Partnership with Blackboard to integrate iTunes U with Blackboard Learn

Published by Rachel Beanland on July 16, 2009 in video and audio. 0 Comments

Reprinted from myVU:

A tool created by Vanderbilt to allow easy integration between the course management program Blackboard and Apple’s iTunes U will be available to all universities using Blackboard, thanks to a new partnership between Blackboard and Vanderbilt.

The partnership was announced July 15 at BbWorld, the annual meeting of Blackboard’s user and developer communities, in Washington, D.C.

iTunes U is an iTunes application that allows faculty and students to access audio, video and other multimedia presentations. All of the content can be downloaded and played on personal computers as well as mobile devices. Vanderbilt’s iTunes U presence can be accessed at http://itunesu.vanderbilt.edu or through the iTunes Music Store.

“We found that an increasing number of faculty wanted to use multimedia in their classes – everything from capturing lectures to developing and sharing multimedia presentations for students,” said Cindy Franco, OAK (Online Access to Knowledge) manager at Vanderbilt. OAK is Vanderbilt’s set of course management systems, including Blackboard, and other technology-related learning tools. “We looked at a number of solutions but they all had limitations. Working with iTunes U gave us an efficient way to share content within our existing system and tied to our courses so faculty and students can use it easily.”

Vanderbilt developed the latest version of the integration in collaboration with a group of other universities and consultants from Blackboard and Apple. Blackboard will make the integration for Apple’s iTunes U available to all Blackboard clients, providing a popular tool to other institutions looking to support the use of multimedia content in courses.

While interest in multimedia content has grown dramatically, resources to organize and access that content easily and effectively have not kept pace. The iTunes U integrations developed by Vanderbilt enable institutions to more effectively manage and create access to multimedia content developed by instructors and students, as well as more than 175,000 other educational audio and video files on iTunes.

Do you tweet?

Published by Rachel Beanland on July 15, 2009 in Twitter. 0 Comments

Are you a Twitter fanatic who happens to be associated with the School of Arts & Sciences? We’re interested in finding faculty, staff and students in the Twitterverse. Leave your Twitter handle in the comment form!

Interested in using a flip camera?

Published by Rachel Beanland on July 15, 2009 in YouTube and video. 0 Comments

The School of Arts & Sciences has two flip cameras that can be borrowed by faculty, staff and students who are interested in producing videos for the University’s YouTube channel. In fact, you don’t even have to produce the video. Take some raw footage of your research, a class, whatever you’re interested in… and we’ll turn it into something YouTube-worthy. Contact Giavanna Palermo if you’re interested in borrowing a camera.

How to Successfully Get Your A&S Event on Richmond’s YouTube Channel

Published by gpalermo on February 5, 2009 in events, YouTube and video. 1 Comment

Whether it’s a lecture, performance, reading or panel discussion, every event that gets uploaded to the YouTube channel helps to paint a fuller picture of what’s going on at the University of Richmond. Want to share your event with friends, colleagues or any of the 150 million people on YouTube each month? Here are a few tips to ensure your event will make it on the University’s YouTube channel:

1. Make sure all participants are ok with being on YouTube before putting in the request to A&S that the event be taped.

It’s important you make it clear that the event is not just being taped but that it will be uploaded to the Internet. Few people have a problem with simply being videotaped but not everyone is comfortable being on YouTube. Participants need to know that the University’s channel is public, which means anyone can view every video that is uploaded.

As long as the event’s main participants are O.K. with being online, the event can be scheduled for taping through Arts & Sciences. (If, for example, the professor introducing the speaker is not comfortable being online but the speaker has given consent, the professor can be edited out of the video before it is uploaded to the channel.)

Once you get an informal consent from the event’s participants, E-mail them a link to the video release form. The form can be submitted electronically and goes directly to staff in the School of Arts & Sciences.

2. Contact A&S and request the taping at least TWO weeks prior to the event.

Whether or not the event will be taped depends on the availability of a Telecom technician on that particular day. The sooner the request is put in, the better the chance that a technician will be available to do the taping. As soon as you’ve got participant consent, contact Giavanna Palermo in the School of Arts & Sciences.

3. Think about audio.

When a video is uploaded to YouTube, it goes through two sets of compressions. This basically means that the quality of the video substantially decreases. What suffers most during the compressions is the audio track, which, if poor at the outset, can render the video unwatchable.

Keller Hall and North Court reception rooms are some of the worst rooms on campus for sound. Some of the best are the auditorium in the Gottwald Science Center and the Cousins Theatre in the Modlin Center for the Arts. To help make sure your video has the best audio possible:

• Talk to the speaker(s) beforehand and remind them to speak directly into the microphone, even if they have a loud voice or if the crowd is small.
• Email Kathy Rothert about the room and ask if a sound check is necessary or if any audio-related adjustments are needed. If the speaker is going to be moving, confirm that Telecom will provide a lapel mike.

4. Think about time.

Q&A periods don’t translate well to YouTube because of bad audience audio. If a question/answer session is part of the event, let Giavanna know beforehand so she can tell the technicians that they don’t have to stay for it. Techs are generally more available when they know they won’t have to stay for a Q&A, which could add as much as one hour onto an event

5. If you haven’t worked with A&S to schedule the taping, request a DV tape anyway.

If your department has decided to contract with Telecom to pay for a taping but think that you might want the taping to be uploaded to YouTube at a later date, go ahead and request that Telecom hold the mini DV tape aside for the School of Arts & Sciences (the School will pay for the cost of the extra DV tape). DV tape is the ideal format for getting videos online but Telecom will re-record over the tapes if you do not request it to be held aside.

It’s always a good time to update your faculty/staff bio

Published by Rachel Beanland on February 5, 2009 in bios. 0 Comments

Remember, there’s no bad time to update your faculty/staff bio. Because faculty/staff bios are maintained through a central database, they can’t be updated at the departmental level. To update your bio, all you need to do is E-mail Giavanna Palermo with your edits or additions. You can include the changes in the body of your E-mail or attach a Word document. If you’re starting from scratch, you can always just E-mail your C.V.

What can go on a bio page?
Bio pages can include any of the following data:

  • Name
  • Title (about four or five can be displayed per person)
  • Office
  • Phone
  • Fax
  • E-mail
  • Website
  • Blog address
  • Teaching (it is preferable, though not required, to list general teaching areas rather than specific courses)
  • Research
  • Education (any number of degrees can be stored)
  • Publications
  • Academic and Professional Activities
  • Performances
  • Exhibits
  • Presentations
  • Lectures
  • Awards
  • Additional Information (think of this as an introductory paragraph or some other summative text)
  • One photo

Twitter Basics

Published by Rachel Beanland on February 5, 2009 in Twitter. 1 Comment

Curious about Twitter? Thought this might be useful. Here’s a video tutorial that walks a user through using Twitter.

If you’re a faculty or staff member who’s already Twittering, leave a comment and include your handle or, better yet, tweet @rachelbeanland or @mdlevy. You can follow the University of Richmond’s tweets @urichmond.

The School of Arts & Sciences is on YouTube

Published by Rachel Beanland on February 5, 2009 in YouTube and video. 0 Comments

Did you know the School of Arts & Sciences, and in fact the entire University of Richmond, is on YouTube? Check out the University’s YouTube channel at http://youtube.com/universityofrichmond. The channel is organized by play lists: research, arts, events, athletics and more.

If you’re hosting a lecture, talk or other event that you’d like to see uploaded to the University’s YouTube channel, contact Giavanna Palermo and she’ll schedule your taping. The School of Arts & Sciences will pick up the bill provided all participants sign a video release. Videos are typically uploaded to the YouTube channel within the week following the event.

Want new feature stories on your department Web site?

Published by Rachel Beanland on February 5, 2009 in features. 0 Comments

Online feature stories are stories about students, faculty, staff or programs that touch your department or program.

On your Web site, they look a little like this:


When you click on the feature story’s promo, you go to a new Web page that includes a slightly larger photo, like this:

The photo is accompanied by the feature story.

In an ideal world, every department or program home page would showcase at least three feature stories at any one time, with older stories archiving every 6-12 months. To make this goal a reality, we need to hear from faculty and staff regularly. E-mail Giavanna Palermo with the specifics on the person or program you’d like highlighted and she’ll do the rest: interview the appropriate people, solicit or take photos, write the story and publish it on all relevant Web sites across the University.

Pardon the Mess

Published by Rachel Beanland on February 5, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Pardon our mess. Over the next few days, we’re going to be reorganizing this blog to make it a little more user-friendly. Stay tuned.

CMS Migration

Published by Matthew Levy on July 17, 2008 in eduweb2008, timeline, cms and migration. 0 Comments

For anyone interested in the CMS migration timeline from the EduWeb 2008 presentation “50 Web Sites in Six Months”, this is it. Of course, there were more minor milestones, but this will give you a general idea of the  process.

CMS Migration

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