Lecture Capture & Delivery - Project Narrative - Ltech@alliant.edu ...

SCOPE & FUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENTS
For
System-wide Lecture Capture and Delivery
System
March 12, 2009
Rev. July 30, 2009
Prepared by:
Alliant Learning Technology Department
CONFIDENTIAL
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PROJECT SUMMARY & APPROACH
1.1. Project summary
Under the direction of President Geoffrey Cox, the Learning Technology department of Alliant
International University has developed this project plan with the intent to bring lecture delivery
and capture capability on a system-wide level. The goal is to have the capability of delivering
education to students regardless of their location without the dependency of being on a campus
or necessary in a live classroom setting.
1.2. Major Lecture Capture Solution Identification
Learning Technology identified several major lecture capture solutions to evaluate. These
products were either a combination of hardware and software; in-house server based, or hosted
solutions. Each has different feature sets that attempt to differentiate themselves from each other.
The final decision will depend upon the product’s ability to meet the requirements for; a hosted
solution, ease of use, number of preferred features, integration with existing LMS (Moodle) and
the ability to deliver live and/or on demand content.
Adobe - Acrobat Connect Pro - www.adobe.com
Techsmith – Camtasia Relay - www.techsmith.com
Accordent – Media Management - www.accordent.com
Panopto – CourseCast - www.panopto.com
Echo 360 – Echo 360 - www.echo360.tv
Elluminate – Elluminate - www.elluminate.com
Instant Presenter – Instant Presenter - www.instantpresenter.com
Wimba – Live Classroom - www.wimba.com
Sonic Foundry – Mediasite - www.sonicfoundry.com
Tegrity – Campus 2.0 - www.tegrity.com
1.3. Product Requirements
Live synchronous conference capability
On demand recording and storage of captured content
On demand retrieval of captured content
Simple to use user interface
Concurrent display of video, content (whiteboard, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, .PDF etc.) and chat
Desktop sharing
Control of participants; image display, audio muting, conference control, etc.
Hosted solution with 24/7 content availability
Web or client based capture and viewing
Moodle LMS integration
Active Directory/LDAP authentication
Editing captured content capability
Index/search feature for audio and text
Browser based live and captured content viewing
Accommodate up to 100 live participants per session
Private and/or public access to live and captured content
Apple products access; Macs, iPhone, Podcasting, iTunes University
Remote Management of Events
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1.4. Overall Project Approach
We will follow a structured implementation methodology to build on our initial project definition
and requirements. This methodology includes the following project phases:
• Project Management and Product Research
• Product Analysis and Vendor Selection
• Vendor Negotiations and Product Acquisition
• Pedagogy, Copyright and Intellectual Property Considerations
• Training
• Implementation
1.5. Scope of Work
The Learning Technology department will review the leading lecture capture and delivery product
solutions in order to select the top three that best fit Alliant’s requirements for capturing and
delivering live and on-demand content. Upon determination of the final candidates, members of
Alliant faculty and Administration; including but not limited to, Morgan Sammons, Sue Kuba,
Steve Tulkin, Thomas Nickel, Omar Alhassoon, Diane Zelman and Siobhan O’Toole as well as
Psychopharmacology staff will attend an on-line live demonstration of the products conducted by
vendor representatives. A final product recommendation will be determined by the group where
upon Procurement will be enlisted to negotiate the acquisition of the appropriate product(s).
Concurrent to this process a group of faculty will work to develop the pedagogical policies for use
and distribution of captured content. A training plan and schedule will be developed in conjunction
with Continuing Education. Incentives will be put in place that will encourage and reward faculty
for attending. Initial product use is recommended to be for a select group of faculty and limited
number of courses (pilot program) before released university-wide. Presenters will not be
permitted to utilize the system without attending authorized training. Go live date is targeted for
June 1, 2009.
1.6. RELATED DOCUMENTS
• Lecture Capture Product Evaluation
• Lecture Capture Narrative Evaluation Timeline
2. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Role Responsibilities Individual
Project Manager
• Primary Contact Point for stakeholder and sponsor
• Communicates the consensus of the client
decisions to the teams as required.
• Ensures appropriate client resources are available
as needed and inputs to the development process
are on track.
• Curtis Korn
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Subject Matter
Experts/Stakeholders
(Team 1)
Product Analysts
Technical Experts
Financial Analyst
Executive sponsorship
(Team 2)
Table 1: Roles and Responsibilities
• Client representatives providing business process
and functional expertise.
• Determine pedagogical requirements and training
mechanisms.
• Develop policies and procedures related to
copyright and intellectual property issues.
• Prepare and update the project’s Scope of Work
• Responsible for analyzing the business needs of
their clients and stakeholders to help identify
business problems and propose solutions.
• Represents the technology capabilities of Alliant
• Looks for issues and problems with the proposed
approach.
• Ensures the activities & requirements can be
accomplished in the project timeline.
• Represent Alliant in vendor negotiations.
• Ensure contract fulfills university requirement for
products and services.
• Represents the strategy and vision of the project
• Issue escalation and review
• Sue Kuba
• Steve Tulkin
• Omar Alhassoon
• Diane Zelman
• Siobhan O’Toole
• Thomas Nickel
• Aung Lwin
• Curtis Korn
• Roberto Buenano
• Curtis Korn
• Roberto Buenano
• Mehdi Rajabzadeh
• Geoffrey Cox
• Tarun Bhatia
• Russ Newman
• Morgan Sammons
3. ASSUMPTIONS
The Learning Technology department will rely on the following assumptions in developing this project:
• Although acquisition of a lecture capture and delivery solution is initially geared towards
the ability to provide distance education in order to attract and retain students, these
services will eventually be deployed throughout Alliant academia to assist in defraying
travel and meeting expense as well as a mechanism to provide access to on demand
Human Resources and similar training and professional development content.
4. DELIVERABLE REQUIREMENTS
4.1. What license structure fits Alliant’s needs?
• How many instructor/content developer licenses
• How many content editor licenses
• How many participants per event
4.2. How many web cameras and/or headsets are required?
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5. PROJECT PROGRESS
5.1. Three products that best fit the overall criteria of Section 1.3 were chosen as finalists for live
demonstrations and comprehensive evaluation by Team 1. The products are; Adobe Acrobat
Connect Pro, Elluminate Learning Suite, and Panopto CourseCast.
5.2. A live demonstration for Elluminate was provided on 3/13 to Team 1 members.
5.3. The scheduled live demonstration for Adobe had to be rescheduled from 3/13 to 3/17.
5.4. A live technical demonstration for a new release of CourseCast 2.1 was given to Curtis and
Roberto.
5.5. A live demonstration for Adobe Connect Pro was provided on 3/17 to Team 1 members.
5.6. On 3/19 Curtis, Roberto, Tom, Omar and Siobhan are being registered for a 15 day trial of
Connect Pro. Use of trial account is pending site set-up, approval and link information.
5.7. On 3/19 Alliant is being registered for a 30 day 20 seat Virtual Office of Elluminate. Use of trial
account is pending site set-up, approval and link information.
5.8. The evening of 3/19 Connect Pro 30 day trial was made available. Info was e-mailed to
participants.
5.9. A live demonstration for Panopto CourseCast was provided on 3/20 to Curtis, Roberto, Diane
and Steve. A follow-up demo will be scheduled for unavailable Team 1 members.
5.10. Discussed project progress with Mehdi on 4/7 and he was sent an invitation to participate in 4/9
Team 1 conference call.
5.11. MGSM has been evaluating solutions for lecture capture and delivery needs for their school.
Aung Lwin has been added to Team 1 to represent his research findings and the interests of
MGSM.
5.12. A conference call with Team 1 members was conducted on 4/9 to discuss impressions and rank
order of preference for each product. Details are listed in Section 6.
6. PRODUCT RECOMMENDATION
6.1. The solution requirements were many and varied with but only a few features deemed to be nice
to have but not an absolute necessity. Key requirements are live and on-demand archive
retrieval, ease of use, concurrent view of presenter and content, index/search, multi-platform
delivery and viewing, lecture editing and Moodle integration. Overall determination was that each
product has its inherent strengths and weaknesses.
Elluminate was noted to have a strong live delivery component and is easy to use while
sacrificing some on the captured editing capability as well as overall flexibility of the product to
meet a wide range of instructor skill sets and technological savvy. CourseCast excels with the
quality of their on demand captured content with index and search features also being very
good. The product is not yet mature enough in its delivery of synchronous live broadcasts to
many concurrent participants as well as a few other feature sets that are in development but not
available with the current release.
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It was agreed that implementing the use of multiple products (one for live and one for on
demand) to meet the requirements would not be successful at Alliant due to the learning curve
for multiple products, training and support requirements as well as added expense. With this in
mind, Adobe Connect Pro was the favorite due to its ability to best meet both the live and on
demand requirements and the ability to provide the product flexibility for a variety of instructor
preferences while looking professional and still being easy to use. The Elluminate suite was
preferred by some but in the majority of instances was ranked second with Panopto CourseCast
third.
6.2. Team 1 product rankings are as follows:
Omar Alhassoon – (unable to participate in call, pending individual feedback)
Roberto Buenano – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Taylere Joseph – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Curtis Korn – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Azure Kraxberger – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Sue Kuba – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Aung Lwin – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
Thomas Nickel – (Adobe is 1 st choice)
Siobhan O’Toole – (Adobe as long as VoIP and dial-in integration is available)
Steve Tulkin – Adobe, Elluminate/Panopto tied for 2nd
Diane Zelman – Adobe, Elluminate, Panopto
7. PRODUCT PURCHASE
7.1. Dr.
The initial purchase target is to meet the requirement of courses that are in need of and/or ready to
deliver in this medium immediately. We will then grow the use and investment based upon success and
demand for future needs. This approach will keep our initial investment to a minimum and allow us to
determine if the product(s) are appropriate for Alliant’s needs. Additionally, this will provide training and
an introduction to new methods of teaching/learning to a manageable number of users instead of trying to
undertake a deployment system-wide. Included feature sets and required services must included items
outlined in Section 1.3. Cost comparisons will be made between Adobe and Elluminate product and
service solutions.
On April 23, a teleconference was conducted between Curtis Korn, Roberto Buenano, Mehdi
Rajabzadeh, Sue Kuba, Steve Tulkin, Aung Lwin and Azure Kraxberger to discuss the specific needs of
the first courses to be delivered through live and on-demand capture. Web cameras, headsets and other
peripherals as required by the program/instructor will be purchased in quantity through coordination with
Procurement and the expense will be allocated back to the school/department. Dial-in audio integration
on an as need basis was determined to be a requirement with costs to be allocated back to the
department/program or to the student choosing to participate via phone.
7.1. Dr. Sue Kuba, under the direction of Alliant President, Geoff Cox has agreed to deliver five
courses beginning Fall ’09. These courses will be taught by a pool of up to ten instructors. Initial
need is for the live delivery and recording. The need for editing and production capability for
captured content is anticipated to be six to twelve months beyond initial product deployment.
Anticipated increase in six months to an additional twenty licenses of Connect Pro and web
camera/headset. Drs. Sue Kuba, Siobhan O’Toole, Sue Ammen and Diane Zelman will also
require Connect Pro and in-depth training as they will be training other faculty on product use
and pedagogical practices.
7.2. Dr. Steve Tulkin, Psychopharmacology Program Director needs to transfer delivery for his
program from videoconferencing to web based learning as soon as practical in order to reach a
diversely located student population. The program is currently running 2 cohorts, N2 and N3
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with a combined 99 students taught by up to fifteen instructors. Initial need is for the live
delivery and recording of all courses. The need for editing and production capability is not
immediately needed nor a specific determination or timeframe if it will ever be a requirement.
The number of students is anticipated to grow for future cohorts but not to exceed 100 per
cohort.
7.3. Aung Lwin, under the direction of MGSM Dean Jim Goodrich was tasked with bringing a solution
for course delivery for the Bright Green MBA program. This will be a cohort model with monthly
on-campus and weekly online synchronous delivery to 25 students per cohort via four
instructors. Initial need is for the live delivery and recording of all courses with additional
capability of basic production requiring five licenses for Adobe Presenter. Anticipated increase
in six months to an additional five licenses of Connect Pro, Presenter and web camera/headset.
7.4. Learning Technology and Procurement have had discussions regarding moving forward with
product purchase negotiations. Mehdi has contacted Adobe to discuss bundling pricing for our
current usage of Adobe products with our Connect Pro requirements. Adobe handles their
Connect Pro line separately from their other products and they are to put Mehdi in contact with
the proper representative. Adobe education rep., Bruce Steele works in partnership with Adobe
Connect Pro provider, MeetingOne and has recommended that we work with Jackie Specht
their Education Account Executive. Mehdi has provided our requirements to Jackie and she will
be returning a solution recommendation. A conference call is planned for May 11 between
Mehdi, Curtis and MeetingOne to review the supplier proposal and solution options. The May
11 conference call took place as planned with Adobe Education Rep, Bruce Steele and Aung
Lwin also participating in the discussions. Various pricing philosophies and recommended
product bundles were determined. Jackie sent an official proposal for product and services to
Mehdi a couple of hours after the conclusion of our meeting.
On May 14, at 10:00AM Mehdi, Curtis along with Sara Palmieri and Mark Gebhardt with
Elluminate discussed solution recommendations and pricing models for their product line and
services. Elluminate’s pricing structure is based on an annual FTE model rather than seat
licensing. A “pilot” first year discount is available on a percentage basis of FTE with year 2 going
forward based on 100% FTE. We indicated Alliant’s FTE at ~3500 with our pilot year at 500
students. Mark indicated that we would have a proposal by end of the day along with some
company and reference materials. As of this publishing on the afternoon of the 15 th , we had not
received any information.
Product discussions and price negotiations have been on-going between Procurement and
Adobe Connect resellers; MeetingOne and RealEyes Connect as well as with Elluminate.
Presidio World College is a user of Elluminate and upon inquiry about their satisfaction, Mehdi
found they were happy with the product but the IT representative he spoke with was very
interested in DimDim. The Learning Technology department had previously ruled out DimDim
due to a lack of meeting many criteria requirements. Within the past couple of months DimDim
has enhanced their products and it was felt that they might offer a competitive solution. Tom
Nickel has been successfully using DimDim for CE course delivery. Mehdi, Tom, Sue Kuba and
Curtis engaged in a discussion and demo of their products on May 28. Although DimDim is
attractively priced and making headway to being a course delivery product it seems best suited
at this time to be a very good web conferencing platform but is lacking in key elements to meet
Alliant’s course capture and delivery needs. Major features not available are; breakout rooms,
quizzing/polling, audio dial-in integration, indexing/search of captured content and application
sharing.
On June 2, it was brought to my attention that HSOE was also having discussions with Adobe to
acquire Connect Pro in order to meet requirements for a course they plan on delivering on-line
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for fall. HSOE has been notified that we are already working on a similar initiative and that their
requirement will be incorporated in this project.
Over several weeks Mehdi and I engaged in negotiations for products, services and costs with
two Adobe resellers. One reseller was working Curtis and the other with Aung prior to combining
the university needs as a single project. IT turns out that Adobe erred from their standard
practice of assigning one reseller per potential customer. We were allowed to opt for either
reseller and guaranteed that the best rate would prevail. Real Eyes Connect was selected and
they have provided a final quote based upon the requirements outlined in this document. Senior
Administration has been requested to provide a budget sponsor and approval to continue
moving forward with the project.
7.5. Two significant events took place subsequent to submission of the recommendation in Sub-
Section 7.4 on June 19. Firstly, Procurement followed up with customers of both the Adobe
Connect and Elluminate products. Overwhelmingly favorable responses were given to both
products from the customers contacted. Secondly, during this time of diligence by Procurement,
Elluminate offered a new release of their software suite which addressed many areas that
Adobe was originally deemed to be superior. These features included an updated user
interface, multiple layout options, enhanced breakout room capability, enhanced accessibility
features and improvements to the audio and video delivery as well as additional teaching tools
and features. Additionally, senior Elluminate representatives were reaching out to Mehdi
indicating attractive pricing would be made available for unlimited use packages in order to win
Alliant’s business.
A demonstration of Elluminate v9.5 was scheduled for July 10, View the Elluminate Live!
Recording and attended by Curtis Korn, Diane Zelman, Thomas Nickel, Pat Miller & Ted
Lindenmuth. Due to scheduling conflicts for preferred Alliant participants a second
demonstration was conducted on July 20, View the Elluminate Live! Recording and attended by
Curtis Korn, Sue Kuba, Siobhan O’Toole, Steve Tulkin, Aung Lwin, Azure Kraxberger, Taylere
Joseph and Roberto Buenano. Upon completion of the July 20 demonstration, the participants
convened on a conference call and discussed the merits of the upgraded product and
comparison to Adobe Connect. All participants were now in favor of adopting the Elluminate
suite of the Adobe suite. The exception was Aung who indicated a slight preference for Adobe
Connect but he agreed that Elluminate could meet our requirements and he was comfortable
moving forward with Elluminate as a capture and delivery university solution. The group sited
the product enhancements, superior Moodle integration, and perceived ease of use and
adoption by faculty as the major factors for changing the preference from Adobe Connect to
Elluminate. It was also noted that it would be advantageous for the university if in fact we could
provide a system-wide Elluminate solution for a similar expense to that of a select group of 40
Adobe Connect users.
Mehdi is actively engaged in on-going discussions with Elluminate management for a
university-wide solution of products and services at an affordable price to Alliant.
.
8. DOCUMENT REVISIONS
8.1. Added Thomas Nickel to Section 2, Roles and Responsibilities Table – 3/16/2009
8.2. Added Section 5, Project Progress – 3/16/2009
8.3. Added Sub-Sections 5.1 through 5.4 – 3/16/2009
8.4. Added Sub-Sections 4.1 and 4.2 – 3/17/2009
8.5. Added Sub-Sections 5.5 through 5.7 – 3/19/2009
8.6. Added Sub-Section 5.8 through 5.9 – 3/20/2009
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8.7. Added Aung Lwin to Section 2, Roles and Responsibilities Table – 4/9/2009
8.8. Added Sub-Section 5.10 through 5.12 – 4/10/2009
8.9. Added Section 6, Product Recommendation and associated sub-sections – 4/10/2009
8.10. Edited Sub-Section 6.2 with responses from Thomas and Siobhan – 4/11/2009
8.11. Added Section 7, Product Purchase and associated sub-sections – 4/23/2009
8.12. Edited Sub-Section 7.1 to include faculty train the trainer requirement – 4/27/2009
8.13. Added Sub-Section 7.4 – 5/8/2009
8.14. Appended Sub-Section 7.4 – 5/15/2009
8.15. Appended Sub-Section 7.4 – 6/5/2009
8.16. Appended Sub-Section 7.4 – 6/19/2009
8.17. Added Sub-Section 7.5 – 7/30/2009
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