As the boundaries of ‘learning spaces’ continues to expand, Instructional Video Services (IVS) is here to assist with the video aspects of your communication needs. These needs can be as simple as an audio greeting for your students up through a live interactive session. Many of these processes can be performed on your own or through our production facilities. For those who wish to be more self reliant, we frequently offer seminars and TLT (Teaching, Learning, Technology) sessions covering many of the relevant topics and applications. If you still need one-on-one training, our staff is readily available. Our facilities and resources will enable you to achieve quality recordings.

The first step in zeroing in on finding the proper ‘fit’ for your need is to identify the audience and resources. Let’s take a look at some of these options in more detail:

Course Module recordings - If you are creating elements for a DL (Distance Learning) course or are supplementing a face to face course, there are a variety of paths you can utilize. It can be as simple as a brief audio introduction or as complex as a video of a lab experiment. The most common are audio enhanced PPT (PowerPoint) presentations.

There are programs such as Audacity & Camtasia for the PC and Profcast & iMovie for Mac which will allow you to create these segments on your own, at the time and place that is best for you. IVS frequently runs TLT sessions designed to help instructors become self sufficient in the use of these programs. We also encourage you to bring your initial efforts to us for review. We can then help you make adjustments or improvements.

Naturally there are some minimum technical quality standards that apply for creating this material. Audio files must be clear and free from distortion. They will need to be encoded in the MP3 format. Video files will need to be in the M4V format (a variation of MPEG4) with a frame rate of 30 and a maximum resolution of 640 x480. (Camtasia has an encoding wizard that takes care of all that, Profcast creates proper files as well).

If you prefer IVS to assist with personnel and a facility for your recording sessions, we certainly can do that as well. Depending on what is needed, we can record in one of our media production facilities.

Distribution - The main method of distribution of these course modules is through NJIT’s iTunes U site, which can be accessed through: itunes.njit.edu You will note on the login that there are three categories for logging into this site: Faculty (or staff), Student or Guest. We’ll start with the latter: Guest log-in allows any person, anywhere, to view certain components of the site. These will most likely be sections about activities on campus, information on registering and select lectures that are available for public viewing. Student, additionally gives access to course lectures that they are registered for. Faculty/staff will give you the public areas as well as material designed for NJIT faculty and staff (specific teacher training, etc.) and courses that the instructor is teaching.

The two big advantages of this method are: 1) You do NOT need an iPod or MP3 player to view or listen to these recordings; they can be played through your PC or MAC. 2) The best thing for the students is that it is FREE!

Of course that may not be the only need you have for distribution; we can create and/or adapt material for on demand streaming, DVDs, CD ROMs, FLASH video, etc.

Video Conferencing - What used to be a rare, specialized occurrence, has become much simpler endeavor. Live, two-way, audio and video enables instructors to teach students in literally any part of the world (which IVS has done). We regularly conduct these ‘linked’ classes between other colleges in the state as well as our Big Bear Solar Observatory in California.

Some instructors are starting to explore simple PC based server/client tools such as Marratech, which enables them to conduct live problem solving sessions with their students. These can be conducted with a microphone only and whiteboard utility (a webcam can be added for a more personalized experience). IVS can assist you with the operation of the Marratech program and obtaining a user’s account.

Remote & On Site Recordings - IVS can conduct remote recordings on campus. A relatively simple remote recording may be that of final presentations in your classroom. We have a ‘studio’ classroom, referred to as the Multi Media Classroom where classes can be recorded with much better results than taking equipment into a specific room, generally for the same or less cost.

Facilities - The IVS facilities are all located in the GITC building. They are: Interactive Television Room (ITV) in 1403, Multi Media Classroom in 1402, Multipurpose Lecture Hall in 1400 and a fully equipped Studio & Editing facility in 0400.

For more information, cost estimates or reservations, contact:
Bill Duelly, Asst. Director for IVS, (973) 596-3005