Tag Archives: video

Faculty Innovators Tell Us What They Need

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Our first priority with the Segue from Segue project is to make sure there are technology solutions available to meet the needs of as many faculty, students and staff as possible. That said, we would like to also be able to support innovative uses of technology, particularly those innovations that may eventually be useful to the broader community.

To this end, the Curricular Technology team invited a number of faculty who are innovators to show us how they have been using technology and tell us what they need.  Faculty who participated included Jeff Byers (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Hector Vila (CTLR), Enrique Garcia (Spanish), Hope Tucker (Film and Media Culture) and Roberto Veguez (Spanish).  A number of academic liaisons also participated in this session.  To learn more about what these faculty have been doing, see:

Segue from Segue » Presentations by Faculty Innovators

discussion of video and copyright

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This is from one of the lists that I am on, and seemed worthy of broader distribution via the LIS Blog.

The Association for Information and Media Equipment has recently challenged one of our institution’s copyright compliance regarding the posting of video on university servers for instruction. As we understand it from the press, this challenge has resulted in the institution no longer posting the video for fear of legal action.

This situation echos previous instances when content owners have threatened our institutions with litigation for infringement, for example the various institutions whom the American Association of Publishers approached regarding e-reserves and course management systems a few years ago. It differs from the peer to peer aspect of copyright significantly because, apart now from HEOA compliance, our colleges and universities did not have liability as conduit service providers, i.e. the allegedly infringing material was not being served from our servers, we acted only as I.S.P.s. Thus, this current matter is serious. Not only does it threaten exorbitant legal expenses and damages in both dollars and reputation, by touching instruction it threatens the exercise of our missions.

Steve Worona, on EDUCAUSE’s behalf, has begun a blog to educate people about this matter and stimulate discussion in the community. http://www.educause.edu/blog/sworona/UCLAVideoStreamingDamnedDammed/197444

Please take a moment to learn more about this matter, as we are learning about it, and most especially talk with your colleagues at home and around the community. It may be that higher education must approach the issue from a range of positions (standing firm on fair use, understanding better the opportunities and limitations of the Teach Act, proactively and collectively arranging for licensing are some examples that jump quickly to mind) but what is absolutely critical is that we do so as a community, working to help each other to preserve our missions.

If you missed September’s LISterine workshop…

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Watch it online! Capture:  What it is and Why It’s Cool (video)

LISterine Workshops: LIS Technology, Endeavors, and Resources in Need of Explanation:  Cool and refreshing! Cleans and protects against boredom and stagnation! This workshop series gives LIS a firsthand look at trends, tools and techniques that influence our work.  Read more about these workshops. Want to present a workshop? Want someone else to present? Vote for it in the LISterine Feedback Forum!

MiddMedia now supports more video formats

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I’ve just completed an update to our video hosting system, MiddMedia, to enable it to support the upload of additional video formats.

The Adobe Flash Media Server (FMS) — the software on MiddMedia that handles streaming the video data to clients — only supports the MP3 Audio (.mp3), Flash Video (.flv), and MPEG-4 video with H.264 encoding (.mp4) formats. Up until this point, users were required to convert their videos into one of the two supported video formats before uploading them to MiddMedia. Depending on the user’s operating system and the software they have installed, this could be a challenging proposition. With this update, videos in a variety of formats can be uploaded directly to the MiddMedia server where they will be automatically converted.
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Video Hosting Services Expand

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Submitted by Joe Antonioli

Announcing a new video hosting service, MIDDMedia. This service allows for the streaming and downloading of mp4 and flv video, and mp3 audio files for people with Middlebury and Monterey accounts.

In addition, we have integrated this service with our web platforms- the college CMS, Segue, WordPress and Mediawiki. Log into your site, blog or wiki and manage your media, allowing you to add the media to a page.

Is there ONE place that I can go to to see videos created by people at Middlebury? In answer to this question, we have been working with Communications, and are now beta-launching MIDDTube, a place where we can pull together video from many places, whether the video is hosted by MIDDMedia, YouTube, or any other service.

Update from Database Applications & Systems

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Submitted by Chris Norris

Here are some of the projects and tasks that DAS staff members have been working on during the past month…

Mike Schuster
– Created a spec for Bookstore Upload / Course Listing Bookstore Links
– Researched problem Off Campus Study was having pushing Admissions applications
– Corrected problems with Bread Loaf, Language School, and Off Campus Study decisions processing reports, reports were broken due to System 9 upgrade
– Created SSB web package to allow residential systems coordinator to delete room draw preferences, reorder preferences, and activate/inactivate room draw applications
– Processed Fall 2008 course response form data
– Updated Feb’s MNET email addresses to “preferred”
– Fixed problem with LS & BLSE Financial Aid online web applications where bad data entry selection of dates in dropdown boxes would cause applications to get an Oracle error
– Modified custom p_assign_boxes database procedure to allow mail boxes to be assigned to students during winter term
– Worked with Liz Whitaker-Freitas and Marcy Smith to develop documents needed by Monterey staff when developing/requesting new reports

Liz Whitaker-Freitas
– Supporting Hyperion BI+ for functional & technical users
– Troubleshooting Admissions Decisions reports
– Coordinating roles to groups migration by Velaris

Ian McBride
– Added service to check GO addresses nightly
– Worked with Adam to develop web service for MiddTube
– Wrote WordPress plugin for MiddTube
– Developed Middlebury theme for WordPress
– Added a service to the Directory to automatically redirect to a user’s homepage
– Added a video icon to CMS home page news items with videos
– Developed home page for the New England Review site in WordPress
– Began investigation into Single Sign On applications
– Continued work with the Platform and Design/IA groups for the Web Makeover
– Finally launched News Portal at http://go.middlebury.edu/news!

Travis Stafford
– Created 7 new alumni event forms
– Tested WordPress CFORMS upgrade
– Upgraded all the WordPress blogs and cforms to the new version of CFORMS (13 blogs / +/- 50 forms)
– Completed porting over all the cat standard ecommunicate forms to CFORMS
– Minor changes the New England Review ecommerce form
– Troubleshot\Fixed issues with the CCAL Fundraising ecommerce form
– Added new functionality to the BLM application to show Counts by indicator flag for Banner-ListManager admins
– Added self service component to the BLM project for subscribing\unsubscribing to Newsletters and List Manager lists
– CFORMs support/training for various departments
– General support and HEAT tickets

Rob Pekor
– Rolled late graduates to Alumni
– Started developing and creating tables to hold Harris Online Directory data
– Started creating scripts to load initial data for Harris Online Directory
– Started very preliminary development of process to send updates to Harris
– Corrected problem with Phonathon SSB data selection page, page would error on multiple individual years selected, problem has been corrected and is now in production
– Created new function to retrieve a list of regions for a particular person
– Corrected problem in AIA relating to updating ask amounts, if an ask amount never existed before for a person, the SSB page would not update the value, problem has been corrected and is now in production
– Created list of people that currently have access to AIA
– Corrected issue with view for the Banner List Manager relating to the indicator for students

Chris Norris
Staffing
– Participated in telephone interview for open DBA position
Projects
– Reviewed Phoenix BIA reports and summary
– Worked on spec for remote DR web presence
– Participated in CA fundraising strategy meeting
– Refined Banner-ListManager project spec with DAS staff
– Completed work with CA and Communications on Organic Garden giving form
– Met with DOC and PS staff regarding new ER web presence
– Met with technical/functional staff regarding eCommerce options for “pay-for-print”
– Met with Communications staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
– Met with Career Services staff to plan for upcoming Newsletter projects
– Participated in various Web Makeover team meetings
– Met with HR staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
– Met with PHC staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
– Met with PS staff regarding Web Makeover requirements
Systems Administration
– Ongoing monitoring and problem resolution of online services
– Resolved service outages for Banner and Hyperion
– Resolved server config issue for GoogleEarth version of campusmap
– Updated TouchNet server config to support additional web servers
– Upgraded SubmissionManager web application for BLWC
– Configured new GO rewrite rules
– Ongoing tuning of GSA to improve search results
– Renewals of College-owned domain names
– Met with SNS staff regarding HSF config options
Help & Support
– Provided support to CFA staff for artsmail Newsletter IA
– Provided support to HR staff for middleader Newsletter buttons
– Reviewed President’s Holiday Card for pre-sending issues for Communications
– Updated Middlebury’s United Way web presence (campaign stats)
– Updated AbroadView.org web presence (footer)
– Provided various support for CMS editing, HEAT tix, and ad-hoc help calls
Vendor Related Activities
– Participated in Sun-Guard/SCT Banner DBA weekly status calls
– Participated in Velaris Hyperion SysAdmin weekly status calls
– Continued contract re-negotiation with Hyperion SysAdmin vendor (Velaris)
– Worked with DavisProjectsforPeace.org external web vendor to grant direct database access
– eCommerce call with alumni online community vendor (Harris) to define IMA requirements
– Coordinated redirect request from MIIS staff with www.MIIS.edu web vendor (NeptuneWeb)