Lecture Presentation and Laboratory Experiments

A lecture presents an interesting environment for capturing and using media and associated metadata (figure 3.2). Different media types are likely to be used, and while the lecture itself is clearly live, remote attendance and revision are likely to require some method of playback.

The lecture could be recorded digitally to audio and video formats throughout. This is the most detail-rich transcription of the lecture, and is both stored for later playback, and also streamed live so students can take the class at home if they wish. Some students who are late arriving may opt to receive the first part of the presentation as an audio only stream via the campus wireless network while they travel to the lecture theatre.

The first section of the presentation consists of both the spoken lecture, and a number of overhead slides. The slides are made available via the web, and as the lecturer transitions between them, references to the current slides are transferred over a continuous metadata flow to the students in the lecture theatre and at home, where their own personal display devices also update to show the correct slide.

When the lecturer makes annotations to the notes, or offers explanatory notes on the smart white-board, these are also sent via continuous metadata. The lecturer can use continuous metadata to cross-reference and replay foundation topics from previously recorded presentations. Students might also make their own notes, and should a friend miss the lecture they might play back the lecture at a later point, referencing their colleagues notes from a metadata flow.

All of the metadata flows can be recorded for future use, so students can revise the lecture at a later point. Navigation of the material at this time is likely to be a less linear affair; temporal positioning might be through VCR-like control of the video stream, selecting a particular slide and replaying the video explanation, or from a students’ own notes. Late students, listening to audio only, might place brief markers during points they don’t understand, which could be used to revisit these points after the lecture, or when they arrive, using the full range of video and slide material.

A lecturer may have recorded a class so students can later revise that presentation. The lecture itself would be replayed using audio and video

mediadata streams, but in addition the author could provide links to the relevant points in overhead slides or online notes as a metadata stream. The presentation point would then display the parts of the notes to coincide with that temporal space in the lecture.

In the second half of the lecture, a demonstration is made of practical work to be undertaken by the students in a later laboratory session. The experiment

involves performing a series of steps to induce a chemical reaction between two materials. Audio and video streams are still collected, with a further video

stream now focused on the experiment to capture the visual elements of the reaction (colour, bubbling gas etc.); slide transitions continue as before. In addition, various parameters from the experiment, such as temperature and acidity, are measured electronically, and the results are stored, and delivered, with continuous metadata.

Lecturer Live Local Audience Smart Whiteboard Audio / Video Capture Live Remote Audience Experiment Lecture Slides Storage Internet Resources Student Labs / Revision (time shifted) Media data Metadata

Media data and Metadata

Figure 3.2: Some of the information flows in the lecture and laboratory sce- nario

At a later point, when the students undertake the laboratory experiment, their equipment is set up in a similar way to that of the lecturer, with measurement devices attached. The streamed recording of the lecture is available, along with the presentation slides, and any annotations from the lecturer and students.

As the experiment progresses, students can navigate the recording of the demonstrations, navigating within the media as necessary, and compare their own results with those of the lecturer during the demonstration.

The measurements from each students’ laboratory bench are captured by

individual continuous metadata flows, both for later investigation (an automated lab book, which the student might annotate), and so that supervisors and

lecturers can track progress.

The results metadata might be fed into graphing and other visualisation tools, so that a student can compare their progress to the lecturers demonstration and their fellow students. Since the result metadata flows are also temporal, any slides, notes and annotations from the lecture can be navigated to from the results data; as the results progress, relevant sections of the lecture will be updated.

The lecturer might also suggest that students utilise a specialist knowledge base for that particular subject area. The knowledge base would interact with the framework though a filter node, receiving the metadata flow of the lecturer’s notes and transmitting a further metadata flow of links based on its processing of the original notes.

Closer to the presentation point, a student may have a further knowledge base of personal preferences, built up from their previous browsing history. This too would interact through a filter node, adding (or removing!) links to external information tailored to that individual.

An enterprising student might then wish to share their personal knowledge base with the rest of the class, a mechanism the student could also use to distribute any insights or annotations they have added to the lecture.