Connecting Pasts &
Futures
A Tech Talk on
Spoken Word Services and the BBC
Graeme West; Aidan Johnston; Ewan MacPhee
Spoken Word Services
Glasgow Caledonian University
Andrew Gruen
Northwestern University/BBC
BarCamp Scotland, 2007-03-03
spokenword.ac.uk

Spoken Word 101
A brief recap.
Have you been living in a cave or something?
Seriously.
spokenword.ac.uk

Inputs
The BBC’s rich & extensive archive:
authentic voices from the past
And also some episodes of Fawlty Towers.
spokenword.ac.uk

Inputs
spokenword.ac.uk

Inputs
• Leonard Cheshire, BBC, 1947
• ‘Settled Nation’, BBC,1999
spokenword.ac.uk

Inputs
• Leonard Cheshire, BBC, 1947
• ‘Settled Nation’, BBC,1999
• ‘Everyman: Wilderness - The
Mystery of the Bedouin’,
BBC, 1979
spokenword.ac.uk

spokenword.ac.uk

1.5 million items of film and videotape
+
750,000 radio recordings
+
3 million photographs
+
1.2 million commercial recordings
+
4 million items of sheet music
+
22 million newspaper cuttings
+
550,000 document files
+
20,000 rolls of microfilm
+
500,000 phonetic pronunciations
spokenword.ac.uk

spokenword.ac.uk

x 33,520,000
spokenword.ac.uk

No, We Don’t Torrent
Them.
(usually)
spokenword.ac.uk

Unique deposit
agreement with BBC
Only one of its kind: only OU has comparable access to
programming output
spokenword.ac.uk

Rights
Policy of active rights clearance; condition of BBC
deposit agreement
spokenword.ac.uk

End-user license
“OK, it goes like this… you just accessed our materials archive, for
which we are truly grateful (after all, your interest keeps us in
business). However, when you accessed it, you were actually only being
given the right to download or stream parts of it for educational use,
not to republish or repost it.The stuff contained in the archive still
belongs to us, or those third parties who have allowed us to make it
available to you. By allowing you access to this material, we are
“licensing” it to you.This is a lot like renting it forever… we still own it
but you can use it all you want but only for educational use.What does
all this mean to you? Not much. It simply gives us the right to require
the following rules.We know it all sounds pretty sneaky, but bear with
us… this is all normal stuff.”
spokenword.ac.uk

Processes
• Retrieval, processing and curation of media
(audio & video) and metadata from BBC and
other sources (e.g. GCU research collections)
• Repository & metadata management
• Building tools and processes to allow learners
to take advantage of our media
• Developing pedagogical principles (in
collaboration with teachers & learners) to allow
integration of audio & video in teaching
spokenword.ac.uk

Outputs
• Curated video & audio podcasts
• Public (educational) access to a wide
range of BBC and 3rd party content
via a repository
• Dynamic, search based podcasts &
RSS feeds of content via Padova
• Improvements to scholarly
communication & dialogue (blogs,
wikis and annotation)
• Tools for the community, via open-
sourcing and dissemination
spokenword.ac.uk

Why use Video
Podcasts?
• Podcasts are intended to bring the
curriculum “to life” by using select clips
chosen from the BBC Archive
• They meet the needs of more students
with varying learning styles and
aptitudes.
• They supplement existing material and
resources with a portable and
remotely accessible source of
information.
spokenword.ac.uk

Why use Video
Podcasts?
• The ability to replay and review information helps
to embed lessons in memory.
• Asynchronous consumption allows for convenient
access and multi-tasking (watching whilst taking
the bus, stuyding, etc…).
• Flexible curriculum pathways to encourage
student participation and facilitate success.
spokenword.ac.uk

Turning this...
spokenword.ac.uk

...into this!
spokenword.ac.uk

Why do we do it?
• Podcasts are a pre-cursor to the lecture,
NOT a substitute for the lecture!
• Encourages students to explore lecture
themes before the lecture and after for
revision purposes
• Engages with students world!
• Students learn in a place and time that suits
them
spokenword.ac.uk

How do we do it?
• Lecturer selects TV/Radio programmes
from the BBC’s vast archive
• Spoken Word order materials from BBC
Information & Archives
• Lecturer reviews materials when they
arrive from the BBC and plan the structure
of their lecture around selected materials

How do we do it?
• BBC archive material is then digitised and
catalogued in our repository
• Lecturer creates PowerPoint which acts as
the “storyboard” for the podcast
• The lecturer will then record their
narration which blends in between the BBC
clips
spokenword.ac.uk

How do we do it?
• We then marry it all together using iMovie
• We then distribute this to students via
VLEs, Online Repositories
spokenword.ac.uk

Our history
• 2003: JISC/NSF grant to GCU and NU
under Digital Libraries in the Classroom;
BBC deposit agreement
• 2004: REPOS repository acquired from
MATRIX @ MSU
• 2003-5: Development of tools & continued
sourcing of media
• 2006-Present: Dissemination phase;
integration of SW into Library
spokenword.ac.uk

Our partners
• Academic Technologies at Northwestern University
(Evanston, IL, USA)
• MATRIX at Michigan State University (East Lansing,
MI, USA)
• BBC Future Media and Technology
• Higher Education Academy
• Open source projects & communities
• Fedora digital repository; Sakai VLE community,
Red Hat Inc.
spokenword.ac.uk

Our partners
• GCU friends and partners
• Other universities: Strathclyde; Glasgow;
Edinburgh; Northwestern; Columbia;
Bologna; LSE; Hull; Dundee
• Other institutions: The Learning Exchange;
ReSET Project; Glasgow Centre for
Population Health
• Further collaborators: Tartanpodcast (Mark
Hunter); OYEZ Project (Prof. Jerry
Goldman @ Northwestern)
spokenword.ac.uk

Tools » Padova
• Legacy finding-aid & repository product (REPOS) which
has been retrofitted and improved
• Serves a publicly-accessible repository of digital media
to hundreds of learners every day
• 800+ hours of content streamed (RTSP) or downloaded
• Dynamic search-based RSS/Atom feeds and podcasts
• Citation support (BibTex; EndNote; RIS; MODS)
• License-aware (granular control over permissions)
• Buzzword-compliant and shiny: AJAX effects (through
Prototype & Script.aculo.us) & WP integration
• Open source: GPL (once it’s tidied up)
spokenword.ac.uk

Obligatory ‘Beta’
Warning
New version pushed out yesterday. Might not be bullet-
proof.
spokenword.ac.uk

Demo: Padova
spokenword.ac.uk

Infrastructure » Padova
• Standing on the shoulders of giants WordPress
• REPOS; BibUtils; Script.aculo.us; Server &
• Runs onon RHEL servers Streaming
PHP, Python, Darwin
MySQL
• Separation of concerns and repositories
• Data stores, finding aids
• Something similar to model,view, controller in
OOP
• Incomplete separation at present:every level with
• Padova front end integrated at
REPOS repository
• Current work: de-coupling Padova from REPOS,
taking its interface to a new repository
spokenword.ac.uk

Tools » Project Pad
• Synchronous media annotation in theat NU
browser,
developed by Academic Technologies
• Embedded, time-tracked streaming audio, video or
images
• Server-side: Java and Python
• Client side: Macro... Adobe Flash and some
JavaScript
• Collaborative, synchronous annotation across the
network
• Embeddedthrough the Plone CMS VLE or
into the Sakai open-source
deployed
• Open source (GPL)
spokenword.ac.uk

Demo: Project Pad
spokenword.ac.uk

Standards
spokenword.ac.uk

Standards
• Metadata: XML everywheresyndication
(Dublin Core;
RDF; MODS; Atom & RSS
formats)
• Streaming: MPEG-4 Simple Profile and
MPEG-4/AVC for video, AAC audio
• Project Pad slightly different
• Browser: XHTML compliance and semantic
markup striven for
• Deliberately platform agnostic :D
• Open philosophy
spokenword.ac.uk

Going forward
spokenword.ac.uk

Fedora-based
architecture
• FEDORA: Flexible Extensible Digital Object
and Repository Architecture
• Developed by Cornell U & Virginia Tech
libraries
• Fedora repository: multiple representations
of resources; scalable; extensible
• Federation:(Tomcat & McKoi)
OMI-PMH
• Java-based
• Open source lot
• We like it a whole
• Applications for libraries & broadcasters...
spokenword.ac.uk

The task
• To build upon existing interface and
usability innovations
• While moving to a more flexible repository
structure
spokenword.ac.uk

Your homework
5 Assignments
spokenword.ac.uk

Sign up, sign in, drop jaw.
http://www.spokenword.ac.uk
Click on ‘Sign Up’ and begin listening
spokenword.ac.uk

+ =
Mash-up our content
Take advantage of our RSS & Atom feeds
Combine with Backstage data?
Stay within the relevant license terms, or we’ll hit you
with copyright sticks.
spokenword.ac.uk

Use our content for
study & research
purposes
Nothing says ‘A’ in a bibliography like primary content.
spokenword.ac.uk

Tell your friends
Blog us; link to us; podcast about us: we’re publicity junkies
spokenword.ac.uk

Talk to us
info@spokenword.ac.uk
graeme.west@gcal.ac.uk
Blog: http://www.spokenword.ac.uk/spokenwordmatters/
Brick and Mortar: Saltire Centre Level 1, GCU, G4 0BA
spokenword.ac.uk

Ta.
spokenword.ac.uk

Credits:
Bertrand Russell photo ©BBC. Used with
permission.
All BBC clips copyright their respective
holders and ©BBC. Used under license.
‘Whispering’ image from Jainwold Clip Art for
Education -
http://www.jainworld.org/general/prem/Clip%
20Art%20for%20Education/
Copyright status unknown
Saltire Centre photo by Andrew Ferguson:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/given_to_fly/
263002025/
Used with permission
Slide production:
Aidan Johnston, Ewan MacPhee and Graeme
West
The Saltire Centre
spokenword.ac.uk