Sharing Video with UC and the Wider World
by Donna Hamilton
A recently formed University of Cincinnati Web team is creating a one-step video publishing system to assist university faculty, staff, and students in sharing UC video. Video will be categorized, highlighted, and displayed through UC’s video site at http://www.uc.edu/video/ in addition to several other locations.
The one-step, one-stop system is being made possible by the Web Communications team within the Division of Governmental Relations & University Communications and by UCit’s Instructional & Research Computing team. Personnel from both areas have been working since last fall to formulate a process, establish guidelines, and assemble the necessary hardware and software solutions to create an automated system for uploading, converting, cataloging and displaying video in a variety of formats.
Through UC’s in-house system, video can be converted – in just one step – into multiple formats and distributed simultaneously to:
- UC’s central location for viewing video, http://www.uc.edu/video/
- College sites within the university
- UC’s Facebook pages for prospective students
- iTunes U site for UC (to launch this summer).
Driving the process was the increasing reach and scope of online videos. For instance, a March 2008 UC Web-visitor survey of 963 respondents showed:
- 56 percent reported viewing 1-10 videos per month
- 14 percent viewed 11-20 per month
- 14 percent viewed more than 20 per month
- 68 percent reported visiting YouTube and Google Video sites frequently.
In addition, a new study from ABI Research forecasts that the number of viewers who access video via the Web will nearly quadruple in the next few years. By 2013, more than one billion viewers will be accessing video online.
For more information on UC’s video project, contact TJ Iaciofano, assistant director, Web Communications, at 513-556-5226 or via e-mail addressed to tj.iaciofano@uc.edu.
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