Tag: video

The promise of video

I’ll be speaking at

Kaltura Connect Education Track 2023 – EMEA | Kaltura 28th November, London

I will speak about ‘The Promise of Video’

What do we expect from our media platforms? What do our students and users expect? How can we ensure that the promise of a generation of video is realised?

During academic year 22/23, we saw the highest rate of lecture recording ever seen at the University of Edinburgh.  Between Media Hopper Replay (lecture recording) and Media Hopper Create (media streaming and management) we saw more than 2000 days of media created last academic year, that’s nearly 5 ½ years of media.

I will look back at the last 10 years of my experience championing  media asset management in very ancient higher education institutions. Reflecting on the things which didn’t work the way we expected; the things which did work and spread like wildfire, and the things which continue to delight and surprise me for the future.

I chose my title because I was thinking about an incident at the start of term this year. Every year I have my fingers crossed that the start of term will go well, without any major incidents or business continuity challenges.

But it never does. This year it was RAAC

Suddenly we lost 6 of our biggest lecture theatres and teaching had to be relocated, fast.

To get venues with large enough rooms for this kind of teaching we were going to have to go off campus into city theatres and conference centres.   And even though we didn’t own, manage or run those venues, they all had to have lecture recording in place, for all lectures, because the students had been promised video.

The promise of video at University of Edinburgh is a key part of our offer- of our student experience. More than 450 lecture theatres are kitted out and more than 98% of all undergraduate lectures are recorded, turned around within 24 hours and available for students in the VLE.

Video has gone from being a WOW factor to being  a hygiene factor in only a few years.

things we can name

Commodore Grace M. Hopper, USN (covered)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
My choice of platform for Thing13 of our 23things is Media Hopper.

You may wonder why Media Hopper is called Media Hopper. You will know the following definitions of hopper:

hopper ( agric) :  a container for a loose bulk material.
hopper ( minecraft ):  a block that can be used to catch item entities, or to transfer items into and out of other containers.
channel-hopper( tv) : quickly changing from one channel to another to find something you want to watch.
Grace Hopper ( rolemodel) : an inspirational computer scientist. She developed the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components and coined the term “debugging” for fixing computer glitches when she removed a moth from her computer.
Dennis Hopper (role model):  just cool.
space hopper ( toy ):  just orange and bouncy.

As I was explaining to Vicki, our Digital Recruitment and Marketing intern just the other day, Media Hopper gathers together all the mixed up multitude of video material from all over the University; brings it into one place; channels it into our VLEs, websites, portals and courses; applies standards and metadata  is very cool.

I think it’s important to name things after inspirational women when you can, and Grace Hopper fits the bill for me.

Vicki will now be using videos in Media Hopper to liven up our LinkedIn presence.

 

media management

http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/186b57
Female Faces, Lips and Dots. Hughes, Jennifer M. © The University of Edinburgh http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/186b57

We have invested in a new media asset management service for the University. Our vision is to enable the University to meet the full breadth of learning and teaching, assessment, research and engagement activities, by providing usable tools for making, editing, storing, sharing and disseminating video and audio files.

The new media asset management system will be delivered using the Kaltura video platform. Kaltura is a market leader in this space and the University has made a significant long-term investment in order to deliver our learning and teaching vision, and our strategies around distance education and research engagement. We will provide a central service to support the efficient use and management of media assets from all across the university. All staff and students will have access to the service.

Receive project updates by subscribing to: is-media-info@mlist.is.ed.ac.uk
(Info on subscribing to a mailing list: http://edin.ac/1Kw3Vsd)

Supporting new uses of media

The new service will support a wide range of activities, and we will be developing a suite of training and awareness opportunities over the next 3 months to promote these. Some of the most popular activities include:

  • Flipping the classroom – desktop recording tools can be used to pre-record media for students to watch in advance of contact time.
  • Enhancing feedback – use the service to record personalised video feedback and share with students either individually or to a group. Ask students to record and share with their peers or tutors, or use commenting tools to crowdsource feedback.
  • Using Video for assessment: Stimulate our student’ creativity and develop digital skills by tasking students to record their own media and submit it for feedback or assessment through our VLEs.
  • Showcasing our best – a web based video portal with curated channels of content will allow us to share within our University community, or with the wider world.
  • Strengthening the link between research and teaching – find high quality outputs from research projects in the video portal and use web based editing tools to clip out the best bits for use in teaching and learning.
  • Best of breed editing tools – web-based editing tools will make it simple to reuse, adapt and update learning materials.
  • At your desk recording – built in desktop recording tools allow you to create and share media quickly and easily.
  • Multi-platform broadcast strategy – publish to appropriate audiences simply and quickly through our VLEs, the University website, and other platforms such as YouTube and iTunesU.
  • Support accessibility and inclusion – use recording tools to easily provide information in an alternative format, and use transcripts, subtitles to make our content as accessible as possible.
  • Create Open Educational Resources – using built in copyright and publishing workflows you can make open learning resources widely available online.
  • Gaining insight and understanding – analytics will allow us to understand exactly what media is engaging to our audiences and what impact it is having.
  • Be present elsewhere – stream a lecture or presentation to a remote location, for example a remote conference.
  • Student revision – holding a library of recorded lectures and other content that can be used for revision and ‘listen again’ will better support our students.

Timescales

We plan to make the service available in late Semester 1 with a more limited set of features and training available, as an ‘early-adopters’ pilot phase. We will use Semester 2 to refine the service and continue training, awareness and community building activities ready for full scale launch in May 2016. This will allow us to check that our procedures, support and training are effective.

Please do sign up to our mailing list for regular updates on progress.