Lecture Capture Challenges and Solutions David Paul Educational Technology Manager

About five years ago, we moved to a new campus About five years ago, we moved to a new campus. This provided an opportunity to incorporate technology into our new classrooms. For example all rooms have remotely controllable cameras

Such as this Sony

We also do a fair amount of digital conferencing, distance ed and lecture capture and streaming. Initially we were approached about supporting podcasting via iTunes University. The problem with this was staffing. Adding additional RSS server capacity was also relatively expensive, about $11,000 per classroom. We then began looking at classroom content recording systems, and ways of adapting other installed systems, such as Adobe Connect.

This is a 200 seat lecture hall This is a 200 seat lecture hall. Lighting and AV systems are controlled via an a touch panel display connected to an AMX controller.

This is one of our basic classrooms with no amplified voice audio system.

In the old days, this is how we recorded lectures.

Challenges Limited Budget No Additional Staff Must Be Easy to Use Must Be Easy to Administer Many of the systems we looked at were relatively expensive. Others, such as Adobe connect worked well, but required a relatively savvy user, and required a fair amount of administrative overhead.

Reasons for implementation Several dual degree programs with conflicting schedules to required courses Students started video recording lectures themselves Took lots of student time Not searchable No school control over recordings Administrative support, had to have a flu plan

Hardware based vs. Software Based Options: Hardware based vs. Software Based

Desired Features: A/V Preview Easy to use (reduces operator error) Automated LMS (Blackboard) intergration Easy to gather usage statistics Simple viewer interface Easy to administer Very little additional hardware required Self explanatory

Cost Coursecast Basic with limited support is FREE! Higher level support for 50 classrooms $18,500 – 24,500 per year Student Liaisons $600 per semester per student Coursecast is installed in 34 classrooms 5 additional installations planned

Sabrent Video Capture Device - $8 We have two basic classroom configurations. For both, we connect the existing cameras to the presentation computer with a USB video capture device.

Impedence Matcher (Radio Shack) and custom cables - $47.75 For these classrooms, which have an existing sound system, we simply needed to convert the balanced mono output from the existing system, to an unbalanced stereo input required by the computer.

Revolabs xTag wireless USB microphone - $200 On these, we add a Revolabs xTag microphone.

Total Cost per Classroom Between $56 and $208 (plus camera) Self explantory

Use 2500 students on campus

Course stats * * * * New image and exams indicated

Recording policy Faculty maintain ownership of lectures and content of lecture The University owns the recording Recordings are for the exclusive use of the enrolled students Lecturers are able to opt-out Delivery of recordings is from a secure password protected site From the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine Policy on Recording and Posting Medical School Lectures- Dec. 2009

Recording policy, cont. Students and faculty users agree that the lecture is copyright protected and may not be used or re-posted without permission The lectures may be retained for 4 yrs (our current agreement is one) Recordings are for educational use only and are considered confidential From the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine Policy on Recording and Posting Medical School Lectures- Dec. 2009

Contact info David Paul david.paul@ucdenver.edu