JISC Digital Media Blog Archive
June 2009

Free consultation on creation of video resources

Posted by Antony Theobald on Wednesday 24 June 2009 at 10:18am
Tags: news | staff training | video |

Video Assist is open to those working in UK further or higher education. We will provide specific project support for 6 projects (2 per term). The deadline for applications for the first round is next week - Fri 3rd July 2009. Please see the Video Assist page for further information and the application form.

Video: Care and Feeding of a Mermaid, State Library and Archives of Florida

Helpdesk and training provide expert guidance

Posted by Karla Youngs on Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 11:10am
Tags: case studies | digital collections | news | photoshop | software | staff training | teaching | training |

The JISC Service Case Study on JISC Digital Media highlights how our guidance helped Barony College's Learning Materials Development Unit to produce a variety of visually rich learning and training materials.

JISC Digital Media's free Helpdesk Service provided expert information and guidance on capturing and formatting images, managing resources and copyright issues.

In addition, our hands-on training courses in Photoshop skills and image management were invaluable:

"I found the day so useful, very intense, but very good. I understood things that had never struck me before, like why it might be better to use black and white images rather than colour in our workbooks. Colour can be a distraction when you are trying to illustrate something very detailed and specific. It's also cheaper if you are going to print the document."
Christine Dudgeon (Learning materials development unit manager, Barony College)

The JISC website has a series of JISC Service Case Studies that demonstrate the expertise available to learning providers in the FE sector.

New read - the edgeless university

Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 23 June 2009 at 10:10am
Tags: e-learning |

Voice recorders on the iPhone

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Friday 19 June 2009 at 4:10pm
Tags: accessibility | delivery | e-learning | microphones | mobile | podcasts | sound recordings |

All iPhone users yesterday benefited from a free software upgrade, which among many new features includes a new application for recording and delivering voice memos.

The Voice Memo application is the only completely new application added with this software upgrade, though it has a couple of competitors in the form of previously released audio recording apps like Retronyms Recorder. While the new app is free and embedded into the OS - as opposed to the 59p download of the Retronyms equivalent - the features differ slightly.

Formats: Both apps record in mono. Voice Memo records to Apple Lossless m4a format which, while a lossless compressed format, is not yet a standard delivery format. It can simply be transcoded to wav or mp3 without loss though, so this is a sensible space-saving feature, as it halves file size with no audio degradation at all. Retronyms recorder records to a 16 bit  uncompressed aiff file, either at 44.1kHz or 8Kz (high or low quality), and then delivers as either aiff or mp3 version (selectable by the recipient). Both these formats are standard in most audio fields, though mp3 is a lossy format, and the 8kHz aiff setting is pretty low quality. Uncompressed 44.1k aiff and  m4a sound identical to my ear, as you would expect from lossless data compression.

Delivery: Voice Memo gives the options of emailing or messaging your recording - simple and effective options, but possibly limiting in file size depending on your and your recipients' file size email and message limits [edit: initial tests suggest a 2 minute email limit]. For large file transfer you must connect by a cable to your own iTunes library and sync devices. This does slightly tether and limit you to your own computer. Retronyms Recorder similarly allows emailing of recordings, but rather than mailing a large file, it uploads the recording to a temporary storage point on a web server [limit 5Mb], encoded as both an aiff and mp3 version, and mails the recipient a link to it. Recordings must be downloaded within ten days, for at that point they are wiped from the server.

Most notably, the Retronyms app also allows WiFi sync for large files, and in this process the phone effectively becomes a temporary WiFi internet server, handing out a unique URL to clients. This is an ingenious, very elegant and powerful solution, and a feature that pleasantly surprised me and a few colleagues, once we realised what it was doing! This feature allows fast wireless transfer via the web through any computer's browser. Recording time is limited only by the phone's available memory.

Metering: Voice Memo sports a stylish replica of a VU meter, but the response of the meter is sluggish, and it does not accurately indicate when distortion occurs. Voice Memo also flips the display orientation when you turn the phone over to have the microphone at the top, which is a nice touch. Retronyms Recorder has a set of accurate bar-graph meters, showing the levels for the last couple of seconds - less attractive, but much more useful.

The Retronyms recording display:

Additionally, Voice Memo allows you to trim the beginning and end of your recording, and choose a label from a list of preset choices (Interview, Lecture etc) or give it a unique name, wheareas Retronyms Recorder allows only simple file naming - though this is quite sufficient. One other very potentially useful feature is that Voice Memo continues recording even when you exit the program, and only stops when you press 'stop', allowing you to use other phone features while recording.

Verdict: Both applications record in excellent quality. However, while the Apple app scores in style and ease of use, and has better editing and labelling features, the superior delivery tools and native aiff format of the Retronyms Recorder give it the edge for me in terms of flexibility, especially in handling longer recordings. I can envisage using it in combination with a Macally iVoice III microphone for location interview recording etc. as the subsequent wireless transfer to a DAW for editing would be relatively simple, and its metering is more accurate and informative. Apple's Voice Memo I would use for quick memos (as the name might suggest) sound notes, and audio messaging, to which the email + m4a formula is better suited. Both are equally valid uses, and both apps are neatly - if differently - implemented solutions. On balance I'm happy to have parted with 59p for Retronyms elegant little program, even though I also now have a free alternative.

RSC summer conference tour

Posted by Antony Theobald on Thursday 18 June 2009 at 3:53pm
Tags: event | news |

We've already exhibited or presented at events hosted by RSC Yorkshire & Humber, RSC Scotland South & West and RSC South West, but if you're planning on attending any of the following events, do come and find us:

• RSC East Midlands e-Fair - 23 June
• RSC Northwest Annual Event - 25 June
• RSC London Regional Feedback Event - 25 June
• RSC Wales Conference: Integration - Learning Together - 1 July
• RSC Eastern e-Fair - 3 July
• RSC South East e-Learning Fair - 29 October (ok this one's not a summer conference)

Dates for RSC Northern and RSC Scotland North & East are still to be confirmed.

A world of noise

Posted by Joel Eaton on Tuesday 16 June 2009 at 1:01pm
Tags: digital preservation | finding audio |

The BBC World Service has started a new project inviting its audience to send them recordings from around the world to create an audio map of the world. This idea has been implemented a few times before on programs such as Google Earth, but the Beeb's audio map has been created with a view to 'save our sounds', to make an interactive map which can preserve the natural sounds of the world.

Further, there is also a project called Desparately Seeking Sounds, a source of some aural romantic nostalgia for those who pine over lost sounds from the past, and for those up for a recording challenge, a regular Sound Scavenger Hunt!

Earliest known sound recordings

Posted by Joel Eaton on Wednesday 10 June 2009 at 8:15am
Tags: finding audio | sound recordings |

Further to last years discovery of a recording of "Au Clair de la Lune" captured on April 9, 1860 by by  Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville using his phonautograph device, a discovery of  even earlier sound recordings has recently been made.

Presented at the annual Association for Recorded Sound Collections, these earlier Leon Scott recordings are belived to date from 1857, 20 years before Edisons Phonograph. There is a full article on the discovery on the USNews website.

BBC Mobile day

Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 09 June 2009 at 2:24pm
Tags: e-learning | mobile |

It is aimed at those who have used the BBC site using a mobile device. As many folk follow the BBC's web efforts in terms of delivery it should prove to be a fruitful experience for anybody designing mobile experiences.

BBC Mobile Day

Advice doc - Quandary

Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 09 June 2009 at 10:50am
Tags: delivery | e-learning | news |

We will demonstrate how Quandary exercises can be enhanced using digital media to support your teaching material. We hope you enjoy Using Quandary to Add Interactive Learning Objects.

Announcing Video Assist!

Posted by Steve Hull on Monday 08 June 2009 at 11:07am
Tags: news | staff training | video |

Video Assist provides a service to complement JISC Digital Media's existing support framework of a helpdesk, advice documents and workshops. A project which qualifies for Video Assist will receive 4 days' worth in total of bespoke off-site support and on-site supervision, helping the project to achieve its ambitions more quickly and effectively. The interaction with project personnel will embed skills and knowledge, leaving as a legacy a team of people able to carry out similar work in the future with a new degree of skill and professionalism. Video Assist will run during the 2009-2010 academic year in three rounds, with two projects selected for support in each round.

Backing up Flickr

Posted by Zak Mensah on Monday 08 June 2009 at 8:51am
Tags: flickr | migration | workflow |

His description of how to run the script should be fairly easy to follow. I am not very technical so will  give this a whirl on the mac and report back on how easy it is for the average mortal. This script refers to the use of the command line via Apple Mac and Linux BUT does link to a Windows solution.

Backing up Flickr at Hivelogic

JISC Digital Media Flickr account

Free moving image resources!

Posted by Steve Hull on Thursday 04 June 2009 at 9:42am
Tags: digital collections | finding moving images | music | repositories | video |

All are downloadable and free for all to use.  This isn't a new resource, but I felt that something so remarkable isn't nearly well know enough and thought it was worth a blog.  Some of my favourites: Duck and Cover, the infamous 1951 film explaining to children how to protect yourself from a nuclear explosion by hiding under your desk, and their collection of soundies, music videos avant la lettre made for a juke box that showed short films which was manufactured during the 40s.

ALISS:  one day summer conference

Posted by John Hargreaves on Wednesday 03 June 2009 at 2:18pm
Tags: digital collections | e-learning | teaching |

The conference will look at ways in which librarians and information professionals can market their services during the credit crunch.

The speakers and topics will include:

• Olivia Llewellyn and Theresa Morley - Practical tips from the frontline - examples of marketing techniques employed by subject librarians at Coventry University
• Using web 2.0 tools in marketing your Library service - Lisa Charnock, Intute
• Insight into the undergraduate perspective - what students and Generation X researchers need in terms of marketing from the library
• Christine Madsen, Oxford Internet Institute - Marketing digital collections: the case of Harvard
• Students, Librarians and Marketing the Library: a collaborative project between postgraduate information science students and library staff at Loughborough University - Becky Laing, Academic Librarian (Engineering) and Frank Parry, Academic Librarian (Engineering Science)

Further information and a registration form can be obtained from Heather Dawson, ALISS Secretary

Essay examining Blackboard

Posted by Zak Mensah on Wednesday 03 June 2009 at 10:58am
Tags: e-learning | vle | web services |

It is worth a read for some of the observations of key Blackboard features and how this alters the traditional relationship between teachers and learners. It is interesting how at one point it states that feature-wise Blackboard does not really have any innovative tools. I am surprised that Blackboard hasn't simplified its support for audio and video. Having used WebCT as a student and Blackboard in a supporting role I do find others observations intriguing.

Advice doc : using WebCT

Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 02 June 2009 at 8:25am
Tags: e-learning | news | vle | workflow |