TIF DI4 Grant Report
College of Pharmacy

History of technology-enhanced delivery in the College of Pharmacy

The DI4 grant greatly facilitated plans to introduce video streaming at The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy and its affiliated programs. The college has been a provider of instruction at a distance using video since 1983. There are currently 19 courses in the Pharm D curriculum that are delivered via live video to students located at UT Austin, UT San Antonio, and UT El Paso.

Originally, the video was transmitted on an analog microwave link from Austin to the sole distant site in San Antonio. Because the aging microwave link became unavailable, in cooperation with the UT System, the college began using two-way compressed video over T1 lines using dedicated, and expensive, codecs.

Over the years, the college’s instruction has become highly dependent upon compressed video transmission. With the advent of the VHS videotape format, it became practical to also record these classes for the purpose of student review. Recording in the early stages was likely prompted by the necessity of backing-up the compressed video link in the event of failure for technical reasons. Today, virtually all video-based instruction is recorded to analog tape and DVD as a matter of routine. Faculty can choose to make these recordings (whether analog or digital) (a) unavailable for general class viewing (although they may be made available to individual students who, for example, miss class for justifiable reasons); (b) available for viewing for a two-week window following the original class date; or (c) available throughout the semester. The instructor also can choose the formats in which the video is available.

The term “recording” is used here to refer to analog VHS videotape, DVD, or server-based video streaming. In functional terms they all serve a common purpose: to provide students the ability to review classes that have been recorded locally and/or transmitted by video to a remote site.

Transition to streaming video

Advancements in technology around the year 2000 made digital recording on DVD and digitization of the recorded classes possible within budgetary constraints with existing personnel at the college. The purpose of making streaming video available was to better accommodate the growth of the college’s program to two additional sites, each of which had less local video support than that available in Austin. Furthermore, as more students subscribed to broadband Internet access, it became feasible to offer streaming video for home delivery. Streaming video would also enable more flexible delivery of the video material; students could now view the video anywhere, anytime, instead of on tape machines located only in the Pharmacy audiovisual library. They could thus be freed from the constraints of typical library operating hours and circulation policies, as well as the availability of playback hardware.
Another advantage of streaming media is that it offers a flexible upgrade path as what we call “television”—already becoming an outmoded term—evolves. While the specification for recorded and transmitted analog video has been static since the creation of color television, this is not true of computer-based video. When the day comes for the adoption of high-definition television as a viable instructional medium, computers will be ready to display it.

During 2002 the first students from El Paso joined what had been almost exclusively a point-to-point, two-way transmission of video to the Health Science Center in San Antonio. In 2003, students from UT Pan American will be added to the multipoint video transmissions. Staffing for video support varies institution-to-institution, but nowhere is it as large as it is in Austin. Freeing the support staffs in San Antonio, El Paso, and Edinburg from the chore of recording and circulating videotapes is also one of the goals of introducing streaming video (although their responsibilities associated with the corresponding live broadcast obviously remains). The TIF grant’s funding of servers and caches (which reduce bandwidth consumption within and to the remote sites) help make the remote serving of streaming video feasible.

Equipment and staff

TIF funds enabled the purchase of an Ethernet switch to remove bandwidth limitation for video conferencing and four caching video servers that allow transfer of video streams to remote affiliate locations, and contributed towards the purchase of a new automatic tracking camera system for the classroom.

To record and stream approximately 20 hours of lectures per week, Pharmacy uses a Digital Rapids Encoder, which is installed on a high-powered dedicated PC running XP Professional. It has an Intel motherboard and Xeon processors, plus removable internal hard disk storage. It is a software-based encoder that comes with licenses for Windows, QuickTime, and Real encoding. Video inputs include composite, y/c, and analog component (digital FireWire and SDI are an option), with balanced or unbalanced audio.
Lectures are currently being encoded as QuickTime MPEG 4 at a data rate of 400k, frame size of 320x240, at 15 fps. Video encoding is done real-time. Pre-processing of the video is excellent. Image quality is very good. During encoding, streams are transferred to a server. Overnight, a script properly titles the encoded streams, places them into the appropriate class directory, and updates the HTML page to reflect the current files. Thus a recorded lecture is made available to all local and distance students at the same time the next day. Students access the review lectures by logging into a secure Blackboard course site where they can select from a list of lectures organized by class.

In addition to a full-time RTF specialist who handles all of Pharmacy’s video needs plus other duties, Pharmacy employs three part-time (12 hours/week on average) work-study students. A full time systems analyst runs the servers, spending on average five to ten hours a week on maintenance, creating Perl scripts for authentication, creating AppleScripts to drop the videos into the proper directories, administrating back-ups, etc.
The number of staff hours expended, including development and maintenance of the systems, is estimated to be 1.25 to 1.5 hours per hour of finished lecture product.

An automatic tracking camera will soon be operational at the college. Currently, classes at UT Austin are recorded in classrooms containing fixed cameras that are operated by the RTF specialist from a control room. This allows for switching between various cameras when recording, but because the cameras are fixed, the presenter can move out of view. The automatic tracking camera will automatically focus, track, and follow a presenter around the room. The presenter wears a tracking device with a built-in wireless microphone and will no longer be restricted to keeping within the range of a stationary camera. A similar camera system available in the College of Fine Arts was tested and evaluated. Its range and functionality was found suitable for use in the classroom. Because Pharmacy has a classroom suitable for the integration of a tracking camera, it was decided that the camera would be installed at the college and made available to all grant participants. The ParkerVision Digital Presenter Tracking Camera System with 19x lens, the ParkerVision Digital Pan/Tilt Camera System, and a multi-camera controller have just been purchased and are expected to be operational for fall semester 2003. These cameras will allow for greater flexibility and control when recording lectures.

Student survey

In the spring 2003 semester, Pharmacy students responding to a survey indicated that the majority (81%) reviewed lectures. Most students indicated satisfaction with the streaming videos, although many experienced technical difficulties – attempting to access from home with insufficient bandwidth. Pharmacy students still depend on campus facilities to access review lectures – about half of the students indicated that they do not review lectures from home.

The College of Pharmacy’s current default policy for how long a recorded lecture should be made available for review is two weeks. Individual faculty may choose to make their lectures available for longer periods, or not at all. The College currently provides limited copies of review lectures on videotape for student check-out. Pharmacy’s Learning Resource Center on the UT Austin campus has 8 stations equipped for videotape viewing and 21 computers equipped with high-speed Internet access for streaming video viewing. Pharmacy students also have access to other campus labs where they can view streaming video. The LRC provides detailed instructions on how to access streaming video at
http://www.utexas.edu/pharmacy/resources/lrc/docrack/streamhelp.html
Lecture review policy and LRC and other campus computer facility hours and policies are communicated in class.

Survey results

Questions: How frequently do students review lectures and where do they view? How many watch lectures via online streaming verses videotapes and why? Are students satisfied with online streaming video? Are students skipping class because review lectures are available? How do students feel about the length of time lectures are available for review?

The survey involved 291 students enrolled in three Pharmacy courses. Of the total, 267 students were based in Austin, 18 students were in San Antonio, and 6 students were in El Paso.
Of the 81% that indicated they reviewed lectures, the majority reviewed lectures between one to ten times. Those who preferred viewing streaming video accounted for 55%, 29% preferred viewing on videotape, with 14% indicating no preference in viewing technology. While 60% of students indicated satisfaction with streaming video, 36% experienced technical difficulties when viewing streaming video. More than half, 52%, indicated that they do not review lectures from home; 34% accessed lectures using campus facilities at least half of the time.

Reasons students gave for preferring streaming video include: easier accessibility from home (69%), limited availability and inconvenience of checking out videotapes (14%), easy to manipulate and navigate (12%), lack of VCR at home (3%). Reasons students gave for preferring videotape include: lack of computer or high-speed Internet access at home (26%), easy to manipulate and navigate (23%), technical problems with streaming video (20%), easier accessibility from home (17%).

A majority of students based at UT Austin preferred viewing streaming video (57%) over videotapes (27%) while a majority of San Antonio (53%) and El Paso (80%) students preferred viewing videotapes over streaming video (33% and 20%, respectively). This difference can be explained by the level of familiarity and experience in using streaming video technology that UT Austin students have over San Antonio and El Paso students. San Antonio and El Paso students were not exposed to the adoption of streaming video taking place in Austin during the past year. Thus, it is anticipated that the preference for streaming will increase in the next few years as more students become acquainted with the technology. Survey results also point to the need for more effective communication, orientation, training, and support for students in accessing and using streaming video.

The majority of students indicated that they reviewed lectures as a supplement, and only when they missed class; only a few students preferred review lectures in lieu of attending class. An overwhelming majority also thought lectures should be made available for review longer then the current default two week limit – up to the full semester.

Future directions

It should be noted that streaming video is not intended to replace videotape entirely, at least not for the foreseeable future. Until nearly every student has a broadband connection, a home viewing solution will be necessary. There is a long-standing practice of checking out videotapes overnight, and because of the low cost of videotape recorders and tapes, there is little financial impediment to continuing this service. It is likely that recordable DVD will replace videotape as a checkout medium as the cost of these recorders and their media become less expensive. But, if the growth of broadband connections continues to accelerate, it could quite possibly make any sort of physical checkout medium unnecessary. The student survey is one benchmark that will allow Pharmacy to make decisions about providing videotapes or other physical media as a means to review lectures in the future.