Strategic Planning System
Title:Media Productions & Services, 2015-16
Plan Type:Program Plan
OPR:Learning Resources Division
Collaborative
Group(s):Facilities, Outreach Centers, Ed & IT Committee
Reference Documents: College Goals - Sacramento City College
Distance Education Program Plan
Departmental Unit Plans
Planning Year:2015-16
SECTION I: Overview & Strategic Information
A. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION & PURPOSE
Media Production & Services supports a broad base of college activities and manages related resources in three main areas:
1.Campus technology support, non-computer/network (College Goal B5)
2.Campus event support (College Goals A1, B3, B5)
3.Media production, support and delivery (College Goals A5, B1, B3, B5)
Both media production and classroom technology support are linked through classroom technology use and distance education to student learning outcomes, college strategic goals, and effective delivery of college programs and services. Campus events, which include both faculty/staff professional development activities as well as student events, also contribute to college strategic goals and effective delivery of college programs and services.
Under campus technology support, the Media Production & Services unit engages in two major projects each year: first, the unit replaces aging LCD projectors and some associated smart classroom equipment each fiscal year, with purchasing in late summer/early fall and installation throughout the school year. Second, the unit installs new smart rooms on campus each year based on a master list of classrooms that is prioritized every 2-3 years as campus conditions and needs change; purchasing of equipment for new classrooms takes place each spring semester, with most installation taking place between the end of spring semester and the start of summer classes. In addition, techs in the unit answer A/V trouble calls as needed, year round, Monday through Friday.
To support campus events, techs in the unit keep a yearly schedule of all events that require A/V support, and also assist with repair, maintenance, and purchase of A/V equipment permanently installed in campus event facilities as well as A/V equipment for circulation (which is often used for campus events). A/V equipment for circulation and facility based event equipment is replaced on no fixed schedule; instead resource requests are included in a particular year’s program plan if and when needed, as equipment becomes obsolete or wears out.
To manage media production, support and delivery requires management of staff time and availability of production facilities, management of physical and virtual resources used for media hosting and distribution, and maintenance, replacement and modernization of production equipment. Equipment upgrade and replacement must take place during low demand times, typically during summer or winter breaks.
B. ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
1. Campus Technology Support
a. High Definition Video. Currently, the most significant factor related to classroom technology at SCC is the increasing prevalence and affordability of high definition video for computers, video playback devices and projectors. As a consumer technology, 1080p high definition video (corresponding to a computer resolution of WUXGA) has been the de facto standard for some time, but cost effectiveness to implement technology on an institutional basis typically lags consumer adoption. At the time of this writing (Fall, 2014), the campus standard for new projectors remains 720p (or WXGA), but before new and replacement projectors are installed, departments are given the option to cover the cost difference to upgrade to 1080p/WUXGA projectors on a room by room basis.
b. Tablets and wireless devices. With the increase in tablets and other wireless devices on the market, more and more faculty members have their own tablets that they would like to use in SCC classrooms. While most tablets can be connected to standard smart classrooms similarly to a conventional laptop, using an inexpensive cable, the strength of these devices is their wireless capability, and users are beginning to ask for wireless connection of tablets in smart classrooms. Unfortunately, there is no consistent standard among devices, and there are trade-offs in cost and usability among methods to implement wireless connection. At this point, adding wireless capability for iPads or other tablets in smart classrooms is being handled for individual rooms by request, with funds sourced by the requesting department.
c. Obsolescence of VHS format and VCRs. Though some consumers may still have VCRs in their homes, the VHS videotape and VCR has been effectively obsolete for a number of years. Keeping an obsolete consumer technology functional in an institutional environment is increasingly difficult, especially since few manufacturers still make VCRs, and even worse, most of the tapes in SCC collections are deteriorating, leading to equipment problems when played. Unfortunately, many of the programs SCC owns on videotape are not available on DVD, and the law permits creation of digital copies of copyrighted programs only in very limited circumstances. As of the most recent purchase of DVD/VCRs, for 2012-13 classroom upgrades, only one brand of DVD/VCRs was still readily available and the available machines were not high quality. We have purchased some of these, and also try to reuse down-streamed higher quality DVD/VCRs when they become available, but either way, there will come a time when support for VHS is no longer practical.
d. Decreasing standardization campus wide. As indicated by factors 1a. and 1b., a growing number of classrooms now have high definition capability, and it is likely that in the near future certain rooms will be customized for wireless tablet use. In addition, new facilities in the PAC and Hughes Stadium, and facilities currently being built for Electronics, Photography, Math and Anthropology also have more complex, non-standard A/V systems. With more and more custom and non-standard configurations, general maintenance and trouble calls become more difficult and complex to manage campus-wide, and the yearly upgrade cycle will become both more difficult to manage and more expensive.
2. Event Support
a. Campus website & online event support request procedure. Currently, event support requests may be submitted via email, on paper forms, or by appointment, and there are different procedures for different type of events. In order to clarify and simplify event support requests for end users, during 2013-14, Media Productions & Services created an online submission process so that end users can submit requests from any computer on the Internet, at any time. This form went live as part of an update to the Media Production & Services website prior to Fall 2014 and is currently active as an optional method to make requests, alongside the prior methods listed above.
b. PAC events.New event venues in the PAC have state-of-the-art equipment, but since the systems are extremely configurable and require significant specialized knowledge to operate, most events are impractical in the PAC without expert staff present. Media Services techs are not necessarily expert in the operation of all of the systems in the PAC, and more importantly, the entire Media Services unit is needed to fully staff the PAC. This means that full-service events in the PAC can only be handled by Media Services when the unit is not needed to provide other support on campus, which is generally limited to Fall and Spring Convocation. Even so, the Media Services unit has frequently been called upon to assist users unfamiliar with the systems in the PAC for both campus use and for rentals, with a significant impact in terms of staff time. In addition, as described in item 1c above, the complex and unique systems in the PAC add considerably to the challenge and cost of keeping campus technology in good repair. Upgrade/repair of systems in the PAC will likely require specialized resource requests through this program plan.
3. Distance Education Support & Digital Media Production
a. Web based media. Watching video on the web has become a popular form of entertainment, and as the technology to deliver video and audio over the Internet has improved and become more affordable, web based media has also been heavily adopted by colleges for distance education and to deliver supplemental material for face-to-face courses. As documented in past program plans, SCC has been delivering course materials over the web since Fall 2006, starting with web-based versions of Interactive Television (ITV) courses that had previously only been available to view as local cable TV broadcasts. The popularity of web based video with students quickly surpassed cable broadcasts to the point that the ITV format was phased out at SCC as of the end of Spring 2013, mainly to improve availability of staff and facilities to offer digitalmedia production and related support more widely to SCC faculty. Current challenges include changing web standards for video and audio and implementation of closed captioning for web-based video and live video streams.
b. Demand for varied media support. As touched on in 3a, demand from SCC faculty to support rich media for online courses and to supplement face-to-face instruction has not necessarily declined with the phase-out of the ITV format; in fact, the demand for more varied types of media support was a primary reason to stop offering ITV courses. At the end of Fall 2013, SCC’s Chief Broadcast Engineer retired and the position was not replaced. In response, in Spring of 2014, the existing AV Tech I handling media support for Distance Education was reclassified as an AV Tech II and was fully reassigned to the Media Services unit. With only one primary staff member handling video production and support, larger projects in particular are more difficult to produce, but with media production and support consolidated in one area, the unit remains fairly flexible in terms of the variety of services it can offer.
C. MULTI-YEAR DIRECTIONS OR STRATEGIES
- LCD Projector / Smart Room Upgrade Cycle. (College Goal B5)
Initially the target for the LCD projector upgrade cycle was to replace all projectors after 5 years of service, but the budget conditions when the cycle was initiated led to slippage, and we ended up replacing most projectors at ~8 years of service. For 2013-14, funds were provided to upgrade the equivalent of two years’ projectors at once. The 2013-14 double upgrade has been completed, and after completion of the 2014-15 upgrades currently in progress, all mounted projectors at SCC will be Panasonic models that have proven to be much more reliable than previous brands. At that point, the oldest LCD projectors in service at SCC will still be ~7 years old, but even so, the campus will finally be in a reasonably stable situation with respect to premature failure of projectors. For 2015-16 and onward, replacement is still important to keep ahead of technical obsolescence, but for the first time, some of the projectors being replaced may still be in good enough condition to be cascaded into areas with less stringent technical needs.
Moving forward, we will also be doing upgrades for years when many more projectors were originally installed, so the yearly cost of the upgrade cycle will definitely increase. In addition, as digital projection has improved, it has being more heavily adopted by disciplines that have clearly demonstrated special needs in terms of image quality. In a similar fashion to the way the computer upgrade cycle is handled by IT (with computers upgraded more frequently for disciplines with higher technological requirements), projectors with higher image quality will need to be purchased for Graphic Communication, Fine Arts, Photography, and Theatre Arts and Film as a minimum. This will further increase the overall cost of the upgrade cycle.
- New smart room plan. (College Goal B5)
A question often asked regarding new smart room installations is how close SCC is to being “fully smart,” meaning: when will all rooms that can be made into smart classrooms, be made into smart classrooms? As of this writing, there are approximately 45 rooms remaining on campus that would make reasonable smart rooms. For 2014-15, funding for six rooms was requested, and funding for four rooms was awarded. Some of the rooms being made into smart rooms are labs in Lillard and Mohr halls in which the standard smart room setup will not fit, so a medium-term solution specifically designed for the limited space in these labs is being developed as part of the 2014-15 process. As a result of these limitations, the labs will likely have a lower cost than a standard smart room, which may allow us to install 5-6 rooms total, rather than only 4, leaving about 40 rooms after 2014-15 projects are completed. As further rooms are installed and new building projects take place, there will come a time, probably within ~5 years, when the SCC campus is essentially “fully smart.”
- Adoption of new classroom technology when appropriate for SCC. (College Goal B5)
To reference back to some of the environmental factors under “Classroom Technology” (above), within the next 2-3 years, it will become appropriate to update the standard smart classroom configuration for typical new rooms on campus, incorporating high definition/1080p projection, one or more high definition connections between the projector and teaching station, and possibly wireless connection for one or more chosen tablets. While a standard configuration may not be appropriate for every room on campus, developing a new standard formost rooms will help to preserve some of the benefits of past standardization, while also offering newer technology to a broad range of campus users as it becomes cost-effective to implement widely.
As a first step, a discussion of new standards for smart rooms will begin in the EIT committee during the 2014-15 year, although it may not be possible or cost effective to have an updated standard ready to implement for the 2015-16 year.
- Web based video delivery. (College Goals A5, B1, B3, B5)
The Los Rios Community College District maintains a district-wide Adobe Flash video server for live streaming video as well as to host archived Flash video files for online viewing. Since Apple’s mobile devices don’t support Flash, SCC also has a smaller video server on campus that has been used to offer Quicktime-compatible video files as a download for iPhone, iPod and iPad users. As a long-term planning item, SCC will need to stay on top of changes in web based video delivery standards over the next 2-3 years and beyond. One challenge is the need to offer captions or subtitles on web-based video, for which there is not yet a universal standard, which can be expensive and which can require significant turn-around time. Another factor to plan for is the coming HTML 5 internet standard, which is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2014, and incorporates new standards for web-based video delivery.
During 2014-15, a pilot has been proposed with IT, Distance Education and Instructional Development to explore video hosting and delivery methods and to implement one or more type(s) of captioning for SCC’s web-based videos.
- Media collection server. (College Goals A5, B1, B5)
Currently some of the SCC Instructional Media collection of VHS tapes and DVDs are available for circulation, while some may not circulate, and must be viewed at viewing stations in the LRC. Also, as mentioned in environmental factor 1c above, much of the VHS media is in poor shape, and it is increasingly difficult to keep VCRs on campus functional. In addition to VCRs, the infrastructure for the viewing stations in the LRC is obsolete, leading to ongoing maintenance issues. A combined solution to many of these problems is to implement a server-based digital storage system and viewing system for the SCC media collection that complies with copyright law as laid out in the TEACH Act. Implementing a system of this type is a significant challenge, and at this point we are only at the information gathering stage. Ultimately, if it is determined to be feasible and can be put together for SCC in a cost-effective way, it is definitely a project that should be considered during the next 2-3 years. This potential future use of the more general video server(s) mentioned in the pilot project described in 4 (above) is definitely part of that discussion, but actually developing a media collection server is beyond the scope of that project.
SECTION II: Operational Review and Plan
A: REVIEW OF ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PREVIOUS YEAR’S WORK (2013-14 Plan)
Objective/Procedure/Task / ExpectedOutcome / Results/Progress
1. LCD Projector / Smart Room Upgrade/Renewal / Upgrade RHS-261,
RHS-262, RHS-263, RHS-273, Temp 3-1, BUS-151, BUS-219, SOG-144, CDC-208, TEC-101, TEC-102, TEC-103, TEC-105, TEC-110, TEC-200, TEC-206, COS-105,
COS-108 by the end of 2013-14 / Fully upgraded RHS-261, RHS-262, RHS-263, RHS-273, Temp 3-1, BUS-151, BUS-219, SOG-144, CDC-208, TECH-101, TECH-102, TECH-103, TECH-105, TECH-110, TECH-200, TECH-206, COS-105, COS-108; also completed upgrades in TECH-100, COSM-110 (both started at division expense, out of cycle). All upgrades completed before the start of Fall 2014 semester.
2. New Classroom Technology Installation / Install 3 new smart classrooms on campus by end of 2013-14, based on prioritized list / Installed new smart rooms in LIL-101, LUC-132, RHS-312, also new multimedia rooms in PAC-115 and PAC-116 plus unit plan funded modifications to smart rooms in RHS-110 and DAC-119.
3. Troubleshooting, maintenance, repair of all audio and video systems on campus / Answer trouble calls 8:00 AM – 6:30 PM Mon-Fri; 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM Saturdays / For Fall 2013, hours were maintained as expected, but as of Spring 2014, Saturday hours were discontinued due to ripple effect of retirement/non-replacement of Chief Broadcast Engineer.
4. Implement web-based event support procedures / Trial web-based form in use for Fall 2013, with any necessary changes incorporated for Spring 2014 / New SCC website roll-out delayed implementation of web-based event form to start of Fall 2014. Trial version of form is currently active in parallel with other event support request procedures.
5. Campus AV circulation equipment / a) Purchase 6 cameras for IM circulation counter
b) Purchase portable classroom PA system / a) 4 cameras purchased and put into service for Fall 2014
b) Not purchased; appropriate portable PA system was discontinued by time of plan execution and a cost-effective alternative could not be found
6. Campus event equipment / Purchase smaller sound system appropriate for ASG / Spirit Squad use on Quad / Appropriate smaller sound system was purchased by ASG before plan was executed; in consultation with VPA office, funds awarded for Procedure 6 were instead used for basic upgrade of Student Center installed sound system; initial install of this equipment was completed in late October, 2014.
7. Manage staffing changes in Broadcast & Media Production / Replacement of Chief Broadcast Engineer upon retirement / Position was not replaced. 10 month AV Tech I was extended and reclassified to 12 month AV Tech II.
B: PROGRAM OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES FOR THE PLANNING YEAR