Objective

Case Western Reserve University has undertaken a major educational initiative that seeks to supplement proven teaching methods and materials with new types of learning content. The new content consists of annotated video material recorded during regularly scheduled lectures and review sessions, voice-to-text transcripts, descriptive index terms and explanatory text for the lectures, an electronic version of the course textbook, and linked course syllabi.

The goals of the project are:

• enhance the student learning experience by providing relevant, timely and on-demand materials
• evaluate the impact of streaming media content as supplements to the in-class, one-to-one mentoring and self-study experiences
• provide a unique opportunity for students to interact with emerging collaboration and learning tools
• adopt promising learning technology standards and best practices to develop re-usable learning objects applicable in a variety of presentation venues

Approach

Metadata Definition

At the beginning of the project it was clear that a primary requirement for success was to define and capture the information associated with the learning objects. Information such as topic keywords, learning objectives, course information, publication data, and data formats were collected from analyzing educational requirements and then mined from commonly accepted standards such as SCORM and Dublin Core. These data elements were added to a schema that was then applied to videotaped lectures, individual video clips from lectures and review sessions, and other resources such as textbook chapters and sections.

Content Acquisition

All MediaVision related content was exploited as supplements to currently existing course materials. Existing lecture/review session schedules and self-study materials were and will continue to be used in very much an "as is" manner. The course calendar and the self-study materials formed the framework for defining MediaVision content elements.

Using technology resources acquired in support of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing's (ITAC) MediaVision initiative, the lectures and review sessions were recorded, encoded for network distribution, and classified, indexed and "published" to the web where they could be accessed by students. Within one (1) day of recording, the processed video materials were placed on an ITAC managed web server where students, using standard web browser software, could browse, search or playback any of the recorded information. Students can, for example, choose to replay an entire lecture session or seek answers to specific questions by searching index and concept terms associated with the video.

Much of the work associated with capturing, processing and delivering the video materials (a.k.a. streaming content) was performed by ITAC staff and an additional Supplemental Instructor (an undergraduate who has previously taken the course, a.k.a. SI) who performed editorial and cataloging tasks.

To capture the full breadth of the materials presented during these sessions, multiple cameras, capturing videos of the instructor’s presentation, videos of the chalkboards, and document camera output, were used. Other derivative content, including voice-to-text transcripts, was automatically generated from captured video streams. Descriptive index terms and explanatory text (referred to as metadata) were added to this content. Other content, such as online versions of the course textbook and a linked version of the syllabus, were also developed and deployed.

Assessment

The success of the MediaVision project was measured by evaluating student surveys and analyzing test scores. Student response to the system was overwhelmingly positive, and enabling this technology for more courses is planned. Student test scores were also measurably higher, averaging eight (8) percentage points higher from the previous year.

This application was recently featured as an Internet2 showcase application.