Category Archives: Pilot

ACI – The Academic Cyberinfrastructure Inventory

Last Spring we gathered information on all of the services that make up our academic cyberinfrastructure, services and innovations for teaching, learning, research and creativity. This resulted in a long list of services in various stages of adoption. Since collecting this information we have merged it with the ITS Services Catalog, creating one huge list. This long list became unwieldy as spreadsheets, so we have put it into an application form that allows users to filter the list.

The application is available here – http://act.middcreate.net/aci/

or you can reach it via GO-link – go/aci

Now, we need your help before we share the inventory with the world. Some of the information has changed since the inventory was gathered, and there may be some items that we missed. Also, the application may not filter the information in a way that is useful to you.

So please visit and browse the ACI and contact Joe if:

  • Any of the information you see is incorrect and needs updating.
  • Anything needs to be added to the inventory.
  • You have a use-case for the inventory.

Thank you, in advance, for helping us make this a useful service for Middlebury.

ACTT Panopto Pilot Proposal

Evaluation

Video has become a platform for course work and new pedagogies, co-curricular projects and more. It is also becoming a tool for internal and external communication (including for College governance). Our current solutions do not meet the expectations and needs of our academic community and administrative users, and do not scale cost effectively. We are going to implement a reliable, scalable and secure video streaming solution.

 

Last summer, the Curricular Technology Team evaluated services to meet Middlebury’s needs. A service was chosen, but was discontinued after being purchased by another company. The ACTT Video Streaming Service Project Team was charged with revisiting the evaluation. Included in the charge, they were asked to come up with an interim plan until a long-term solution could be determined by July 2017. To meet the charge, the ACTT evaluated three services: Panopto, Ensemble, and Arc.

 

Recommendation Summary

The Academic Cyberinfrastructure Transformation Team recommends piloting Panopto for Fall 2016.

 

  • Middlebury contract Panopto for one year
  • Middlebury pilot Panopto during fall term 2016
  • Panopto provisioning happens via the Course Hub
  • Faculty may access Panopto collections via Canvas

 

Why a Pilot?

  • Middlebury has not used an enterprise level vendor-hosted video streaming platform, and we will need to assess how we would use it.
  • Panopto would be a new service to Middlebury, also Canvas will be moving to the Enterprise stage. Middlebury academic support will be limited while all of us are learning.
  • Some schools have adopted both Panopto and Ensemble, each for different needs, and have had good experiences.
  • Arc integrates directly with Canvas, but is still in beta and does not meet all of Middlebury’s needs.
  • The recommendation at the end of the pilot should include needs that are not being met.

Recommendation: Middlebury pilot Panopto during fall term 2016

 

Timeline

Faculty will be more likely to use a new service if it is available for fall, winter and spring terms. Also, the extra time will provide us with more information on how Middlebury would use this kind of service. Web Technologies and Services need time to integrate Panopto with the Course Hub, this will allow ease of use for the open pilot and avoid conflicts should Middlebury decide to adopt Panopto in the future. It is possible for faculty and students to access content in Panopto from Canvas, allowing us will help us to better understand how these systems work together.

 

What Who When
Negotiate terms for pilot and purchase in FY’16 Academic Technology and ITS June 2016
Add Panopto to Course Hub and Canvas Web Technologies and Services June – July 2016
Implement Panopto, add authentication and organization schema Academic Technology,
Web Technologies and Services

 

 June – July 2016
Work with courses that self-select during open pilot Academic Technology,
Digital Learning Commons,
Digital Learning		 July 2016
MIIS Pilot Digital Learning Commons August 2016 – classes begin August 29, 2016
Middlebury Pilot Academic Technology September 2016 – classes begin September 12, 2016
Budget Proposal   January 2017
Budget Decision   May 2017

Recommendation: Middlebury contract Panopto for one year

Recommendation: Panopto provisioning happens via the Course Hub

Recommendation: Faculty may access Panopto collections via Canvas

Support

Escalation levels and SLAs would be similar as they are currently for Moodle and MiddMedia.

 

Outline of responsibilities

What Who
Course-related support Primary: Academic Tech, DLC, DL

Backup Support: Media Services
Administrative-use support (core functions) Primary: Media Services
Other academic support (creativity & innovation project, student internship w/ or w/out credit, faculty research, symposium) Primary: Academic Tech, DLC, DL

Backup Support: Media Services

 

 

 

Notes for Panopto Proposal May 24, 2016

  • There is a proposal to pilot Panopto for one year with existing funds. This will not be a comparison pilot. We have looked at Panopto (demos 1 and 2), Arc, and Ensemble. Arc is still in beta and not viable to use in pilot. Based on our research, it seems like we can do the most with Panopto (content capture, lecture capture, streaming). Feedback from other schools: faculty are using it themselves with little help. We have determined through research that Panopto is best of breed and affordable. The ACTT team supports the video streaming recommendation.
  • Panopto would be available for one year. The recommendation on continuing will need to be made after the first semester. If we recommend Panopto, we should also recommend a term for continuing (e.g., 3 years).
  • Is this a pilot or a staged rollout? Using the term pilot might be most appropriate, helps educate users on the process we use to evaluate systems, and gives us flexibility if we decide not to adopt it. It also clarifies the support expectations and how new to all of us this service is. Pilots are often considered to be part of staged rollouts. A pilot was planned as part of the MediaCore rollout. Team tentatively agreed to consider this an open pilot in the Fall with a more widespread rollout in the Spring, pending the decision at the end of the pilot.
  • MiddMedia will be available through the pilot.
  • The focus of the pilot will be academics and instruction. We are also interested in testing out its streaming capacity for events.
  • Parameters of the pilot will be determined later. Will it be limited to specific classes or openly available? Should we limit it to instructional needs or to other use cases? Who should we reach out to specifically? We might set up workshops or intro videos to introduce the product. What model should we adopt as far as the contract is concerned? Enterprise (more expensive) or limited license (more management and limited use). Team felt it should be made available to the entire community.
  • Should it be hooked into Course Hub during the pilot? (Anticipation of one and half months of calendar time / 1-2 weeks of work to integrate, similar to Canvas.) May be better to integrate to avoid messy cleanup with accounts if Panopto is adopted. Classes begin at Monterey during the 3rd week of August. June: begin integrating with Course Hub. Could Panopto set up a test account for Web Technology to tinker with?
  • How to create shared libraries? Automatic provisioning or by request only? Who has permissions? Suggestion to have a request form to make sure the appropriate conversations happen in each case.
  • We’ll need to determine an exit strategy if we don’t adopt Panopto.
  • We’ll need to come up with criteria for evaluation. Asset management capability will need to be assessed during the pilot. What are our needs in this area? How will we organize our directories and assign permissions? How will we assess this?
  • End of June: establish contract with Panopto.

Feedback from other colleges

Skidmore, Hamilton College, Holy Cross, Lake Forrest, and Gettysburg.

Skidmore and Hamilton are using Panopto and Ensemble for different purposes. Panopto for lecture capturing and Ensemble for video asset management. Both are happy with both products and say they are easy to use.

Holy Cross has been using Panopto for the last 2 years and they are happy with it.

Gettysburg College has been using Ensemble since the summer of 2014. It is used primarily to store videos for their library reserves (75%) and the rest for faculty created content (mostly flipped classrooms). For the most part happy with it.

Lake Forest College has had Panopto for 2 years and are pretty happy with the decision. Several faculty have done a lot of screen-casting, and they were able to get started with minimal hand-holding.

Middlebury will Adopt Canvas

In January, 2016, the ACTT (formerly CTT) submitted a recommendation for Middlebury to adopt Canvas. We have received budget approval, and will begin the work of moving Middlebury into the Canvas service.

Thank you to all of the faculty and students that participated in the pilot. Your participation and feedback (Midd and MIIS) helped to make a strong recommendation. And thank you to Joe Antonioli, Bob Cole, Bill Koulopoulos, Stacy Reardon, Shel Sax and Heather Stafford for supporting these classes during the pilot.

Also, thank you to all of the schools that provided us with insight and the benefit of their experience with Canvas. We learned a lot from you.

There is a lot of work still to be done to move Canvas from pilot to enterprise, but we do hope that you take a moment to celebrate this milestone and the collective effort to get to this point.