Senior Multimedia Application Developer Joseph Labrecque recently worked with Adobe personnel to demonstrate how the University of Denver uses Flash Media Server, ColdFusion, and the entire Flash Platform to deliver rich media assets across campus.

Q: In what ways has the University of Denver employed video on its campus?
A: The University employs video in many ways through the use of Flash Media Server instances housed on campus. This includes both normal video-on-demand and live video streaming services, but we also have a very strong focus upon delivering video media assets for inclusion in our courses.

We use video-on-demand to provide Web access to things materials such as our Chancellor’s addresses and other important speeches, and departmental web sites often use video to engage potential students with a message from a particular dean, a prominent faculty member, or helpful student. For instance, the residence halls provides video campus tours - student representatives show applicants how their future living area may look and attempt to acquaint prospective students with the campus from a distance.

We also provide live video streams of events such as building dedications, community programs such as Bridges to the Future, or our commencement ceremonies, allowing family and friends who cannot physically attend to also share in the joy and pride of seeing their friend or relative receive a degree. Many units have also used video to stream guest speakers who come to campus. This is useful even if you’re working at that moment and can’t physically attend to take advantage of the guest’s expertise.

Finally, we have the DU CourseMedia™ Course Media Management System that exposes an extensive library of image, sound, and video assets that can be used by instructors within their courses both as class presentation materials and as supplemental material to be accessed by students outside of class.

Q: What are some of the courses that use video on your campus?
A: Here are some quick examples of the more prominent usage patterns we’ve seen. Our Languages and Literature faculty show segments of foreign language films and instructional videos. Our History department uses video dealing predominantly with war in classes to make those events feel more real to students. The Graduate School of Social Work and our Educational/Counseling Psych department use specialized clinical videos in their courses – they are one of our heaviest video users. International Studies shows contemporary videos dealing with human rights, diplomacy, and global health issues. Mass Communications and Journalism Studies uses video for film analysis and the cataloging of student work in the form of subvertisements and documentaries. Human Communication Studies accesses videos of debates and speeches in class. The Anthropology department makes use of various documentaries, and the Lamont School of Music has interest in orchestral and ensemble recordings. In all, we’ve seen use of video in instruction spread across many more disciplines since we first built the CourseMedia™ system in response to requests from the School of Art and Art History. Hundreds of classes use the system every quarter- it’s amazing.

Q: The DU CourseMedia™ system uses Flash Media Server and Flash video. Why is that?
A: We now use Flash video exclusively, but this was not the only solution we explored. Initially we used both Flash and QuickTime, with Flash used for video-on-demand and QuickTime primarily for live video streams. Our University Streaming Committee has determined through experience that Flash is much simpler for users to access and more efficient for us to distribute.

CourseMedia™ feeds off of a central digital object repository that catalogues a variety of media assets delivered securely through Flash Media Server that can be used by many different faculty, students, and staff – often for many different purposes. Employing the Flash Platform in this way just makes sense.

Q: How do you make it easy for faculty to use video?
A: Each professor can build what we term a gallery of the assets they want to use in their course. We catalog entire video works within our repository, so in order to provide instructors with a simple way to include those segments most important to their course, we have built a Flash-based video clip generator within CourseMedia™ that allows the user to select a portion of the work to include within a specific gallery. Instead of duplicating the actual file asset, it simply links into the original file, saving us a huge amount of storage space and providing the course with specific, directed assets.

CourseMedia™ provides a Flash-based gallery viewer, which offers an integrated toolset for faculty to view, present, share, contribute to, and combine repository assets along with external media such as a video from YouTube, for example, if that’s what their course requires. The viewer was built with the input of faculty from across many disciplines and is very useful in integrating media assets into the courses in a way that works with how the instructors prefer to teach using such assets as video.

Additionally, if the faculty are using BlackBoard, they can generate an embed code from within the viewer that allows them to paste the very same gallery viewer into their BlackBoard course. This makes it easy for both faculty and students to access CourseMedia™ materials in the same way- whether they are within CourseMedia™ or the 3rd party BlackBoard system which so many of our faculty rely on.

We have a full team of metadata experts who catalog each asset in the repository. We also invite faculty to tag assets through our toolset so that finding appropriate media is easy for everyone.

Q: How do students view media in DU courses during course presentations or lectures involving this material?
A: We’ve developed a hardware-intelligent projection system using Adobe AIR that lets our faculty project not just one asset but multiple sets of media assets at a time. This is critical for our Art History faculty, who once used slide projectors, for comparison of images and video side-by-side. Many times, they will even project the same image on multiple projection screens and zoom into the detail of one display to do some specific investigation in the class.

Being based on AIR, the application goes way beyond what simple slide projectors can provide, including the exposure of metadata, the zooming and panning of images, video and audio playback, even exposing related web links in the integrated web browser.

Q: How can people learn more about the ways the University of Denver has leveraged the Flash Platform and Flash Media Server?
A: I gave a pretty thorough overview in two Adobe Webinars and welcome people to view the recordings or contact us at the DU Center for Teaching and Learning. I’ll be happy to chat about our work!

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