Comments

• • Terry Anderson@terrya

  

  Terry Anderson November 14, 2012 - 1:25pm

  Likely our PR folks do have such a video. I think??? or the should at least, I would like to see it up against video from the OU.

  Terry

• • an unauthenticated user of the Landing@speak_freely_user1

  

  an unauthenticated user of the Landing November 14, 2012 - 2:27pm

  Hi Terry - indeed we do. It can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsFKiuo8Is

   

  Best regards,

  John

  
  - John O'Brien

• • Terry Anderson@terrya

  

  Terry Anderson November 14, 2012 - 5:40pm

  Here is the Athabasca one

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECsFKiuo8Is

  The vinettes with real students is nice, but there is only message - that AU is flexible. The video could come from any correspondence school. I'd like to see one that focuses on use of new technologies and new pedagogies.  We also need to be very careful with words. I notice that one students really likes the "study groups and tutors"  Very few (if any) of our undergrad courses have study groups, do they??

  Any other comments?? or suggestions??

  Terry

• • Steve Swettenham@sswettenham

  

  Steve Swettenham November 14, 2012 - 8:35pm

  I noticed that Open U has multiple video adverts online.  Perhaps there is another online AU advert with more mobility?  The aforementioned AU YouTube presentation has a laptop which greatly dates the vision of online anywhere, anytime.

  Unfortunately adding any technology in adverts seems to limit the longevity of the message.

• • Eric von Stackelberg@ericvo1

  

  Eric von Stackelberg November 15, 2012 - 11:14am

  I would focus on a three part message. New ideas (research), new relationships (network) to your needs (both learner level -eg undergrad, postgrad as well as schedule (flexibility).

  As a teaching AND research institution the research component seems to get lost. For me AU's PR material definitely set an expectation that is different than what I recieved. While I am very pleased with what I recieved better alignment would have had a significant impact on me. My comments on the network come back to my belief that should be a competitive advantage AU should capitalize on. (because any one network configuration is going to be unique given structure, relationship and language)   

• • John O'Brien@jobrien

  

  John O'Brien November 15, 2012 - 12:19pm

  We're pretty limited in what we can produce video-wise. Resources are not quite as rich as those available to the OU.I agree with Steve that technology in video is self-limiting, as is messaging. Visual media, though, require visual elements, like the aforementioned laptop, in order to be interesting.

  Interesting ideas, Eric, and I'd like to hear a bit more about how you'd see the "realtionships" message portrayed in a video.

   

• • Barbie Bruce@barbarabr30

  

  Barbie Bruce November 15, 2012 - 3:27pm

  "Resources are not quite as rich"  Limited resources means looking at creative ways of accomplishing the task.  What about using alumni? 

  Not to ask for them for funding but to donate time and resources to create a video that accurately reflects AU, the tech side, the learning side etc.  These alumni are working in businesses with equipment, businesses that when asked by their employees are usually glad to help with a gift in kind. 

  Off the top of my head I know a MBA grad working for a college in BC, MEd grad working in learning and development services, EdD, in technology at UBC, and MEd student working with mobile learning and cMOOCs.  

  Having worked in fundraising, sometimes all you need to do is ask.

  An alternative is to find students who need a capstone project in media/video production.

• • Eric von Stackelberg@ericvo1

  

  Eric von Stackelberg November 16, 2012 - 12:36am

  While "relationships" could be discussed with Alumni I believe it would be more visually engaging to shoot workshops and conferences that AU sponsors. Basically I would record for webinar purposes and re-use some components for the PR/marketing video. For instance a TEKRI workshop recorded for dissemination purposes might also provide some segments on research that Terry described as well as the discussion material that hits on the relationships generated between potential students and researchers. While it may be necessary to get creative on the content acquistion (eg. supporting a mix of staff and volunteers) because high quality recording of a full workshop or conference might be cost prohibitive I think significant footage of sufficient quality should still be obtainable.

  While I recognize a planned shoot will give better production values in this case I think the message can be demonstrated with lower quality segments (workshops / conference feeds).

  So just wondering, but does AU have a production or digital media unit? How would a workshop or conference go about generating a recording or is that outside the supported backoffice function?