As the official research and publishing arm of Religious Education at BYU, the Religious Studies Center was designed to be a lifelong resource for gospel scholarship. Through printing high-quality books and periodicals, hosting academic-focused conferences and symposia, and releasing faith-centered videos and podcasts, the Religious Studies Center (RSC) has always had the goal of promoting deeper understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Consistent with this effort, the RSC has recently collaborated with Soar.com to produce quality transcriptions of all video and audio content created by BYU Religious Education through the years.

Soar was founded in 2017 by Paul Allen, the original founder and former CEO of Ancestry.com. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), Soar decodes sound into text to create full-length transcriptions of audiovisual content. This speech-to-text technology allows users to search keywords or phrases across dozens of curated collections to find direct and precise results.

Soar’s media transcription technology was initially developed to inscribe and index valuable business and educational content such as lectures, trainings, webinars, and teaching videos. Now the RSC is utilizing this software to convert religious addresses and scripture discussions into searchable text transcripts previously unavailable in any written format.

Since its launch, Soar has archived millions of hours of public video and audio content, including all recorded US State of the Union addresses and over 150 Utah Valley University lecture series speeches. Soar’s plans include recording small-business podcasts, publicly available government meetings, and in-house corporate communication webinars. Currently the RSC has one of Soar’s fastest-growing multimedia libraries, with over 725 videos and podcast episodes archived and available online.

The RSC’s new audiovisual transcriptions come from the spiritually enriching content originally found on BYU Religious Education’s YouTube channel. Collections currently available include the 2004 Roundtable Scripture Discussions, the new Book of Mormon Roundtable Discussions from 2020, BYU Easter Conference addresses, Church History Symposium presentations, speeches from the annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, videos related to the Doctrine and Covenants and Church history, and Y Religion podcast episodes.

Soar’s AI software contains unique features not commonly available in online video streaming services like YouTube. In addition to the automated transcription service, Soar’s technology gives website visitors access to the following features:

• Track speaking—follow along with the text while the speaker talks in the video
• Find in transcript—search specific keywords or phrases found within the text
• Find in video—highlight text in transcription to jump to specific sections of the video
• Share video clips—send clips to friends on social media or directly to their email inbox
• Copy and paste—easily quote speakers without having to manually transcribe their words
• Playback speed—speed up or slow down video and audio to preferred watching or listening pace
• Picture in picture—increase the size of the video and drag it anywhere on the screen

Faculty from BYU Religious Education assisted in suggesting, programming, and designing aspects of Soar’s user interface. Marshall Morrise, web systems administrator for BYU Religious Education and the RSC, shared his experience collaborating with Soar to implement its program onto the RSC’s website:

“Not only are Soar’s employees technically proficient, they are also really easy to work with. As the person responsible for integrating Soar’s technology into our website, I passed along the things our design team wanted to adjust. They were more than willing to address our needs, but they were also very busy. So I decided to make our suggestions more concrete by writing the HTML, the CSS, and a little JavaScript too and sent it off to them. They integrated virtually everything I wrote. This shows that they are focused on what works well regardless of the source. They communicate well, making it a pleasure to cooperate with them.”

The decision to implement Soar’s software came from the desire not only to make gospel study resources more widely attainable but also to increase the accessibility of these teaching and learning materials. Having searchable transcripts allows anyone to find RSC content using Google or similar search engines. Written transcripts improve accessibility for people with hearing disabilities, allowing them to read the text of BYU religion content previously unavailable to them. Additionally, Soar’s ML makes each transcript become more accurate at predicting difficult words or phrases, especially those commonly used in the Church like “Liahona” and “Anti-Nephi-Lehies.” Adopting this technology ultimately aligns with the RSC’s mission to encourage, sponsor, and publish gospel-related materials that all “might know . . . the only true God, and Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).

Before its association with Soar, the RSC was in search of ways to improve its growing number of online scripture study resources. Jared Ludlow, publications director at the RSC and professor of ancient scripture at BYU, recounted being approached with the initial proposal to use Soar to enhance gospel teaching and learning:

“It was a natural fit for Soar to offer this tool for our content since the main founder is a BYU graduate. The connection between us and Soar was originally made by Taylor Halverson, a professor at the BYU Marriott School of Business, and since then we’ve communicated regularly with Soar’s employees. After taking their proposal to the Academic Council at BYU Religious Education, we immediately began sending Soar content to transcribe. Initially we were planning on adding a new video series every month, but within a month or two they finished transcribing all our content. We’ve noticed their service is particularly useful for finding specific words or phrases and having the ability to go right to that spot in the talk. We really value our collaboration with Soar because of how it makes Religious Studies Center content more usable in classrooms and in personal study.”

According to Soar’s founder and CEO, Paul Allen, “the mission of Soar is to connect you to the most meaningful, inspiring, and empowering content that will help you thrive at work and in life” (https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulballen/). For Latter-day Saints and students of the gospel, nothing is more meaningful, inspiring, and empowering than the teachings of Jesus Christ. With the help of Soar’s AI transcription software, the RSC follows counsel that the Lord gave to the Prophet Joseph Smith: to have “a record kept among you” and to continually be “writing, copying, selecting, and obtaining all things which shall be for the good of the church” (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1; 69:8).

Transcriptions of RSC videos and audio resources are now available online at rsc.byu.edu/media/search.