In the never-ceasing quest for productivity gains, CIT has deployed SmartSight and Apreso to enable more webcasts to be conducted with less manpower. CIT will also be upgrading the webcast cameras around campus.
SmartSight
SmartSight allows audio, video and camera control to be brought to a central location. Instead of a Technical Support Officer being physically present at each of three for example concurrent lectures, the SmartSight system allows one TSO to handle webcast operations for three lecture theatres from one place.
This system has been in place at the School of Design and Environment since 2005. It has been so useful that CIT has deployed it at the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from the middle of last year. The Faculty of Science is slated to be upgraded with SmartSight in the near future.
Besides the obvious benefit of manpower reduction, SmartSight enables other gains. Much time is saved as the TSOs do not need to travel from location to location. Operation from a central location thus allows recording of back-to-back lectures in separate localities, allowing CIT to increase the number of webcast man-hours.
Another benefit is that fewer encoding PCs are necessary. In itself, this reduces cost. It also has indirect benefits as there are now fewer PCs to troubleshoot if anything does not occur according to plan.
While SmartSight handles a webcasts audio, video and camera control, it does not account for the lecturers presentation. To do this, CIT employs Apreso.
Apreso
Apreso allows desktop capture. Unlike previous generation webcasts which were dependent on the lecturer submitting their PowerPoint presentations beforehand, Apreso shows the students exactly what is on the instructors desktop. This means that any application which is open on the desktop is shown in the webcast. For example, the lecturer can be using a PowerPoint presentation, then switch to a web browser to show the students a website.
At the end of each lecture, Apreso can automatically extract the webcasts audio, which helps to automate our podcast creation. The programme benefits users as it available on different platforms and allows low-bandwidth users to view the desktop capture with audio.
Webcast Camera Upgrades
In addition to SmartSight and Apreso, CIT is in the process of upgrading the webcast cameras in the Lecture Theatres on campus. About half of the LTs are scheduled to have new cameras by next semester.
The current dome CCTV cameras, which have been around circa 2000, will be replaced with higher quality 3CCD Sony cameras. This will ensure that the webcast equipment is serviceable and provides quality video capture.
Related Resources
Webcast information page
NUScast
