The Observer, October 6, 2006
Volume XXXIX, Issue 6
Student's idea may expand
For 31 hours from Sunday to Monday morning, Case students may have seen an interesting, if short-lived, site: podcast.cwru.edu.
The site, created by sophomore Andrew Witte, was meant to provide Case students with an alternative to the regular MediaVision route to accessing audio files of MediaVision courses while maintaining the privacy of the content by requiring a Case ID and password to access the site.
Having the podcasting service would allow students simply to sync their podcast-enabled devices with the MediaVision files rather than searching for them one by one.
Witte created the site after he realized he could access a directory of audio files through the MediaVision website.
"I realized that I could easily make a service that would automatically create podcasts out of the MediaVision audio based on the directory listings I found," said Witte.
Witte then set up podcast.cwru.edu and used the Case forums to announce the 4 a.m. development.
At 11 a.m. Monday, Witte received an e-mail from MediaVision programmer Sean Maxwell requesting that the site be taken down and letting Witte know that security on the MediaVision site would be increased.
According to Michael Kubit, manager of MediaVision, there is an agreement between the university and faculty that they have joint ownership of the content and that one group can not distribute the video or audio files of lectures without the other's permission.
The podcast website was in violation of this agreement and could not continue to exist without permission from both parties.
"Since the site was obviously a failure, it is my hope that MediaVision will take it upon themselves to offer podcasts in the future," said Witte.
"We've always offered mp3 files of courses, but they haven't been accessed as much as the video files," said Kubit. "There's a visual component to courses that prevents students from using only the audio files."
However, MediaVision has been working to give students the ability to subscribe to podcasts of their courses.
"For the courses that have less of a visual aspect, there is more demand for the mp3 files," said Kubit.
Another service that MediaVision is looking into is something similar to YouTube or Google Video that will provide archival videos of courses to the Case community.
This could be helpful to students who might like to look at videos from courses they are not enrolled in.
"If you like a different professor's style, you can watch those lectures instead," said sophomore Katie Kirkpatrick.
