8/13/2019 Podcasting Vodcasting and Law

1/3

A s we look back in time just a few years, we realize that technologyis in constant flux. In a not toodistant past eight-track technology wasall the rage. Rotary dial phones were thestandard in those days, and typewriters

were the preferred method for creating documents. Soon walkmans and cassetteplayers took over, but were then replaced by CD players, which in turn are now replacedby MP3 players.

While cassettes and CDs used to betangible manifestations of music ownership,today audio files take us into a new frontier. These audio files have opened thedoor to podcasting and a new world of media-rich content.

In order to assess the importance of podcasting, first consider the word podcast.Since this technological term is not yetavailable in traditional dictionaries, wemust rely on its practical and executabledefinitions: in other words, what a podcastdoes or what its function is.

Demystifying the Terms A podcast is the action of publishing audiofiles to the Internet, while allowing patronsthe ability to download them. As a result,the patrons are able to enjoy audio ondemand because they can have audio accessat any time and at any place. The magic of this technology flows from the MPEG

working group and its MP3 standard. What is MP3 ? Is it a standard or a

product? It is both. The MP3 format is thestandard, and the MP3 file is the product.Sound files or music recordings stored inMP3 format (also known as MPEG-1

Audio Layer III) have become the mostimportant avenues used to deliver highquality audio through the Internet. MPEGstands for Moving Picture Experts Group,a working group of the International

Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission(ISO/IEC) in charge of the developmentof standards for coded representation of digital audio and video. The ISO/IECis a center jointly operated to providestandardization information.

In recent years, blogs have shown us thepower of RSS feeds and aggregators. Now,podcast aggregators, or podcatchers,makeavailable the content of RSS feeds to MP3players. RSSRadio, Juice, Transistr, and

Apples iTunes, for example, serve aspodcast aggregators.

MP3 is the common format used whenreferring to podcasting, although it is notthe only one. The Advanced Audio Coding

(AAC) standard seems to be opening upnew possibilities as well. Also known asMPEG-4 Audio, AAC was also developedby an MPEG working group and is now being presented as a better quality coding standard for audio by Apple through itsiTunes jukebox. For the patron, this meansan improved listening experience.

What is MP4 ? MP4 is quite anotherlevel of technology. An MP4 file is based onthe standard introduced by the MPEG-4

working group. MP4 files support audioand video. Now you have video on demand,or vodcasting.To enjoy vodcasting, consider

the Advanced Video Coding (AVC) format. Also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, AVC isdesigned to ease the delivery of quality videfrom various applications. Now that iPodshave incorporated the ability to play videofiles, vodcasting is within reach.

The Journey to Podcasting Recently the issue of podcasting croppedup in the Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Law Library and Technology Center.Since it involved audio streaming throughthe Internet, the NSU library directorconsidered it necessary to find anexplanation of how the process differed fromthe librarys current online audio streaming,Legal Replays, which was created in 1997.

Before deciding to experiment withthis new medium, several questions wereconsidered. Why should we use podcasting if

RealPlayer still works for students? What should we podcast? How do we podcast? What additional resources are needed

to podcast? How do we persuade faculty to

participate? How should we design the Web page? How should we market podcasting to

students? At the NSU Shepard Broad Law Center,

back in June of 1997, staff started recording some faculty classes and streamed this audiothrough the Internet, calling this feature LegalReplays.Class sessions were recorded withRealPlayer, which allowed students to usetheir required laptops to listen to the audio.

During the years, staff updated the Webpage on which Legal Replays were posted,trained some faculty to record and upload

AALL Spectrum June 20068

Podcasting, Vodcasting, and LawHow to understand the newest it technology and use it in your library

P

r

a

c t

i c

i n

g

L

a

w

L

i b

r

a

r

i a

n

s

h

i p

2006 Roy Balleste, Jason Rosenberg, and Lisa Smith-Butler

8/13/2019 Podcasting Vodcasting and Law

2/3

ibrariesby Roy Balleste, Jason Rosenberg, and Lisa Smith-Butler

their own sessions, and debated whether touse video. Plans to use video were alwaysscrapped because of network server space

issues and download times. When the issue of podcasting arose,Legal Replays was compared with thepodcasting process to consider whether it

would be beneficial to students. Thelibrarians and IT staffs investigationrevealed that podcasting involved placing a file, either video or audio, onto the Internet

while using an RSS feed. As long as a personhad an RSS reader or news aggregator, he orshe could subscribe to a particular podcastand would automatically receive any updated files created for the podcast.

Practically speaking, this meant thatstudents would automatically receive thenext update/recording of the property class,for example, as soon as it was posted. WithRealPlayer, students could listen to the classaudio on their laptop in the library. Withthe MP3 format, students could downloadthe class to their iPods and listen whilecommuting or jogging. The benefitsbecame obvious, so the library directorproceeded to the next question.

What Should We Podcast?It was agreed that classes would be recorded

for professors requesting recordings. Theaudio would then be posted on the Internetin both MP3 and RealPlayer formats,allowing students to use both their laptopsand iPods. Every year, the NSU Law Center holds a symposium on varioustopics, such as law and medicine or theCaribbean law. Nationally known speakersare invited to present, which was another

item with podcasting potential. Other guestvisitors, providing they agreed to therecording, would be podcast as well.

Lastly, we concluded that professoriallectures on bar subjects for third-yearstudents, known as ALA Recordings,couldalso be podcast. The Shepard Broad Law Center creates and records lectures for seniorson a variety of bar exam topics, including How to Draft Essays, Answering MultipleChoice Questions, Florida ConstitutionalLaw, Florida Criminal Law, and Florida

Wills. These lectures are created andproduced by law center faculty. (See

Advanced Legal Analysis,Shepard Broad Law Center, available at www.nsulaw.nova.edu/csp/ala/workshops.cfm.)

The next step required a determinationas to how to podcast and what additionalresources (equipment and personnel) wereneeded. According toPodcasting Tools (www.podcasting-tools.com), a microphoneand recorder are all that one needs to getstarted. Once the audio recording is created,the file is then added to an RSS feed andfinally submitted to a site that acceptspodcast submissions. Consultation with thenetwork administrator indicated that we hadsufficient server space to handle podcasting.

However, it looked like everyone was

podcasting, and the library director wantedto do something different. The associatedirector suggested vodcasting. After reviving the network administrator, we learned thatan additional server, plus software, wasneeded in order to prevent the vodcasts fromoverwhelming the network and absorbing too much server space. We needed to spendapproximately $10,000 in order to be able

Advanced Audio Coding (ACC)www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/aac

Advanced Video Coding (AVC)www.iso.ch/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.CatalogueDetail?CSNUMBER=37729&scopelist=PROGRAMME

www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/standards/ mpeg-4/mpeg-4.htm#4.4

CALI Classcaster Podcasting Projectwww2.cali.org/index.php?fuseaction=help.faq&topic=classcaster

Classcasterwww.classcaster.org

ISO/IEC Information Centrewww.standardsinfo.net/isoiec/index.html

ISO/IEC Projectwww.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/popstds/mpeg.html

Juicehttp://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php

Loomiawww.loomia.com

MPEGwww.chiariglione.org/mpeg

MPEG-4www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/mp

Overview of MPEG-4www.itu.int/ITU-D/tech/digital-broadcasting/kiev/References/mpeg-4.html

Transistrwww.transistr.com

Wikipedia List of Podcatchershttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcatchers

AALL Spectrum June 2006 9

to effectively vodcast without harming therest of our network.

Working out the Details As the issue was discussed among the librapodcast committee membersthe library director, associate director, Web developer,director of network services, and head of computer servicesand with faculty, someitems emerged. Some faculty didnt wantanyone other than students to have accessto the audio files. The committee membersalso wondered if releases were needed fromfaculty and speakers.

As the committee members ponderedthese questions, they decided that lockingthe files down would defeat the purpose of making them readily available to the studentsFaculty who wanted to record and limit acceto the recordings was advised to use WebCT.

Audio files were recorded and loaded ontoour Web page in MP3 and RealPlayer formatand could be accessed by anyone.

Faculty had to request the service. Theie-mail requests, asking that the classes berecorded and uploaded to the Internet,served as the release. The committeeconcluded that a legal release was necessarfor guest speakers and began creating one.Faculty was made aware of the new

format via e-mail broadcasts, one-on-onediscussions, and mention at a faculty meeting. Volunteers were solicited via e-maand in face-to-face discussions. Severalhappily agreed to participate.

The Web developer then begandesigning the Web page, allowing studentsto access the recordings in either MP3or RealPlayer formats. It was decided to

For Further Exploration

8/13/2019 Podcasting Vodcasting and Law

3/3

experiment with video, planning thepursuit of vodcasting as well. Students werealerted to the new formats with broadcaste-mails as well as with library lunch andlearn sessions, known asGlad You Asked.The librarys information and technology faculty instructional sessions, known asFaculty Informs,and its lunch and learnseries for students also make excellentpodcast/vodcast subjects.

How to Podcast Podcastings simplistic and inexpensiveapproach to deliver rich media has increasedits popularity in educational environments.The minimum requirements to create a podcast are a personal computer with a sound card, microphone, sound/videoediting software, and an Internet connection

with access to a Web site. Vodcasting worksin the same way, but requires a much fasterpersonal computer and a digital videocamera. Once you understand the basicstructure for setting up a podcast, you can

begin to develop the process to successfully implement your own podcasts.

The first tool required to begin yourpodcasting session is an audio capture tool.The best way to accomplish this is to havea microphone connected to a computer.

After the audio has been recorded, we needaudio editing tools to edit and manipulateinformation before it is available to the public.There are various audio editing tools availablefor all computer platforms. Numerousshareware, freeware, or open source packagescan do an excellent job for little or no cost.

Once you have created andmanipulated the media, it must be postedon a Web server via File Transfer Protocol(FTP) or HTTP upload. Another toolrequired is an RSS news reader. This toolallows users to automatically downloadtheir desired podcasts. The RSS newsreader is designed specifically to downloadpodcasts to a designated folder on thesubscribers computer. Two packages tolook at are iPodder or iPodderX.

In addition to an RSS news reader,a user must also install a contentmanagement system (CMS). The CMS

is used to manage podcasts. The softwareallows the user to sort and organize contentinto playlists, which can be scheduled toautomatically synchronize with a media player when connected to a computer. Themost popular CMS for podcasting is AppleiTunes, which allows users to manage theiraudio content on both Windows XP andMacintosh OS X computers.

Finally, a digital music player, or MP3player, is required to play the media. MP3players range from $15 to $1,500. TheiPod, probably one of the most popularMP3 players, ranges from $99 to $499.

Podcasting and Vodcasting InfrastructureBoth podcasting and vodcasting representchallenges to a networks infrastructure.The effects of these new technologies willbe outlined for the following areas: storageneeds, bandwidth, security, supporting hardware, and other requirements.

Bandwidth. Basic audio presentation isabout 15MB per hour and takes about oneto two minutes to download, dependingon network traffic. An hour-long video isabout 70MB and takes about 10 minutesto download.

Storage. A 15MB-per-hour audio fileor a 70MB video requires a one terabytestorage device to house the media.

Supporting Hardware. Any computer with an Internet connection and the ability to run Windows XP, Apple OS X, orLinux has all the power, storage, soundinput/output, and memory required tocreate, edit, package, and distribute podcasts.

Supporting Software. There are twotypes of software requiredpublishing andsubscribing. Current publishing softwareneeds both an audio capture application andan RSS editing package. Subscription softwareretrieves the specified content feeds and canplace the content directly into the designatedfolder of a content management applicationlike iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Other Requirements. A broadbandInternet connection is highly recommended,due to the relatively large file sizes andthe amount of information that must betransmitted.

Podcasting in ActionToday at NSU Law, podcasting is a reality,and the law library is beginning to work

with vodcasts. Across the nation, law schools have begun to utilize podcasts.The Center for Computer-Assisted LegalInstruction (CALI) Classcaster Podcasting Project has expanded the frontiers of thepodcasting world in legal education. Asexplained by CALI, the Legal EducationPodcasting Project (hereafter LEPP) is a semester-long investigation into podcasting in legal education. CALI is providing stipends and digital recorders to law faculty for the spring 2006 semester so that they can either record their classroom lectures orrecord weekly summaries and post these ona blog where their students can access them.More than 50 faculty members have agreedto participate in the project.

For example, Wayne State University Law School and Law Library participates in theCALI podcasting project, says MichaelSamson, electronic services and systemslibrarian. Diane Murley, reference/Web serviceslibrarian at Southern Illinois UniversitySchool of Law, also started to get involved inpodcasting through CALIs Podcasting Project.

Looking at the Classcaster Web pagereveals an intense participation by manylaw schools. Classcaster is a course bloggisystem that provides faculty, librarians,and staff of CALI member schools witha new way to interact with students andcommunities, the site explains. A Classcaster blog provides authors with toolsfor posting not only traditional blog articlesbut also tools for podcasting and sharing any documents and/or files with studentsand communities.

Other podcasting projects are just asexciting. For example, Rutgers University Law School Librarys Susan Lyons,documents/reference librarian, and DennisKim-Prieto, reference librarian, explain thatthe library is doing some limited podcastingof major lectures and programs (http://law-library.rutgers.edu/feeds/podcast.php). JamesG. Milles, associate dean and director of thelaw library, associate professor of law at theUniversity At Buffalo State University of New York Charles B. Sears Law Library,

continues to share his famed weekly podcasproject called Check This Out! (http://cto.libsyn.com).

Last but not least, the efforts at AmericanUniversity Washington College of Law (WCL) are impressive. Billie Jo Kaufman,associate dean for library informationresources, and Korin Munsterman, directorof office technology, explain that WCL hasbeen podcasting events and activities, as welas classroom lectures. The school has a respectable 4,917 regular subscribers and had33,742 MP3 downloads from September toDecember, Munsterman says. This tool has

allowed us to make all event content availablto internal and external community membersand has allowed students who miss a class orspeak English as a second language to listento class content multiple times or at a modulated speed.

This list of podcasting activities is notexhaustive, but rather an example of thevarious activities occurring across thenation. If you find podcasting interesting,consider attending the AALL Computing Services Special Interest Section program opodcasting, E-3: Invasion of the PodcastPeople: Podcasting for the Law Library,

which will be presented at the AALL Annual Meeting in St. Louis on July 10.

Roy Balleste (rballeste@udc.edu) is director and assistant professor at the Universof the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, Charles N. and Hilda H.M.Mason Law Library, in Washington, D.C.

Jason Rosenberg (rosenbergj@nsu.law.nova.edu) is Web developer at the Nova SoutheasteUniversity Law Library and Technology Centin Fort Lauderdale, Florida.Lisa Smith- Butler (smith-butlerl@nsu.law.nova.edu) is assistant dean and director at the Nova

Southeastern University Law Library and Technology Center. AALL Spectrum June 200610