Outcomes and Outputs
In this section we give a sample of the key outcomes with related outputs listed below each area. All of our outcomes and outputs can be found via our project website (http://steeple.oucs.ox.ac.uk/) and via the associated wiki and blog, in a range of formats including videos, podcasts, presentations, handbooks and more.
Institutional Change and Project Management
Podcasting processes cut across many departmental and administrative boundaries within an institution, and our work has shown that success can only be found through internal collaboration. An iTunes U launch is a good example of a large cross-institutional ITC project that may act as a catalyst to promote innovation and benefit teaching and learning and has the best chance of succeeding when championed by senior executives and linked to a communication strategy.
Key Steeple outputs that support institutional change include:
- A guide to managing institutional media services including all relevant project outputs - http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Category:Institutional_change
- Video documentaries including input from senior management at Oxford University and The Open University
- Conference videos and presentations from over 20 institutions world-wide discussing institutional media services
- Audio interviews with key stakeholders, academics and managers from Cambridge, Oxford, The Open University, UCL and Coventry
- A resource pack of all documents relating to launching and managing the iTunes U service - http://steeple.org.uk/wiki/ITunesU
- Launching iTunes U Project Kit (Download for: MS Office / Apple Pages)
- Institutional checklist and FAQ
- Interviews with Copyright experts and Public Relations professionals.
Institutional Podcasting Processes
The Steeple project has created clear guidance on policy and processes for media service work based on the experience of the three partner institutions. The outputs are presented as reports, videos and interviews and explain through example the need for legal processes, quality assurance policies, copyright clearing and content creation workflows. These guides can be used in training and can also be used to estimate costs for scaling up activities for new media services. The guides also provide input into strategies for institutions wishing to structure their communication and publication processes.
Figure 1: Institutional Podcasting Ecosystem
Key Steeple institutional policy and processes outputs include:
- A wiki page listing all relevant project outputs - http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Category:Policies_and_Processes_Report
- Steeple Policies and Processes Handbook
- Media Accessibility Requirements report
- A series of audio and video interviews with AV managers and copyright experts - http://steeple.oucs.ox.ac.uk/resources/media/
- Training material in the Introduction to Podcasting Booklet
- Launching an institution in iTunes U - http://steeple.org.uk/wiki/iTunesU
Infrastructure and Scaling
Podcasting processes cut across boundaries and rely on a broad spectrum of technical systems and resources - video content production is computationally demanding, generates large amounts of data for storage, has value that needs to be addressed by archiving and backup solutions not typically accustomed to large binary formats. Designing content generation and distribution processes that are easy to use by academics with minimal training is nontrivial and can often only be achieved by supporting specific paths that will provide the most benefit to your university.
Figure 2: Oxford Service Elements Interaction Diagram
Figure 2 outlines Oxford's planned technical solution to providing a podcasting service that supports institutional use, however, whilst this is derived from demonstration work and lessons learnt from Steeple activities, this is still being implemented.
Technical challenges for interoperability at an enterprise level are difficult and require highly specialised skills usually quite different from audio/visual content creation and are exceptionally rare to find in one individual and so teamwork is needed from a range of people including programmers, system administrators and audio/video experts. The hardest challenge is often interoperability between systems such as encoding servers, existing directory services and authentications systems, VLEs and DAMS. These integration activities are difficult because of the deep specialist skills needed and therefore specialist training opportunities are needed in the sector.
Managing high volume activities is still difficult but there are now more enterprise level technical solutions available that help in the automation of encoding material. Costs for such infrastructure are still high, but there are workaround options to suit budgets (e.g. outsourcing) with trade offs against performance (e.g. distributed storage) and manual intervention, that can be considered.
Archiving and Backup policies are important but often difficult to cost and plan for within a busy service environment. However the value of recreating content is often underestimated and in the haste to deliver content on time it is easy to forget to document fully the ownership and copyright trail of assets, and to not explicitly document collaborative agreements. A clear policy for the safe storage of all the assets used in your podcast production process is vital.
Key Steeple institutional infrastructure outputs include:
- A wiki page listing through all relevant project outputs - http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Category:Podservice
- Setting up a podcasting technical service report
- Server setup blogs and screencasts
- Review of existing/available encoding systems
- Video giving an overview of Technical considerations for enterprise level podcasting
Cataloging and Distribution Portals
It is common for a University to deliver content into multiple web portals and third-party systems and economies of scale can be found by keeping content and related metadata in open standards compliant formats. Work on defining and expanding some of these standards has been done through Steeple, but it is also of interest to a much wider community than Podcasting or UK HE, and our work has learnt from the international arena and is being incorporated back into those efforts.
Interoperability and lightweight aggregation of audio and video in a demonstration portal was possible. Content across four Steeple institutions could be searched and viewed in this way through adherence to a standards based approach to metadata and agreement between the Universities to expose their content through a web service. It has shown that the ability to harmonise on standards for sharing audio/visual metadata and for encoding lead to an outcome greater than the sum of the parts. To be able to search across all institutions and then present a link to play the material directly is a great step forwards to a shared information architecture. It also clearly shows the potential for shared services in areas that might be impossible for one institution to tackle alone, such as speech to text transcriptions, translations, auto-categorisation, linking of material and themes, etc. The demonstrator also shows the potential for community middleware services such as tagging, ratings, multi-codec encoding services, OCR across video slides, etc.
This visualisation work and the attention it has received has clearly demonstrated the benefits of partnerships based on shared interests and standards. Our work in this area has led to our Ensemble package of code demonstrators and working processes.
Figure 3: The Ensemble Concept
The next stage of work would be to advance from the production of lightweight, simple showcase, web demonstrators, to a consolidated national service. This service would allow multiple institutions to join their open content and publicly available podcast feeds into a larger aggregated dataset, surfacing often hidden high value institutional assets for the subject communities and the wider public good. This step seems to be more attainable now, but needs a shared vision from all stakeholders based on mutual trust.
Key Steeple institutional cataloguing and distribution outputs include:
- A wiki page listing through all relevant project outputs - http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Category:Portal
- Portal software code and examples
- Design criteria for portal
- Ensemble code, demonstrators and documentation
- Metadata standards derived
- Review of alternative portal systems
- Reshaping of Oxford engagement with iTunes U
- An audio video podcasting demonstrator portal featuring 7,000+ items from 4 HEs - http://podcast.steeple.org.uk/
- Cataloguing, Metadata and Portals Wiki Handbook
Community Support
The key to Steeple's success was from the outset building an effective community of practice of technically minded individuals with input from strategic communications partners. Institutional change is daunting and a Steeple talk on this challenge was entitled "Going Up The Down Escalator". Project consultancies have shown that all HEIs find scaling up for third-party portals challenging and are helped by support from the Steeple community, a friendly group of people who have been or are going through the same experiences.
Key community support activities include:
- Online community wiki
- Benefits realisation Community of 20+ institutions sharing outputs at events, workshops and conferences
- A wiki page listing through all relevant community activities - http://www.steeple.org.uk/wiki/Category:BR
- Training material such as guides to equipment, podcasting tutorials and course notes, leaflets and marketing materials
- Steeple JISCmail list with members from across the UK
- Resources, presentations and recordings from all workshop and conference activities