I just got a copy of the media site vision document which is worth sharing. Especially since my name is mentioned in relation to this project.
One thought might be allowed amidst the largely rhetorical fuss made over the technical relevancy and social impact of web lectures upon UM's business model. The proposal asks to setup a production facility including a studio and dedicated professional to work with the Mediasite equipment. Since the pilot to implement a fully automated lecture recording system in 2008 was so successful the proposal outlines need of a semi-automated system with a professional working 0.5fte to meet the changing needs of learning. That this is in itself a sign of somnambulism is only matched by the insistence to use Mediasite as a defacto standard for audiovisual content.
Charging for such content is also a suggested application mentioned but overlooks the fact that
nobody does it successfully. No university makes money with offering
audiovisual recordings of its educational content. Why MIT's open
education platform does what it does is discussed in another post on
this blog. That the AIM department looks into the possibility of a pay
per view model is true but offering a technical solution without a clear
business model (except a 5 year depreciation) does not do justice to
the spirit of a school of business and economics. And it also overlooks
the fact that solutions are already in place. They demand professionals
with experience, suitable equipment and a solid vision on how to realize
it. Beyond this it needs a clear strategy that goes beyond pilots and
single sided statistics. Especially when a prove of concept is not
required in the domains touched by the report. Why acting as explorers
in already chartered terrain?
Mediasite as a Multimedia Platform is an island solution and as a Marketing and Communication tool as clumsy as an elephant in the glasshouse. A good example is the mobile unit mentioned on the first page. Satire is not the only way to open perception but calling this R2D2 like vehicle a mobile unit begs for a definition of mobility. Something of the size and wight of a fridge is not mobile. Every iphone delivers what the fridge offers in terms of quality - streaming included - and does so for 1/100 of its costs. But a professional camera men who carries his own equipment, produces the happening and delivers it directly to a platform can always serve as a reference point to this argument as well. And to lessen the force of my wording: Mediasite 5.0 was an island solution. Exporting audiovisual material and encoding it for a platform like iTunes is as expensive as producing the same stuff in better quality and coordinated fashion (and also in a much shorter period of time) than Mediasite 5.0 does allow. And if all multimedia content is inventoried, tagged and accessible via Mediasite where is it? What meta information is associated for each recording? Some months ago when my assistant got the task to create an inventory list the result where so disappointing as to leave the impression that nobody every did an inventory of recorded lectures since 2008.
That no single teaching unite currently taught is not found online for free in high quality including lecture notes and an active community of well connected intrinsically motivated youngsters, is well known. This is true not only for for pre-experienced target groups but also post-experienced audiences. Players in this field dominate the market and entering it is not only a technical challenge but outside the core business of UM.
To suggest that this mobile unit can be used to shoot impressions or
promo films show the low level of production experience by the authors of the report. Any discussion should be left to professionals in the field. Recording lectures such as the ones from Studium Generale and Tans Lecture are already done and the results are devastatingly bad. From a technical point of view and also from the point of view of post-production and its distribution. First: The mounted cameras deliver a bad image which is only matched by the inconvenience of Mediasite 5.0. Namely that the material takes some hours to make ready to put on popular video sites where they can be watched conveniently on you ipad or android thingy. Even if this changes for the better with the upgrade the obstacle is that the costs of recording it needs to be payed by Studium Generale and are as high as the costs a professional videographer charges.
Since this report is geared to meet the needs of the "changing needs of learning" it should be mentioned that the first experiments come from the dark side of marketing and communication, namely advertisement. Since Krugmans report in the late 1967 many studies confirmed the effect audiovisual materials have on the physiological and psychological outlook of a brain's performance. To really assess the validity of the battalion of references made in the report with regards to study success rate, the feeling of students to be better prepared and the practical benefits of the recorded lecture material, a separate post might pop up. But any such assessment has to contend with his findings before they can be used to justify actions.
Here a little web video for the geeks from the Law faculty. Thanks for reading :)
