers

the latest tips, tricks, and tutorials; and a Forum, where users can ask questions directly. With the plethora of resources available to users, no prior knowledge or background in video editing is

really necessary to use this software.

Benefits and risks

There are still some risks involved in addition to some accessibility issues. Some bugs

have been reported with the software that occur rarely but still pose problems. There have

 been reports of system crashes upon importing audio, failure to reopen saved projects,

and issues with projects opening with missing or silenced audio (“Reporting…”). Anaccessibility issue is that there is very little text located outside of the main toolbar at the

top of the program and almost all functions are represented by icons. The program doesnot seem to be designed for people with visual impairments. Although no technical skills

are really needed to operate this software, if you can’t read the text that pops up when

you mouse over an icon, you will find Audacity hard to use.

Fig. 5 –  Tools are represented by icons with mouse-over text.

7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 4/6

Other than this fact and the potential bugs, there don’t seem to be any major risks to using

this software and there have been no reports of privacy issues, as this software doesn’t

collect personal information.

Specific tips and tutorialsTo get you started, we’ll help you create and save a project.

Audio files can be imported into Audacity in several ways.

We can:

1) Import audio from a file on our computer by going to File > Import > Audio.

2) Drag the audio file into the Audacity shortcut on the desktop.

3) Drag the audio file from your desktop or folder directly onto the editing track.

7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 5/6

 

If you’re looking to record audio instead of using an existing audio file, you don’t need to do any

of the 3 steps listed above. Simply click the “Record” button located under the main toolbar, andthis will create a track in the workspace where your recorded audio will be represented.

Creating a project is as easy as that. The next step is saving your project.

To begin, go to File > Save Project As… 

Select the location where you want to save your project. Take careful note of where you are

sending your file. Also notice that the project saves as an .aup file. Once you’ve selected the

location and named your project, click “Save” to save your project. 

One thing that is not expressly clear is that doing this creates two files, the actual Audacity

 project file and the _data file, which must be moved or transferred together in order to reopen a

 project later; if one file is missing, the software will not be able to find and open the project.However, that work can be recovered if the file that was moved is reunited with its partner. As

long as both files still exist, and if they are together, they will open. Essentially, decide where

you want to keep your files BEFORE you save them, and refrain from moving them later. If you

absolutely must move them, move them as a pair.

7/17/2019 White Paper

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/white-paper-568cdc9b67a2a 6/6

Enjoy!

We hope you enjoy using Audacity 2.1.0 and wish you the best of luck in creating podcasts that

will help your organization inform a wider audience than ever about environment, energy, health,

and climate issues and research.

Sincerely,

Open Source Solutions

Sources

“Audacity.” SourceForge. 15 Apr. 2015. Web. 29 May 2015.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

Christen, Kim berly. “Does Information Really Want to be Free?” Web. 22 May 2015.

  https://docs.google.com/a/msu.edu/file/d/0B0J_Yin032JWTmZWQjhmMThmd2s/edit

Clark, Dorie. “Here’s the Future of Podcasting.” Forbes. 19 Nov. 2014. Web. 30 Jun. 2015.http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2014/11/19/heres-the-future-of-podcasting/

Lessig, Lawrence. “The People Own Ideas!?” Web. 22 May 2015.http://www.technologyreview.com/news/405314/the-people-own-ideas/

“Reporting Bugs.” Wiki Audacity. 15 May 2015. Web. 29 May 2015.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Reporting_Bugs

“Society of Environmental Journalists.” The Society of Environmental Journalists. Web. 30 Jun.

2015. http://www.sej.org/

“What is open source?” Web. 22 May 2015. http://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source