Future of Video Services

Digital media solutions and the future of video services at Duke

A Business Plan

Executive Summary
Video at Duke and Current Video Services
Mission
Strategy/Value
Technology
Facilities
Creative Team
Risks
Marketing and Communication
Recommendations
Appendices

Executive Summary :

Video services could be more integrated into the frontline service vision of OIT with regard to all the digital media solutions that impact our customers. Frontline coordination for both OIT and the university around video is essential, specifically around streaming and conferencing, and around applications that push the bounds of dynamic interactivity that increasingly fuels the academic enterprise. We've begun to do that. More integration is needed for video services into the full range of frontline media development in OIT, including web design and development, instructional design support and academic technology. With information technology and computing, there continues the convergence of data, voice and video, collapsing first to the desktop, and then to mobile devices. University faculty and staff expect integrated services at their end, so our vision of our front-end services for video should be integrated with all of the other digital media solutions that OIT offers its customers.

ITAC's Video SubCommittee addressed Duke's need for a central video resource by proposing a new departent and a collaborative approach, which envisioned OIT working closely with other university departments and constituents by consolidating campus streaming services, offering a central streaming solution built around mpeg4, general consultation and referral to campus digital media resources (see Video Services Gateway below), central coordination and review of related applications (RealTime conferencing and collaboration, capture and access, etc.), and planning and helping to develop and maintain these services from front to back for OIT. The recommendation of the subcommittee was coupled with the idea of a central resource related to guiding Duke's web development (State of the Web, 2001), and the Office of Web and Video Services was born. Now the Office of Web Services, OWS continues to include the same video services identified by the subcommittee in its offerings. The streaming service has proven to be reliable and is increasingly popular, and is seen as a significant improvement in OIT's infrastructure and framework for supporting media and dynamic web development across the campus. We can make it better, more redundant, and we are working with OIT's Collaborative Systems group to do just that. We can be more innovative and do a better job of bringing constituents from across the campus to work together for shared benefit and direction. We are exploring possible improvements to the enterrise infrastructure for conferencing (Gateway, possible call management) along with improved capture and access of new content for streaming and portable devices (iLecture), from across the academic enterprise. Together with what we already are doing, this area of focus promises to have a considerable impact on OIT meeting its mission in the future.

Every OIT streaming customer is part of the larger Duke web community; the future of video conferencing will increasingly include the live streaming of high value content archived for later on-demand access; and the future of web and digital media solutions will be incresingly interactive, not just providing data, but demanding both live and archived audio and video as needed.

Recommendations:

Improve the integration of video services with OIT's complete frontline business approach for all digital media solutions.

Improve shared media development facilities, training and documentation (Media Lab, staff machines).

Provide new opportunities for generating income from product development (iLecture) and new or improved service offerings (live event webcasting, web conferencing or call management for video conferencing, etc) to support OIT activities, provide resources and cover costs.

Improve or create new partnerships while helping to provide for new solutions around areas perceived as critical by OIT customers in the video space.

Analysis

Recommendations

Digital Media and Video at Duke -- Current Video Services:

Video Services Gateway Placeholder site for content, in progress.

OIT's Streaming Services OWS's popular streaming services.

Conferencing and Collaboration Toolset Trials Draft Report (Breeze, Marratech).

Integrated Media Development Project planning and development.

iLecture Proof of Concept trial of capture/access application.

Video over IP Review of Technology.

Mission:

OIT's Mission Mission statement for Duke's Office of Information Technology, OIT.

Video Vision Statement

Innovation in video delivery: equipping engagement and collaboration for the virtual enterprise

OIT and constituents from across the university are working increasingly as a team to provide a variety of digital media solutions, incorporating web, video and a variety of dynamic interactions as the technology allows. OIT provides several enterprise solutions (such as streaming) and is considering others. This team fuses information, concept and design with technology, calling on OIT resources front to back, which are coordinated through this "Video" effort. The mission is for OIT to support the creation and provide for the delivery of dynamic, interactive communications using video and rich media for the web ofr the university community. Any OIT or shared media development services are designed with an integrated vision of the dynamic and interactive technology options in mind (data/voice/video) to support Duke University's constituency across an increasingly virtual academic enterprise, whenever, wherever needed.

Strategy/Value:

Strategy

Currently, the video consultant (under the primary direction of Dan Mccarriar, who heads up OIT's Networking as well as all things video in OIT) leads a creative and cross departmental team to support video communication goals of departments, schools, programs and organizations, as well as individual faculty, staff and students. Whether these goals require digital video/audio, streaming media or any browser fed video, for use in a dynamic web presence, interactive kiosk, in creating Flash content, or developing browser based training (or on CD-ROM), the consultant or other members of the video community work with the department or individual to help develop and then deliver engaging and exceptional media when and where its required. Coordinating gifted professionals, virtual teams focused on areas of specialty engage partners across the campus, proven vendors, and occasionally sister institutions, to offer an increasingly complete suite of video related services including streaming media services, media development, media planning and design, and web and video based real time collaboration (RTC) toolsets. We must make better use of our available media delivery options, such as the Research Channel.

We must define ROI expected over time (the end of ISDN for conferencing would provide how much savings, what is the value if we present a more coherent image of Duke in our efforts, etc); while increasing significantly the return income from the services and products offerred. Billing for increased meeting services (WebEx chargeback, video conferencing scheduling, Breeze or special event recording via iLecture) using a variety of cost recovery options, including through application development and marketing of products like iLecture, will help off set costs. Duke can not afford to fall behind in this space, and frankly has some catching up to do (see baseline institutions reviewed by the ITAC Video Subcommittee). Coupled with an increase in direct charges for in-house or vendor produced content which OIT guarantees to make available on demand, the impact will both be in providing foundational work to support OIT's mission and a significant increase of income and available resources over time. Partnering with CIT and Arts and Sciences on initiatives like iLecture is a perfect example of both the strategy for developing and delivering services and the value it can have for the institution. In this case, the most significant value is in terms of easily capturing and making available across the Internet or on iPods our greatest commodity on campus, Duke's teaching.

Value

The ongoing convergence of the evolving media and technology to the desktop and mobile devices (using integrated data/audio/video), combined with the rapid development of network infrastructure, both wired and wireless, provides a greatly improved opportunity for the University to more effectively meet its communication goals through a variety of dynamic digital media solutions which this effort helps to coordinate. The video consultant is able currently to only provide a baseline of services. More resources must be brought together, but at a minimum, we need a broader buy-in, support and integration with the full range of OIT's digital media solutions, including any web services, for OIT to provide a more effective response to the need and demand currently present for video related technologies. This effort by OIT should also increasingly help to provide a more effective, dynamic and interactive OIT presence across the Internet.. With a proper return for services rendered, costs can be offset and both the quality of our facilities and communications can be greatly improved. Services currently directly provided include: