The Auricle

In my BBC TV Goes Broadband post (Auricle 18 July 2005), I suggested that the BBC should be a champion of open standards media distribution. At the moment the corporation ends up indirectly promoting the uptake of the proprietary RealMedia format. I also proposed that MP4 downloads would be a good thing to see as part of their new media distribution portfolio. So what do you know? … the US PBS has grasped the opportunity ahead of the Beeb. PBS will launch the NerdTV series on 6 September. NerdTV will be hosted by Robert X. Cringely as downloadable MP4 video files. OK it's a geek's programme, but what we should be interested in here is the principle, not the genre. After all, MP3 started very much as a geek thing, but is now a ubiquitous solution found in a multitude of devices.

So come on BBC, where's that pioneering spirit gone? … across the Atlantic it seems.

But yet, lest you think me too harsh, let's now spare a thought for the minefield of vested interests the BBC has to navigate. For example, BBC Radio 3's recent Beethoven Experience made available the complete Beethoven symphonies as MP3 downloads. As expected, this proved very popular with classical music buffs, with over a million downloads during the month long initiative. But, as reported in Downloading Trouble at the BBC (The Independent, 10 July 2005) the classical record companies were less impressed, e.g.

“You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing.”

It's obviously going to take a while for these vested interests to wake up to the fact that such initiatives, far from losing sales, are more likely to stimulate them. Why? Because it exposes people to works which they otherwise would just not have considered buying anyway. Such exposure helps create the enthusiasts of tomorrow who will attend the concerts or even be prepared to pay for the high fidelity recording on whatever format is current.

But, as I suggested in my original BBC TV Goes Broadband post, the BBC really needs to get the rights question sorted, i.e. producers and artists who take money from the public purse to create their works should expect to give the outputs back to the public; not attempt to hold them to ransom ad infinitum. If we don't get this sorted then wonderful initiatives like the Creative Archive will simply become mired in expensive bureaucracy and unattractive, and ultimately unworkable, restrictions on use.

If you are still wondering if a wiki has anything to offer then you've got to listen to, or read, this one. It's eight minutes of your life well spent. The 8 July 2005 edition of On the Media contained an interview with Clay Shirky about the role played by Wikipedia in responding to the London suicide bombings in a way that the mainstream media could not. There's still a lot of people in academia who don't understand what a Wiki is and what it could do either for themselves or their students; the Shirky item Get Me Rewrite could be a useful starting point. You have three choices: download the whole On the Media edition as an MP3; listen to the specific item as a stream; or read the transcript.

It's more normal today to hear up-beat tales of the growing impact of open-source software and systems upon institutions. But over on the JISCMail VLE archive there's one emerging case study arising from the Cautionary Tale thread about an institution which has moved in the opposite direction. The story has some pretty interesting facets buried in there, particularly about the use of the independent review process as a policy tool. Anyone who has worked in HE for any length of time will know that, at times, our institutions are capable of intrigue which would put a 16th century Francis Walsingham school of change management to shame. But we now live in the 21st century, not in Elizabethan times and so HEIs can now come under the spotlight in ways that Walsingham never had to contend with.

Of course this makes it all important that reviews with major strategic implications are transparent, squeaky clean, involve all the stakeholders, contain no gotchas!, no loaded dice, and no decisions already made prior to what should be a totally objective review process. Anyway, have a read of a Cautionary Tale and reflect … we can all learn something useful from it, whether we are biased towards the author's point of view or not.

Unless you are a lover of comedy then what follows may not seem significant, but it is. From tomorrow (19 July 2005) the BBC provides pre-broadcast access, via broadband, to its second series of the comedy The Mighty Boosh. Put this move together with its podcast pilot and its Creative Archive initiative (whenever the latter produces concrete outputs) and we are maybeperhapspossibly at the start of a paradigm shift. Those of you who have read my previous postings on podcasting will know I'm a big fan of the download model because this enables me to decide when it's convenient for me (not a broadcaster) to 'process' what's on offer. So audio is pretty much taken care of, but video is a different matter.

Video as ubiquitous downloads? Nope … the broadcasters will try and lock everyone to a streaming model. Viewers may have some choice about when they start a programme but they will still be pretty much tied to the old assumption that they only require a linear viewing experience in which they will be static and so watch a programme from beginning to end at one sitting.

And of course there's that other problem with the BBC forcing use of the proprietary RealPlayer instead of making their streams available via an open source alternative.

There is an alternative possible future where, as a BBC licence player, I can just set up the equivalent of my podcasting application which then automatically downloads the programmes which interest me, in a format suitable for whatever device I wish to view the programme on.

But that's probably too easy.

Instead, even innovative broadcaster like the BBC will continue inconveniencing their viewers who have been demonstrating for years, via VCR and now DVR/PVRs, that they want to take control and consume when they want to consume not when the broadcaster wants them to. So with the exception of a few programme formats, e.g. news, the days of live television are numbered and the only question is how convenient/inconvenient can the distribution processes and supporting technologies be?

Of course, so-called broadband is still anything but for the majority of consumers. Downloading a programme such as The Mighty Boosh in anything approaching high quality would overwhelm the capabilities of the average domestic broadband connection. And I cannot see all but the most geekish being willing to leave their computer downloading a one hour television programme in average quality overnight when it's, say, 1.5GB in size and their broadband line is capped to, say, 15GB per month. For distribution of even semi-broadcast quality video via broadband to work we need high domestic broadband bandwidth of, say, a minimum of 10Mbps and probably more, and no caps … and certainly no use of Skype at the same time. In the absence of this broadband infrastructure (at an attractive cost to consumers), then recording off air/satellite/cable will just be plain more efficient pro-tem.

Also, as I've pointed out in my previous post BBC iMP has rights but at what cost? broadcasters like the BBC seem to be in the process of building in compulsory rights management into their video for broadband so that any download will only be viewable for a seven day period. As I suggested in my earlier post, how would you feel if your current video recorder behaved in exactly the same way? So with conditions like this applied would a video download actually be less attractive than the transmission alternative? … Or are they working on this as well? Digital video over the airways may be MPEG but unlike the MPEG on your DVD (a Programme Stream) it is a Transmission Stream (TS) which carries extra information. Unless the consumer revolts we may end up looking back on the days of the video recorder with nostalgia because if some have their way they want you to view media downloads like metered electricity or water … sometimes there will be special 'time-limited' offers or free downloads, but that's just to get you habituated. Don't stop me, I'm on a conspiracy roll here … 🙂 … Let's hope I'm wrong,

In the interim, we're going to get poorer quality trial streams which will be far from television quality; but, as VHS has shown for years, technical quality isn't everything. Also, I suppose everyone will have to continue supporting the broadcaster's illusion that they can still have our eyeballs at a time they dictate … now where's that record button?

But what if you want to watch that video in alternative devices, say a PDA or other mobile device? It's here that the BBC could score by offering, say, MPEG4 (xVid, DivX, Nero) small format versions of programmes in 320×240 resolution. Anyone who has done this will know that quite acceptable results can be achieved, but it just takes sooooooo….. long to do that it has got to be a labour of love and is certainly in uber geek territory.

But no, if the Mighty Boosh trailer is anything to go by we're going to be lumbered with the proprietary RealMedia format. So, unlike the MP3 based podcast trial, I don't give much for this one's chances of success.

But I suppose the BBC has got to feel their way and navigate the rights minefield. What I can't understand is why an organisation with the purchasing power of the Beeb didn't (doesn't) make rights transfer the norm for production companies taking money from the public purse. That would do much to remove this reuse inertia and would stimulate a level of creativity and progress that is already being demonstrated by BBC Backstage, but as yet only being hinted at by the Creative Archive.

The BBC of course is not alone in such developments. The UK's Channel 4 Broadband has already been dipping a toe into this water. However, the highly uninspiring 'reality TV' shows such as Big Brother, Wife Swap, and Faking it have hardly been flagships for the cause, and, like the BBC, the proprietary RealMedia system is much in evidence (undoubtedly because of its rights management engine). Channel 4, however, is apparently now considering streaming all its digital transmissions over broadband at the same time as its broadcasts.

The Mighty Boosh will be available from tomorrow and seven days thereafter.

First, read Loosen the Shackles (Guardian Online 7 July 2005). Second, let's reflect on any lessons for the average HEI oriented web site. So what's the relevance to HEIs and associated bodies?

Like most corporate sites the average HEI oriented Web site can easily become the victim of its marketing and communication professionals' view of the world. As the Guardian article states of corporate sites, they are: ” … too static, formal and impersonal.”

Underlying this corporate perspective is a belief they are promoting or at least protecting their 'brand' but despite large expenditures and effort the result is more often than not something so functionally anondyne that, as the Guardian article suggests, “In the main, they are bland brochures.”

And how many HEI oriented web sites have yet to get the syndication message, i.e. where's the RSS feed folks? Of course syndication suggests dynamic fast-changing content and, as we know, that suggests a lot of involvement from information creators … not just a few souls slaving away within a beleagured marketing and communications department.

“Search engines like blogs and feeds such as RSS means their content spreads quickly.”

Bloggers make some organisations nervous because they are … well … just so difficult to control. And yet some of these bloggers can connect in a way that a whole marketing and communications department cannot. As Justin Hunt wrote:

“Traditional marketing material is not going to work in the blogosphere where values such as honesty and personality really count. Style of writing, quality of content and design will be decisive success factors.”

Ok, all over the UK I now hear HEI's Directors of Marketing and Communications cry, “Morrison's got a point … let's do it … let's build a blog into our Web site … but we've got to have a really tight policy about what people can and cannot write about”.

Sorryeeeee … 🙂 … Won't work.

If HEIs can't be ideas engines what organisations can? The 'brand' message that needs to be conveyed is one of dynamism, being a source and recipient of ideas (so stimulate and gather that user feedback folks), and being an organisation which conveys a sense of high participation in information generation and reflection. A user-oriented Acceptable User Policy (AUP) to prevent illegal use or abuse is one thing but, as the Guardian article suggests,

“… corporates who enter the blogosphere are going to have to learn to loosen the shackles on their bloggers. Too much control will be the death of a blog.”

Many HEI's now seek to create a more 'corporate' identity and are contemplating or are actually implementing content management systems to help them towards this goal. The questions here are: Will the content management system increase the number of participants in organisational communications? Will the content management system free or enslave organisational communications?

It could be either, depending on the policies enacted within the host HEI. In some cases content managment systems with rigid workflows specified and applied across the board are likely to engender results similar to corporate knowledge management systems so applied, i.e. employees (note, not participants) will do what they have to do and no more.

So possibly a far cry from the picture painted in the up-beat Guardian article. Nevertheless, let's hope that a few HEI pioneers step forward and move beyond the 'bland brochures' thinking. It would also be a tragedy if the growing uptake of content management systems simply resulted in the automation of the 'bland brochures' model.

Earlier in the year whilst researching an article about podcasting I came across the Naked Scientists group hidden away in BBC UK regional transmissions. Shortly afterwards I heard that a funding crisis looked like it was going to put the Naked Scientists out of business. I have news on this front. My original post of 20 March 2005 BBC not funding Naked Scientists summarized the crisis and provided a link to my previous Probing Podcasting from the Professionals article.

But now it looks like the Naked Scientists have found some continuation funding from somewhere and, far from withdrawing from the arena, they now intend to expand their activities. Whilst this group of science communicators were already offering an MP3 archive when I first came across them, they hadn't yet made the conceptual leap to podcasting. They've now done so and their podcast link is:

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/naked_scientists_podcast.xml

But they're not content with MP3 audio files, so they intend to include some video as well. We're apparently not talking spurious 'talking head' type video either (which is a relief) but video where only the moving image can really convey the message, the experiment, or the demonstration. The Naked Scientist forum is already image rich in parts so I look forward to seeing what this group can do with podcasts.

Great stuff guys, we need more people who can bring science to life and make it meaningful to future scientists and the general public alike.

Respect!

I've been on the receiving end of the unpleasant consequences of what happens when you use a device with a Digital Rights Management (DRM) system. Never again! Auricle readers will know that I believe ultra-portable devices are becoming increasingly important vehicles for the distribution and consumption of learning resources. I like to get first hand experience of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The trouble is that the bad and the ugly can be hidden away only to spring out on you when you least expect it.

The device under the microscope today is the iRiver iFP-799, an MP3 player and recorder. I use this to listen to podcasts and other MP3s when walking to work. Now the stuff I listen to wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but it is totally legitimate. The quality of MP3 player side of things in the iFP-799 is pretty good but some of the models in this series have a defective recording chip which introduces unwanted white noise. I contacted the manufacturer who said they would be happy to fix this and so got ready to dispatch the offending device back to them. I had nearly 1GB of MP3 talk files on the device. No problem I thought I'll just transfer them to a PC … and that's when the terrible consequences of the iRiver's DRM hit home.

Sure, you can transfer MP3 files to the device but you can't transfer MP3 files from it. It's a one way journey.

Now think about this.

This device is making the assumption that all MP3 files are rights-protected music and so I've lost the right to do with my non-rights-protected data what I like. This wasn't much of an issue when the iFP799 was working because I listened and deleted but now that it's broken I've had my rights unilaterally terminated.

This matters, and matters a lot. Not just because I've been seriously inconvenienced on two accounts (faulty machine, no recovery of data possible) but because what right do the implementers of DRM system have to assume that a user's MP3 files are rights-protected? What future for user-generated/podsafe/share and attribute content if this type of scenario becomes all-pervasive?

Needless, to say, the iRiver is now definitely off my Christmas list. One of the key criteria from now on is no DRM system … no matter how good the specs are otherwise.

Imagine this! You sit back glowing with satisfaction because yesterday that über exemplar of collaborative endeavour, Wikipedia, properly attributes your contribution to the welfare and development of the human race. But what's this? You look in today to recharge your self-worth batteries and you've been erased! Like a Joe Stalin photocall you're gone … gone … gone … “This is what makes innovating so damned unsafisfying. It's a total burnout to create new stuff and have other people take credit for it, over and over. Makes me want to put on the brakes and start taking out patents.” Dave Winer, Scripting News, 11 June 2005

Now for those of you who don't know, Dave Winer is a giant among innovaters (is that ok Dave? 🙂 who has made a major contribution to the development of one of the variants of the Web information syndication formats called RSS (which can mean Rich Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, or RDF Site Summary - your choice depends either on your ideological viewpoint or the current state of your memory:)

Now RSS is really important because it makes it really really simple to transfer information about distributed resources which can be of any media type. So no complex ontologies and no need to navigate the complexities of the semantic web … again as Tim Berners Lee, the godfather of the Web is supposed to have said … “scruffy works” (I can't track down the written quote).

For a practical application of RSS on this site see the 'Most Recent Auricle Podcast' or the top of Auricle or the 'Syndicated Sites' and 'Syndicated LOs' at the bottom. Each of these are pulling in syndicated information from other sites which has been offered in the RSS format.

But back to Dave Winer.

Along with others, including Adam Curry (who some now know as 'Podfather' - godfathers, podfathers … no mothers in RSS or podcast origins then?), Dave recognized that with a minor enhancement of the syntax RSS could also enclose information about media resources and that information could include the actual link to where the media resource was archived. Simple thing maybe, but many acts of genius are based on such apparently simple conceptual leaps. And, so, suddenly, RSS made access to distributed media resources really easy. And because RSS files are usually dynamically generated there was a way of automatically distributing information about new resources.

The rest is history (I'll come back to that statement) but, in summary, other people, but most notably Adam Curry, also made their own conceptual leaps and added their 5% to close the circle and move from interesting innovation to fundamental change. Suddenly a new global media distribution mechanism was born which came to be known as 'podcasting', with even the major broadbasters like the BBC getting in on the act. Dave Winer came to be perceived as one of the stars not the star.

Anyway, that's the context for today's post, but let's get back to the core.

Basically, Wikipedia is perhaps the finest public example around of a community editable web page (a wiki) in action. The community can create the knowledge base; the community can delete the knowledge base; the community can change the knowledgebase.

Now all of this might frighten the pants off anyone used to traditional academic writing. They will expend prodigious amounts of energy to preserve and secure their work in aspic (oh! … ok password protected PDF) and ensuring proper attribution for both their own and others' contributions. So the concept of a system where any community member can alter or even delete what you've said must be the stuff of nightmares.

But it ain't so bad. Rest easy. Wipe the sweat from your brow. Let your blood pressure fall. Think calm thoughts and then read Jon Udell's recent post Wikipedia and the social construction of knowledge. Jon definitely has something valuable to contribute.

Now back to my earlier throwaway line '… the rest is history'. You see what Dave Winer doesn't grasp is that he's controversial (I didn't say wrong … I said controversial). What Wikipedia is actually demonstrating ever so well is that it's subverting the traditional 'history is written by the winners' (no pun intended) model. A traditional model would have the biographer or autobiographer writing their account with the aim of that becoming the seminal reference until of course a few years later (preferably when you're dead and therefore obviously you can't respond:) another revisionist author comes along and tries to throw you from your rightful reputational throne and claim it for themselves. Until, that is, a revisionist of the revisionist view comes along and puts you back on your pedestal.

What Wikipedia has done is put into warp drive a process that used to take years/decades/centuries so that, if you are famous (or infamous) enough, it can happen almost in real time.

One minute you're the statue. The next you're the pigeon:)

Dave Winer has little reason to worry about his important contribution not being recognized. The only reason that his temporary 'erasure' occured at all was because some 'author' thought he was important enough to erase. The 'repair' (revision) systems of Wikipedia are so fast that this can only ever be a transient experience anyway. But what's really interesting, as Jon Udell shows, is the picture which emerges by being able to compare different versions of a Wikipedia document. But what is important here is to have plenty of Wikipedia friends, or at least supporters, watching after your interests otherwise you have to do the maintaining of your own Wikipedia references.

Social historians should be salivating about the opportunities for comparative review of viewpoints in later years once a controversy has died away. Why was person x removed in later revisions? Why was the role of y promoted to the detriment of x? Does x have a rightful claim? Did x build upon the earlier work of others and have they been given proper attribution? Did x lose support (or go on vacation for a couple of weeks) and gave up 'correcting' due to pure exhaustion?

In conclusion, it would be a pity if Dave Winer's feelings about his role not being properly acknowledged led him down the patent route for future innovation as he threatens. The law of unintended consequences can so often cause an unexpected ricochet. I'm thinking here of his recent satirical 'Curry Collage' which simply provided the media savvy Curry with the means and justification to respond far more effectively and devastatingly than Dave ever could. In his Daily Source Code (16 May 2005 - MP3 Download) Curry employed an impressive array of controlled polemic, themed music (to reach the emotional centres), and, above all, perfectly timed silence at the end of the show. If you're so inclined, you can listen to this particular episode and judge for yourselves (start at ~26 minutes 20 seconds in and run it until the end).

It would also be a pity if the last entry in Wikipedia about Dave was about just that … I've got a feeling that he would be a lot less famous as a result but we would also have lost somebody who has made a difference.

Skype may be a great example of the power of Voice over IP (VoIP) but what use is it in an educational setting? Indeed, the inevitable first response of the institutional IT department may be to ban its use because of its perceived bandwidth and time consuming potential. But anyone who has used it in academia must surely recognise its potential as a tool for learning and teaching, particularly if Skype interactions can be captured and the resulting artefact incorporated into a knowledge/resource base and distribution system? One of the big problems with Skype is that the native 'free' product makes no allowance for recording conversations.

But surely Skype offers a low cost (15 Euros pa) paid for voicemail service?

The problem is that the paid for Skype Voicemail service is of limited use at the moment (for my purposes at least). The main constraint is that Skype saves voicemail files to a local disk in a proprietary format (instead of the more useful MP3 or Wav) and with a maximum recording time of 10 minutes. Skype.com claims to be 'looking into' alternative non-proprietary formats, which is welcome. Despite these caveats their press release of 13 June 2005 suggests that Skype is undoubtedly putting some effort into developing their voicemail service.

But there are several other ways to record Skype interactions, with some giving better results than others.

An approach I've now abandoned (because of inconsistent results) is to use Skype and a standard audio recorder/editor. I've used the excellent open source Audacity sound recorder/editor, but the same would apply to any similar tool. The basic principle is to ensure your recording configuration is set to 'mixer' so that all sound inputs, e.g. microphone (you) and your Skype correspondent (Wave) are aggregated. I found that increasing the Wave setting to a usable recording level was the source of the Skype echoes which so distracted my interviewees. The overall quality of this approach wasn't good but it was pretty convenient.

I did contemplate adopting Stuart Henshall and Bill Campbell's SkypeCasting solution (see Skype Journal article Skype + Podcast Recorder = SkypeCasters) but they use a special audio driver called Virtual Audio Cables which a) costs money and b) appeared to be a bit of a hassle to set up. But I would have still gone down this route if I had to.

But I didn't.

The next solution is, arguably, the easiest and creates perfectly usable results. Simply plug a digital recorder (or even an analogue one) into the headphone socket and then plug your headphones into the digital recorder. Whatever comes out of the socket is recorded and any decent audio recorder will record in the editable Wav format which you can then convert to MP3 or whatever format you like. Just make sure you check your recording levels before you record in anger, i.e. don't wait to the end of an online interview only to find you have a near silent recording.

Then there are the specialist digital recording utilities to consider.

I tried HotRecorder which, when I could get it to install, did pretty much what it said on the tin. I quite like HotRecorder but it's got one major gotcha! It currently comes as a free advertising-supported version. Users can then upgrade to a premium non advertising version (~USD 15) which also provides a utility for converting the proprietary HotRecorder format to Wave and MP3. The problem is that the free version won't work properly behind a firewall and you can't upgrade to the premium version until this is installed. I found HotRecorder support incredibly helpful and, initially, responsive but they seem to be thinking of firewalls as a shield which exists only at a local personal computer level, i.e. end users can turn the firewall on and off (which you'll need to do for the install). If you're an institutional user, however, and you are behind an institutional firewall you don't necessarily have any such control, and so the hassle factor begins to rise pretty quickly. I installed HotRecorder on my domestic systems and it worked without problems, but trying to upgrade it at work proved impossible. On the HotRecorder technique front, it's also important to start your Skype session shortly before activating HotRecorder; if you don't then the audio channels get out of sync with each other. I've put these issues to the HotRecorder people and it will be interesting to see if they can come up with a solution that doesn't frustrate potential institutional users; they haven't got back to me recently. Other specialist recording utilities to consider of this type include TotalRecorder.

But now we come to my personal favourite.

My recent interview with Morag Munro of Dublin City University about their migration to Moodle used the Skype recording technique I describe below. I think it has considerable utility and flexibility and could prove useful across a number of contexts and disciplines.

And the winner is …

Alex Rosenbaum's SAM (Skype Answering Machine) is a brilliantly simple but, neverthelss, very useful tool which becomes a 'listener' for incoming Skype calls and intercepts them. It may sound similar to the plain old telephone system equivalent but it also has a number of extra affordances. For a start any one message can be up to 10 hours long which should satisfy even those inclined to such mega-monologues.

Even if just used in this basic answering machine mode it would be possible to send out sets of questions to correspondents and have them record their responses to your computer as an editable Wave file when they're ready and without you needing to be there. Also, on a good day, the recording can be in higher fidelity than is possible via the plain old telephone network. Chris Pirrilo has already successfully demonstrated this (MP3 file: start at ~3.30 minutes in and you'll get the gist). The quality of his recordings wasn't great but I guess he traded fidelity for file size so that the MP3 could be sent by email.

But the real killer feature is when a SAM linked Skype account is included in a Skype conference call. To do this create a new account on Skype which you are going to use just for this purpose; for our purposes we'll call this account 'foorecordings'. Just enable SAM's answering mode and any incoming calls to 'foorecordings' will be intercepted and recorded by SAM.

On another computer (and that's the caveat) you create a Skype conference and include 'foorecordings' as one of your conference participants. When you start your conference SAM will respond and start recording. I set the SAM response time to 2 seconds so that most conference participants wouldn't even hear the SAM prompt (they'll just see another 'silent' member in the Skype page).

Now what's particularly useful with SAM is that the any computer based anywhere can host the 'listener' Skype account so, for instance, a domestic PC could be used one day or a spare computer in the office the next. Alternatively, if you're mobile and want to do an ad-hoc recording at, say, a conference with broadband facilities, then your laptop could become the 'listener' and you could use another computer to initiate the Skype conference.

There's also a SAM Forum.

But what educational uses could there be for Skype recording?

I rather like Chris Pirrilo's simple approach but further value could be added to the caller's contributions by using linking narrative, commentary, analysis, or rich media. It would be interesting to see if a quasi debate is possible, e.g. commentary on commentary. Or what about if the technique was applied to simulated interactions, e.g. patient/client - doctor/lawyer? consulation. Of course it also offers a mechanism for gathering expert opinion … is it possible to do the equivalent of the television 'noddies' where I send you my questions, you Skype in your responses, and I edit in myself asking the questions?

And what's the scope for languages work, e.g. students call in with their oral assignment work or variations thereof?

What would be quite interesting would be to have SAM recordings automatically archived in a filestore which could have its access permissions tuned to particular needs, i.e. some public, some private, and some group accessible. In this way whatever contributions were posted to the archive could become potentially valuable resources.

But, that's for the future. At the moment, I've been delighted with the simple synergy between Skype and Alex Rosenbaum's SAM.

The last part of today's post raises a concern. While I think Skype is a great demonstrator of the power of VoIP let's not forget that it's a proprietary system. Because the basic VoIP service is free, the user base is growing exponentially; lots of users attracts attention from companies keen to grow, move into a space, or eliminate competition. How long can/will Skype maintain the free basic service? How attractive an acquisition is Skype becoming? Will easily-influenced politicians respond to the lobbying of the traditional telecoms suppliers and find some excuse to impede the VoIP upstarts, perhaps under the guise of equal competition legislation?

We already know that companies like British Telecom are moving as rapidly as possible down the VoIP road and so Skype, Vonage etc may not have the relatively clear run they currently enjoy.

But yet, is there anything that could be done more locally?

For example, how many HEIs have yet bothered to install VoIP gateways in their exchanges? Such gateways don't appear to be particularly expensive and would enable calls to be routed to non-telephone devices, e.g. computers, thus opening up the possibility of some interesting work (similar to the SAM examples above).

Anyway, whilst Skype exists in its current form it's still a worthy testbed for some interesting synchronous and asynchronous work. But who knows? In 5-10 years time Skype might be the equivalent of an IBM or a Microsoft or even the parent company of a British Telecom, or a baby Bell or three:)

Today I interviewed Dublin City University's Morag Munro who gives an honest and very informative account of the motivations and processes involved in migrating from proprietary VLE systems to the open source Moodle system. The DCU interview also was our first use of a new (to us) and, IMHO, pretty efficient technique for recording Skype interviews and avoiding the dreaded echoes that can often plague those trying to record interactions using this otherwise impressive communication tool. As you'll see in the 'Most Recent Auricle Podcasts' panel there's a new arrival; one that may be of interest to a lot of people. Dublin City University (DCU) bit the bullet a couple of years ago and migrated from WebCT to Moodle. Prior to WebCT, they had been using TopClass, another proprietary system, whose vendor decided to exit the HE sector.

A key driver seems to have been DCU's desire to get control of its own destiny and not depend on the vagaries of what proprietary systems, or vendor's thereof, will allow them to do. Two years ago that was pretty brave but it seems to have paid off for DCU. What's particularly notable is the relative ease with which they seem to have integrated Moodle into their institutional systems. I was particularly interested in scalability issues but again with ~13,000 users on the systems there appears have been no major problems.

Anyway, I think it's a good listen and certainly reinforces James Farmer's recent forthright view that:

” … our universities, schools and other educational institutions are wasting enormous amounts of money and making huge mistakes using commercial software where open source software could do as good as or better a job.”

All Auricle podcasts can be viewed by selecting the orange 'Podcast' button at the bottom of the menu.

As for that efficient Skype recording technique? … that's going to be the subject of another Auricle post;)