Canadian University Offers Students Ability To Highlight Lecture Videos

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 02/26/08

Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada has deployed an online video portal that lets students view, index, annotate, remix, search, and share class lectures. Although the school has been offering streaming video for three years, the new portal, run on the Gotuit platform, implements more interactive features.

The program, named VideoNotes by the university, will initially include the full-length video from each lecture, uploaded shortly after class. Lectures from an introductory psychology course will be the first set available. Students will be able to index the video by marking key segments and adding their own information, such as note title, description, and keywords. The metadata is searchable by the community, allowing others to search inside the lectures to find particular segments of interest. Students can then compile the key segments across the lectures into "video notebooks" for particular topics and study guides. Students can send links and share their video notebooks with others in the community.

"By allowing students to create their own lecture highlight reels with their own comments and annotations, we are providing a rich, personalized learning and enhanced studying experience." said Patrick Lyons, manager, instructional innovation for the campus. "We believe students will get great value from being able to search the lecture videos to find the precise topic or concept they are interested in reviewing, then see their classmate's notes and playlists for that topic. VideoNotes is an example of how we continue to integrate technology and expand the educational experience at Carleton."

Gotuit's PowerVideo Suite includes modules for video play, video mixing, video meta-data creation and video search.