Though few people on campus use the services of telephone operators, those that do dial "0" frequently are being greeted by a new voice this term -- that of a computer.
Over winter break, the College installed a new "automated voice-recognition answering system" to answer all intra-campus calls and to provide service for off-campus calls made after human operators have gone home.
The service, called IntelliSpeech, utilizes voice-recognition software to direct calls to the appropriate party. Callers are greeted with the message, "Thank you for calling Dartmouth College. Please speak the name of the person or department you wish to reach." After the caller responds, the "auto-attendant" repeats the request and then automatically directs the call to the appropriate on-campus phone number.
The voice-recognition software itself is "self-learning," according to Director of Telecommunications Bob Johnson, meaning that as it hears names repeated to it more frequently, it will adjust not only how it interprets other people saying that name, but also how it repeats the name.
"Eventually, as the system learns more, it will no longer have to repeat the names, and will immediately direct your call where you want it to go," Johnson said.
So far, the system has had a 93.6 percent success rate of directing calls to the correct phone number, according to Johnson. However, Johnson said he expects the rate to go up as the system learns.
The new automated system has not, however, made human phone operators obsolete. During regular operating hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., human operators will continue to answer all calls made to the main Dartmouth number. Likewise, during those same hours the auto-attendant will offer to connect any on-campus caller to the human operators in lieu of using the automated service.
"Really, it just increases the volume of calls we can handle, but also it allows calls to be directed even when the school is closed," Johnson said.
Students are encouraged to call the system by dialing "0" and try out their own name to make sure the system is pronouncing it correctly. Any problems with the automated system, including mispronunciation, should be reported to Telecommunications by leaving a message at 646-9000.
