From ETS

Contents 1 Links 2 OpenCast Background 3 Working Group Meeting (June 8, 2008) 3.1 Universities Present 3.2 Existing University Projects 3.2.1 ETH 3.2.2 GA Tech 3.2.3 Columbia 3.3 Commons Needs and Features for an OpenCast-type System

Links

• OpenCast Project Home & Blog
• OpenCast del.icio.us links
• Berkeley's implementation of OpenCast NOTE: this isn't OpenCast per se, but OpenCast grew from this solution.

OpenCast Background

OpenCast is a higher ed community focused on developing best practices for educational podcasting, as well as a software product designed for educational institutions to capture, edit, manage, and publish podcasts. This software is open source and developed by the OpenCast community. The project is funded by grants from Hewlett and Mellon. You can find out more here: [1].

The OpenCast software is currently in the early development stage, although Berkeley is piloting some elements of the technology in their Webcast.Berkeley program.

Working Group Meeting (June 8, 2008)

Universities Present

• Arizona State University
• Columbia
• GA Tech
• ANU (Australian National University)
• ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
• Indiana
• Stanford
• U of Va.
• Northwestern

Existing University Projects

ETH

• REPLAY

Some of the key features of this software were:

• Multiple-source presentation capture (ex. presenter camera and slide video)
• Motion-tracking integrated with presenter camera (for when presenter moves around)
• OCR and indexing of slide content
  • Content of slide video is scanned and text is rank-ordered by importance
  • Video can be searched for keywords from slides, and users are taken to correct point in video
• COMING SOON: audio->text conversion and indexing
• Long-term archiving solution - records in standardized formats, and easily transcodes to new formats (long term = 100+ years)
• JAVA-based

The technology behind this system is very impressive, and probably the most advanced among this group. The interface screenshots we saw

GA Tech

• DCRS (Digital Classroom Recording System) - not much information here

This was essentially a home-grown version of Podcast Producer. Cameras in webcast-ready classrooms captured video from lectures, and then archived that recording in the right place for instructors and students to find it. Interface is all web-based, very easy-to-use, and allowed scheduled recording and "on-demand" recording.

Columbia

• Columbia Center for New Media in Teaching and Learning
• Mapping the African American Past

Columbia's contribution wasn't so much from their technology as their approach to podcasting/video. Although very high-touch with faculty, they had some good examples (most of these are password-protected).

Commons Needs and Features for an OpenCast-type System

From the working group discussions I identified several common requirements and/or features of currently operating multimedia capture/management/publishing systems:

• Classroom recording - audio or video recording system embedded in room or podium
• Scheduled recording - automatically initiate recording
• On-Demand/1-click recording - simple, web-based start/stop controls for recording system
• Publishing - control of published status, scheduled publishing, etc.
• Licensing - ability for content creators to choose appropriate licenses
• Archiving - long-term storage of media
• Interoperability with institutional infrastructure