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Overview

With the assistance of a variety of new digital technologies, such as Streaming Media and Podcasting, audio and video content can be distributed to students via the Internet. Thanks to such technology, learning can literally happen at any time and anywhere as students view streamed content on their local computers or download podcasts to their computers and mobile devices. For students on the go or located in remote environments, these digital media services can extend the reach of the classroom.

Streaming Media

The Division of IT Learning Technologies group provides a Streaming Media server that supports hinted Quicktime(mov), Real Media(rm), MPEG-4(mp4), Windows media(wmv) and mp3 file formats. University faculty, staff, and graduate assistants can request and manage space on the Streaming Media server to support their teaching and research. There is no cost to the academic community for the use of this service. To request an account and file storage space, click on the link below.

Also see: How to create and publish streaming media, and more in Supported Tools.

Podcasting

The Division of IT Learning Technologies group provides three podcast distribution options: iTunesU Academic site, Wimba Podcaster, and podcast.umd.edu. These support .mp3 and .aac (audio), and MPEG-4 with H.264 compression (video) files. University faculty, staff and teaching assistants can request and manage space on iTunesU Academic and podcast.umd.edu to support their teaching; instructors managing courses on ELMS (powered by Blackboard) can use Wimba Podcaster within that environment. There is no cost to the academic community to make use of any of these services.

iTunesU Academic Site Service

The University of Maryland iTunesU Academic site provides an environment for storing and distributing course-related digital media content. Access to the site requires UM Directory authentication, and instructors can limit access to their audio and video files to just the students of a course or to the University of Maryland public. Once authenticated to the site, students can interact with the media using the iTunes player on their local computer or download the content to their MP3 player. Podcast files can be uploaded to iTunesU or linked there from the podcast.umd.edu server (see below).

In order to distribute course-related content on the iTunesU Academic site you must first request a course space. The request form enables you to designate the course and section(s) to associate with the iTunesU course space and to determine the level of authenticated access members of the University will have to the content.

Also see How Do I Request an iTunesU Academic Course Space?

Also see Supported Tools

Wimba Podcaster

Podcasts created with or imported to the Wimba Podcaster tool within an ELMS (powered by Blackboard) course space are hosted on the Wimba Podcaster server, which is external to the course space itself. Wimba Podcaster facilitates the distribution of audio content only with a file size limitation of 10 megabytes each. Students can subscribe to podcasts distributed through Wimba Podcaster, via an ELMS course space, and then listen to them via a preferred podcast aggregator (like iTunes). Since Wimba Podcaster is made available through ELMS, there is no need to request special accounts or access privileges.

Also see Supported Tools for instructions on how to use the Wimba Podcaster tool.

podcast.umd.edu

Podcast.umd.edu provides a secure, central location for podcast files. By default, each account holder can host up to 500 megabytes of content on this server (although additional space can be requested). Files can be uploaded through a secure file transfer protocol called WebDAV. The advantage of storing sizable podcast files on the podcast.umd.edu server is that you can link to the digital media files from other locations, such as ELMS, college or departmental servers, or even the iTunesU Academic site, without impacting space quotas on those resources. While students cannot subscribe directly to content stored on podcast.umd.edu, they can subscribe via its feed from iTunesU Academic.

Also see

Also see Supported Tools

The Division of IT Learning Technologies group provides free training workshops on Podcasting and iTunesU through the Learning Technologies Institute (LTI). Registration is available via Training@Maryland.