Section 4: Establishing your podcasting production processes

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Contents 1 Establishing your podcasting production processes 1.1 The production process 1.1.1 Pre-production 1.1.2 Production 1.1.3 Post-production

[edit] 1 Establishing your podcasting production processes

The process you chose for podcast production will depend heavily on your editorial framework and the resources available to you. You may have a wealth of existing material available for exploitation, you may simply gather together existing podcasts from other sources or perhaps you record everything from scratch.

The actual production process is very similar whether you are working within a highly resourced project or not. The process diagram illustrates how the various processes mentioned in the production process come together.

[edit] 1.1 The production process

[edit] 1.1.1 Pre-production

This process has evolved from the OU iTunes U experience and may need adapting to your organisational needs. The process starts with sourcing your material but does not deal with the content creation process however this process will have an influence over your content creation process, e.g. rights clearing the pre-production of an upcoming lecture.

Source suitable content [1]

• Research existing materials
  • Larger institutions may have access to a large internal archive of media materials produced for their core business, or this might be a case of gathering material from individual subject specialists or departments. Reusing existing material can boost production and get your site off to a quick start.

• New material
  • Recording lectures can also provide a quick source of new material and demonstrates the quality of teaching within your organisation. You may already have an automated lecture capture system in place.

• Identify material to produce a worthwhile podcasts or larger albums
  • When initially setting up your podcasting process you may be looking to rapidly populate your delivery channel with a broad spectrum of subject materials, but as the number of podcasts or albums increases, you may want to focus more on material to support subject areas where podcast numbers are limited.

Initial assessment of rights situation [2]

• Existing in-house course materials (excluding third party materials):
  • Check that your institution’s terms and conditions of employment permit this new delivery of materials.
  • Check where copyright rests, is it with the member of staff or the institution?

• New material – authored in-house:
  • Check your institution’s terms and conditions of employment, how copyright is assigned?
  • Any content provided and owned by staff (such as photographs etc.) requires a formal permission. This could take the form of waiver or a simple confirmation by email which includes all uses required.
  • Check content for slideshows to be used in lecture recordings

• New material – commissioned:
  • Ensure your contracts are explicit in assignment of copyright to your institution.
  • If the commissioned materials contain any third party content, ensure that the contract places the responsibility and cost for clearing with the author.

• Third party content
  • No – ensure this decision is recorded and everyone is aware that this is the position and no changes permitted. Introducing third party materials further down the line when none have been planned is likely to impact on schedules and budgets, which have not been explored or planned for.
  • Yes – What type of third party content is planned: ensure a clearance process is built into the overall production schedule. If third party materials are contained in existing in-house materials then existing permissions/licensing needs checking before reclearing.

Editorial and academic review [2] Review the material for the quality of its academic interest, assess how the material fits within the editorial framework and how appropriate is it for your chosen delivery channel.

Schedule rights clearances and approvals [3]

• Check any associated rights paperwork
  • Some materials may be difficult or very expensive to clear, e.g. sports commentary or commercial music, it may be necessary to put this material to one side in favour of material that is more easily clearable. You might also set aside material for other reasons, for instance if there are children or vulnerable adults clearly identifiable in the original material and it would be difficult to contact the individual families to seek their permission to re-use it or it may contain out-of-date information.

• Material confirmed for use
  • Ask your rights person to formally check and reclear the material as necessary. They will then be able to advise you on potential copyright costs before you commit to using expensive editing resources. Only when your rights person has given the go-ahead to use the material on the platform of your choice should you proceed into production.

• Set a clearance schedule

All clearances and use of content need approval and to be ready to ‘go live’ well before the ‘going live’ date. Set a ‘cleared by’ date built into the overall schedule, followed by an ‘approval’ date which is prior to ‘going live’ date. Allow plenty of time for clearances.

[edit] 1.1.2 Production

Agreeing treatment [4]

• Once material has been selected and rights approval is received, you need it to be edited into a style and format consistent with your institution’s editorial framework and branding, and in a manner which is appropriate for the delivery channel you have chosen. For example, the OU’s original materials are longer, documentary-style programmes, often originally made to fill transmission slots (as part of our ongoing relationship with the BBC). These might have been 30 or 60-minute programmes, which might be difficult to include because the file sizes and resulting download times would be too great for online delivery.

Paper edit [5]

• View the original material and identify appropriate ‘chunks’, possibly using one longer programme to create a number of smaller stand-alone podcasts. Plan your edits on paper to make sure the content remains valid as individual podcasts. You may need to take advice at this stage from subject specialists, to check that you have not changed the context or meaning of the original material by editing it.

Editing [6]

• Edit material into agreed chunks, if necessary remove expensive or unclearable rights material. Obscure identities of contributors, particularly if the material is of a sensitive nature or there are particularly vulnerable contributors included.

Add context [6]

• If the narrative thread of the original programme is compromised, use the original subject specialist to explain how and why the material was originally used. Alternatively, record a round-table discussion with a number of subject specialists: this creates an opportunity to record an introduction to the podcast album – providing a more rounded package, or allowing you to update existing material with the latest information or research.

Playout and encoding [7]

• Once the edit is complete and has editorial approval, it should be played out and encoded.
• A viewing version of the finished podcast is also produced from which the metadata can be completed.
• At this stage the podcast should also be checked for technical quality.

Create metadata [8]

• Create the metadata for individual tracks and albums (e.g. podcast description, key words, durations, etc.).
• Create a metadata checklist or spreadsheet for every podcast or album.

Create album artwork [8]

• Why do you need album artwork?
  • The album artwork is an opportunity to enforce your institution’s brand and provide a visual interpretation of the content.
  • Suggestions for suitable artwork for the podcast album ‘cover’ (the image which appears alongside the media file) should be supplied by the producer.
  • Images can be specifically designed or obtained from the original material. There are also a number of stock photography agencies where it is possible to pay a small one-off fee for use of an image.

Create transcripts [8]

• Transcripts should be created to conform to your institution’s brand and checked against the final edited podcast. It is important that the transcript is saved using in the earliest possible version of Adobe (currently this is Adobe 4.0) this will limit accessibility problems.

Album release [9]

• Once a podcast or album is complete, quality assured and rights approved including all necessary metadata on the podcast checklist/spreadsheet, the media files should be uploaded into a ‘holding’ area of your delivery channel, to await release. A final check of the album should be carried out to include proof reading on-screen text, checking all media files play as they should, and that associated weblinks on the page (for instance, to the institution’s website) are working properly.
• Once the final check of the album is complete, the album is released onto the live site.

Progress tracking

• As the production process is complex it is vital to monitor progress. On iTunes U two spreadsheets were created on to monitor the process and one to collate the metadata The ‘process’ spreadsheet confirms the completion of the media edits, rights checks, transcripts, album artwork, etc. When every section has been confirmed as complete this signals that all aspects of the album are complete and it is ready to be uploaded. The ‘metadata’ spreadsheet was created containing all the metadata needed to see a podcast or album through to its release. Much of this information was for internal use, to help identify the podcasts and albums quickly, making sure they all end up in the right place. Examples of these spreadsheets can be found in the Appendices.

[edit] 1.1.3 Post-production

Data storage You will need to define the processes required within your organisation to ensure the safe storage of all the assets used in your podcast production process.

Archive original source materials and final product files At the OU these elements are held by the sound & vision department and a copy is also placed with the Library.

Rights perspective It is important to keep records of your products (projects) and their content. These records should include:

• content subject to collaborative agreements
• third party content
• the rights clearance levels obtained (this record will facilitate any re-use of content on future projects)
• rights owners contacted, without response
• any content where you were unable to identify rights owners and where you proceeded on an ‘Await Claim’ basis.
• third party content used (without clearing) under some of the Permitted Acts (such as Criticism or Review) from the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

When all the content is logged with clearance levels, costs, etc., and the project is concluded, the log should be placed somewhere central (with all contract documentation) or in a place which is accessible by appropriate staff. It is also important to maintain the log with any updates etc.

Content maintenance and take-down policies

You will need to decide on the on-going processes required by your organisation to determine how your content will be maintained and reviewed for continuing suitability.

The project manager should have the responsibility for authorising removal of content. The reasons for take down could vary from refusals of third party rights (although further negotiation should be undertaken before that occurs) to issues of sensitivity or decency.

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