EDUCast@fccn: An example of European cooperation to implement the production of AV content in Higher Education Institutions in Portugal

Abstract

The specific logistics of each Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Portugal and the specific teaching of each academic community are some of the major challenges faced by technical staff, administrative staff and educational support staff of these institutions when trying to find an appropriate solution for the provision of audiovisual content. In this sense, it was developed since 2010 an innovative partnership initiated by the Portuguese Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN), by SWITCH (the institution that manages the Swiss Network Technology Research and Education) and the University of Porto (U.Porto). These three European institutions have developed a work of exploration and discussion under the auspices of TERENA (Trans-European Research and Education Networking) during the various forums for collaboration, innovation and knowledge sharing that this institution regularly promotes. Thus, was born in 2011 the project Educast@fccn that can be considered the simplest national service to manage educational video from recording to the distribution process. This service is based on a technology platform for production, editing and video distribution that allows full autonomy to the user in all the process. In addition to the innovative technology, this service provides to all HEI's in Portugal the integration into a professional structure that supports the production of audiovisual content for e-learning and blended learning in each institution and a great possibility of scaling the production on each HEI. This professional network structure also ensures a high level of service support, and consequently, a great confidence to the teachers and other audiovisual content producers in the various academic communities in Portugal. But this project also allowed, since its inception, to consolidate a national community of experts in content development for e-learning and blended learning, especially the audiovisual components. The U. Porto also positioned itself as a pivotal entity in this privileged national network of experts on audiovisual content on education through the training of about 50 employees spread across 15 HEI's in Portugal. It was materialized one more step of this ambitious national project that allowed to build a set of technical teams specialized in the production of educational content and that directly support the academic communities of their own institutions. The results after one year of project implementation in Portugal confirm the high expectations of those involved and augur a promising future for the expansion of this project. About 28 HEI's joined the project Educast@fccn with 676 producers, 1607 videos were produced and integrated in 311 channels of this platform. With these quantitative results it is created a set of technological and logistic conditions to start a strong manifestation of significant qualitative results regarding the educational impact of this project in the daily activities of teachers. Aspects such as the better management of lectures that are traditionally less appealing, the attractiveness of the educational contents created through video, the improved productivity of teachers through the recording of audiovisual content, the release and allocation of teaching time for productive activities and to the interactive direct support to the student or even the increase of the students' interest in certain content that traditionally would not be so appealing, are just a few issues that constitute these qualitative aspects .