Reduce Size of Student Profiles (DNS 8.0-9.0)

As you make corrections and perform additional training, Dragon stores this data as .dra files in an archive to use with Acoustic Optimizer. In the professional version, these speech files can also be stored with dictated documents. Storing these files causes the speech profile to grow quite large (200-300 MB) in a short period of time. Storing these large profiles can become problematic for schools with limited remote storage space for student files.

In addition, based on information gleaned from a professional Dragon user list serve and other sources, most do not recommend running the Acoustic Optimizer. Some of the reasons you may not want to have students run the Acoustic Optimizer are:

· It greatly increases the size of the speech profile.

· Professional users question the benefits of running the Acoustic Optimizer –some have even experienced a “decrease” in accuracy.

· The program recommends the user have about 50+ hours of dictation in the profile before running the optimizer. Most students will not dictate that many hours during a semester course.

A. To reduce the size of the profile, but still be able to run the Acoustic Optimizer, do the following:

1. On the DragonBar select Tools, Options, Data

2. Check “Conserve disk space used by speech files”

3. Click Archive Size – Slide left to the Min 30 (only stores 30 minutes of data corrections)

4. Check Incremental adaptation of additional training (Check "Incremental adaptation of additional training"-- this means it will only use the dictation in the additional training session when adapting instead of going back to use everything in the archives.  This saves time too)

RECOMMEND:

B. To reduce the student profile more without the ability to run the Acoustic Optimizer:

1. On the DragonBar select Tools, Options, Data

2. Check "Conserve disk space used by speech files"

3. Uncheck "Store corrections in Archives" 

4. Check Incremental adaptation of additional training

5. Click Advanced -- make sure "Collect Data for Research Purposes" is not checked.

6. Click Delete Data

C. For maximum reduction of speech profile in external storage (only recommended if absolutely necessary and should only be done by teacher or students with supervision)

1. Do everything in B section above

2. After exporting, click on the exported file and delete the Backup folder that was also exported (in other words a double copy of everything) and that would just leave the Current profile in the external storage.  If you do not have Deep Freeze or other automatic reimaging software, DNS will automatically back up user profiles on the hard drive every five saves.