From Steeple

Contents 1 Workpackage progress 2 Web front end ("portal") 2.1 Multiple use 2.2 Project stages 2.3 Examples of Educational Video and Audio portals 2.4 Licensing

[edit] 1 Workpackage progress

The original demonstrator portal is available here: http://podcast.steeple.org.uk, which currently aggregates and displays media from Steeple partner institutions.

The workpackage is under way (August/September 2009), and details are available here Steeple portal workpackage.

[edit] 2 Web front end ("portal")

[edit] 2.1 Multiple use

We use the terms "portal" and "web front end" synonymously: This is a portal software, that is fed through

• one or more video servers (such as PCP or replay)
• or from a metadata hub (such as Oxitems in Oxford, the mediaplayer architecture in Cambridge)

The same portal software is reused across an institution and elsewhere, for a number of purposes:

1. To build an institutional portal ("All/Selected videos from Oxford University", "CamTV", etc.)
2. To build departmental portals: Departments pay for having their own videos produced, and they should be able to have these in the context of their website, integrated with their content management system.
3. To build special interest portals within an institution ("Cambridge Environmental Initiative" may want to collect videos related to the environment, again within their web content management system)
4. The same portal software can also be used to build national / international / special interest portals, such as "UK HE national video portal", "National video portal for teachers", "Science Engineering Technology Medicine videos", "All videos from OpenCast partners" etc.

As a practical example, we are using the same portal software to build

• CamTV/mediaplayer: An institutional portal for Cambridge University http://mediaplayer.group.cam.ac.uk
• A national portal http://podcast.steeple.org.uk, syndicating media from Oxford, Open University, UCL, and Cambridge
• A subject-based portal http://www.sciencelive.org .

[edit] 2.2 Project stages

• Agreement on metadata
  • What information needs to be transferred between the 'encoding core' (such as pcp or replay) to the (institutional web portal)
  • How should this be bundles in a feed format (RSS+media, Atom+media, ...)
  • See Syndication to find out more about the Steeple syndication format!
• Database design
  • How is the feed information stored in the database? A database may not be necessary for smaller numbers of items (< 50), but for larger amounts (institutional portal, 2000 items) buffering in a database is needed.
  • Choice of technology
• Designing the web application, that presents the videos to the user
  • Design criteria for portal
  • Choice of technology

[edit] 2.3 Examples of Educational Video and Audio portals

Also see -

• • Choice of technology
• Designing the web application, that presents the videos to the user
  • Design criteria for portal
  • Choice of technology

[edit] 2.4 Licensing

As a meta question: What license would the portal software need to have to achieve wide buy-in?