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Information Services@ANU > Teaching > Digital Teaching and Learning Resources > Digital Lecture Delivery - FAQ Digital Lecture Delivery - FAQFrequently Asked Questions How does the DLD Lecture recording work? In short, a lecturer starts the DLD application on the Windows PC in the teaching venue, accepts or changes some information (course code, lecture name) that is automatically retrieved from the ANU central timetable system, then starts recording using the microphone in the teaching venue and at the end of the lecture, stops the recording process. That's it. An mp3 recording is saved on the teaching venue PC behind the scenes. Some short time after the lecture, the mp3 is automatically transferred to a processing server and converted into multi-bandwidth, Real streaming format. To make the recordings available through the WebCT site for the course, the lecturer needs only to add a Single Page tool to a particular script in the WebCT site. When a student clicks on the link, the script generates a list of all recordings for that course. Who is involved with the DLD Project? Mr John Tucker (TLE) is currently the service manager, and has taken over the development role. Audio Visual Services (Space Service Program) provide support and training for the equipment in the teaching venues. Mr Shane Nuessler (TLE) has been involved in the architecture design, and was lead developer after Stuart Fox. What browser do I need to access DLD recorded lectures? Most browsers should be "supported" by WebCT. Recent versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple's Safari are all supported. To check if your browser meets WebCT's technical requirements, use the Check Browser link at top of your myWebCT page. (DLD Lecture recordings are only available from the WebCT site for the courses that use the DLD service.) What administrative options does the lecturer have? The lecturer can (within WebCT):
How do I download and install Real Player? 1. Goto http://www.real.com/international/ 2. Choose ‘Free RealPlayer’. button Note that the free RealPlayer can be found through the link in the top right corner of this page, though this does move a bit. You will need to register with Real to download the free player. What about the new podcasting feature ? Information about podcasting lecture recordings is available from here. The student FAQ and the staff FAQ also contain some useful information. How do I get support?
How do I get my lectures recorded? The system is now a full production service. You don't need any special permission to use the service. All you need to do is to:
For editing your Digital Lecture Recording (DLD) you will need to contact your LITSS, or you can contact the dldhelp@anu.edu.au to arrange for editing to be done. What do I have to do in WebCT? Place the Audio Lecture tools into your WebCT site as described here: http://sts.anu.edu.au/dld/webct/step1.htm The following lecture theatres have the appropriate audio equipment and DLD software for digital lecture audio recording (please note that the venues marked with * are supported by the local IT of the respective Colleges).
What do I have to do in the teaching venue? Log in with your <UniID> If you are a guest lecturer, you will need to get your account information for the course convener. The DLD program on the Windows PC in the teaching venue. where the lecturer needs to do the following steps 1. CONFIRM 2. START 3. STOP This means the lecturer will confirm the lecturer details, start the recording and upon completion of the lecture stop the recording. What if I'm a non-ANU guest lecturer? You will need an affiliate ANU account to use online facilities such as DLD. Usually the IT support for the area or your sponsor can facilitiate this. What do I have to do to listen to a digitally-recorded lecture? Students access all recording through WebCT. If accessing audio recordings off campus, you will need to ensure the Real player is installed on your computer. A free version of the player is available and can be downloaded from the RealNetworks website. Note: Students can only listen to audio for WebCT courses in which they are enrolled. How do I download the mp3 from WebCT once mp3 downloading is enabled? If the Mp3 download option is enabled, you will see an Mp3 link next to the streaming link for each recording in WebCT. Right click on this link and choose 'Save as' form the menu, a file save dialogue will appear. Save the file to an appropriate location, and then open it as normal. (It should open into a media player.) If when saving the file your browser presents the filename as getAudioFile.php, just give the file a new name with a .mp3 extension. For example: My_Lecture.mp3 It is important that you give mp3 as the file extension. What if my lecture recording doesn't appear on the WebCT site for my course? Recordings will normally be available in WebCT within 2 hours. The average time for Semester 1 2006 was around 1.5 hours. If there is a problem, please log a job with the DOI Help Desk at http://doi.anu.edu.au/helpdesk/login.asp There are occasionally problems that delay the processing of recordings. Although infrequent, their effect is to delay posting of a lecture rcording until after an special overnight run. What if the recording on the PC in the teaching venue doesn't start? In the unlikely circumstance that there is a problem starting the recording, contact AV Servicea through the ISG Help Desk on x55909 requesting urgent assistance. The current emergency solution is to use the legacy tape recording system. Currently TLE staff will assist with the digitisation of tapes if required. A solution using mp3 recorders and a WebCT tool to upload these recordings has been developed and is being tested by a small group of lecturers. It is expected to be available for Semester 2, 2006. What if I start and Stop recordings several times in an hour? Do I overwrite my recordings? DLD does not overwrite any recordings. If there are several starts/stops under the same course code in the same hour, it makes several different recording files. In normal use, there are normally only one or two files, and DLD makes the best guess as to the recording to upload to WebCT and mostly gets this right. The rest of the files are stored in the duplicates area on our central server in case they are needed. These recordings can be retrieved by hand if necessary. In any event no recordings are automatically thrown away. If the wrong file is posted, please contact dldhelp@anu.edu.au for assistance. I'm having problems accessing lecture recordings from off-campus. What's causing this? There are a number of possible reasons for this. They are all associated with configuration of the computer you are using or or the network serving your computer. For example, many workplaces use firewalls to protect their network from intrusion and this may interfere with accessing DLD recordings. To cover this in a bit more detail, there are a few ports that must be open in order to start a stream from WebCT.
Almost the same applies to the MP3 files, except they won't use 554 to
stream, and will open with whatever Are there any known problems with DLD? After some significant work duriing the summer of 2005/2006 (see http://sts-dev.anu.edu.au:8084/bin/view/Projects/LectureRecording for details), the recording system is now extremely stable. The failure rate is now around 4% overall. However there are still a few problems or quirks with the system. They are:
Authorised: Program Leader, Teaching and Learning Environments, STS What technologies does DLD use? DLD uses open standards such as XML, SOAP, SMIL and MP3 to achieve its functionality. |
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