Supporting On-Demand
E-Reserves for Non-Print Educational
Media:
Design, Development, Implementation, and
Conclusions
Oscar Retterer
Director, Academic Technology Services
Franklin & Marshall, Lancaster, PA USA

Results Online
http://edisk.fandm.edu/oscar.retterer/edmedia2007/

Franklin & Marshall
• Four-year, liberal arts college
• Lancaster, PA USA
• 2000 students, 190 faculty
• Instructional technology staff - 4 FTE

Instructional Support
Media Distribution
• File/web services for courses - 1990s
• LMS - Blackboard - 2000
• Classical.com pilot - 2002

AVOD Project Goal
to explore feasibility and
ramifications of supporting on-
demand online titles for audio and
video

Challenges
• Technical (hardware, software)
• Workflow (encoding, streaming, support)
• Intellectual Property
(Copyright, Fair Use DMCA, TEACH Act)

Options
• License media for on-demand access
- Video Select
• Vendor-supplied solutions
- Films Media Group
• Out-source solutions
- encoding, hosting
• In-house solutions

AVOD eReserves
Project Funding
Start-up Budget
$6000.00
Hardware and software
Additional Expenses
$1000.00
extra drive space for storage

AVOD eReserves
Project Duration
Phase One
Research and Development
2004-2005
Phase Two
Small scale pilot and evaluation
2005-2006
12 faculty, 350 students, 22 courses

AVOD eReserves
Technology
• Apple Macintosh (G5)
• OSX Server (10.3)
• QuickTime/Darwin Streaming
• LDAP Authentication Module

AVOD eReserves
How it works
1. Encoded media added to Course on Server
2. Reference Movie added to Course site
Blackboard or eDisk
3. Upon selection, student is authenticated
4. Stream begins in QuickTime Player

AVOD eReserves
Demo

Questions
• Faculty-Student interest
• Technical feasibility
• Media Preparation
• Scalability issues
• Policy issues
• Future issues

Conclusions
Online course reserves for audio and video are a useful and
important service for some faculty on our campus at this
time. As online access to digital audio and video becomes
more widespread and such behavior becomes more
practiced, interest and demand will likely increase.
However, the technical and staff resource requirements to
support, sustain, and scale such a service are not trivial. As
we have learned from other supported on-demand services,
there are real costs to any realized benefits.

Conclusions
• Option 1: Don't offer the service at this time
• Option 2: Outsourcing
• Option 3: Limited Video Services
• Option 4: Audio-only Services
• Option 5: Freeze the project and delay the decision
• Option 6: Full-scale implementation

Results Online
http://edisk.fandm.edu/oscar.retterer/edmedia2007/