BA-DS-Research-Software.md

-The research software listed below is used / taught in different programmes at FASoS. Please check the relevant methods sections in this wiki to find out which software is recommended for different approaches to data / sources.
+Research software plays an important role both in quantitative and qualitative research, but (thesis) students often struggle with finding software that is easy to use, GDPR-compliant, safe, and ethically sound.
+
+Ideally, students should abstain from buying commercial software of their own. Especially cloud-based tools often imply that ingested data is used for tool improvement, such as AI training, later, and this can be a problem when working with sensitive research data.
+
+Students' first point of information on research software should, therefore, be the UM library, who provide an overview of tools for which we have official UM student subscriptions:
+
+[UB Apps and Tools](https://library.maastrichtuniversity.nl/apps-tools/)
+
+In addition, there is a growing pool of recommended open-source research software developed by academics for academics. The research software listed below is commonly used or taught in different programmes at FASoS. Please check the relevant methods sections in this wiki to find out which software is recommended for different analytical approaches to data / sources.
 
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@@ -17,6 +25,14 @@ Atlas.ti maintains [an official YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/channel
 
 \[_Summary by Monika Barget_\]
 
+</details>
+<details>
+<summary>
+### aTrain (automated audio / video transcription)
+</summary>
+According to its developer Jürgen Fleiss, "[aTrain](https://github.com/JuergenFleiss/aTrain) is a tool for automatically transcribing speech recordings utilizing state-of-the-art machine learning models without uploading any data." It is one of two tools for audio and video transcription that we officially recommend at FASoS because it is GDPR-compliant. You can try and install aTrain on your computer, but your machine may not be powerful enough. If that is the case, you can contact The Plant at FASoS and use one of their high-end PCs with a pre-installed version of aTrain for your transcriptions.
+
+\[_Summary by Monika Barget_\]
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@@ -33,7 +49,16 @@ The Data Science Research Infrastructure (DSRI) is available for thesis students
 \[_Summary by Monika Barget_\]
 
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+
+### noScribe (automated audio / video transcription)
+</summary>
 
+[noScribe](https://github.com/kaixxx/noScribe) is an AI-assisted and at the same time GDPR-compliant transcription tool for different operating systems that simplifies the automatic transcription of interviews, discussions, or videos. It offers speaker recognition, multi-language support, and annotation features. The tool was specifically designed for academic use and does not send any of your data to the cloud for model training as you run the software either locally on your machine or in a Docker image. The downside is, of course, that installing noScribe takes up quite some space on your computer, and you need sufficient computational power, too. If your computer is not powerful enough, you can contact The Plant at FASoS and use one of their high-end computers for your transcriptions.
+
+[Summary by Monika Barget]
+</details>
 
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@@ -41,8 +66,6 @@ The Data Science Research Infrastructure (DSRI) is available for thesis students
 ### OpenRefine (data cleaning)
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-OpenRefine
-
 [OpenRefine](https://openrefine.org/) is a data-cleaning and transformation tool for handling messy datasets. It’s especially useful for preparing tabular data from social media platforms or survey exports. Students can identify and merge duplicates, standardise values, and even link data to external resources like Wikidata for enrichment. OpenRefine is ideal for making your data clean, consistent, and ready for analysis in tools like Voyant (distant reading) or Gephi (network visualisation).
 
 [Summary by Monika Barget]