The TEACH Act “redefines the terms and conditions on which accredited, nonprofit educational institutions throughout the U.S. may use copyright protected materials in distance education including on websites and by other digital means without permission from the copyright owner and payment of royalties” (Crews, 2002). In order for us to use and digitize copyrighted materials for distance education, we are using the TEACH Act requirements checklist. In this update, I would like to highlight our successful journey in establishing a streaming server for DE using Kaltura and share some statistics.

Over the last two years, ATRC participated in cross-departmental meetings with different entities within our college including the Library, DRC, IS, and PCTV researching methods that will better support our streaming service’s needs.  We started with our Copyrights policy that protects our media request process.  The new process allows us to be in compliance with the TEACH Act. We chose the Kaltura Platform (SaaS) due to its high-quality video and Dynamic Streaming capability. This new streaming server allows us to support all the needs including mobile devices. Local students with fast connections can watch in HD and students in remote areas with lower bandwidth can watch at lower bitrates, yet everyone can have a seamless viewing experience. The smooth streaming allows everyone—students and faculty—to seamlessly play back content using standard video player software.

The successful implementation of the new system is the result of a collaboration with the Library and DRC. This implementation allows the faculty to submit their media requests to ATRC Helpdesk that will be handled by the three Palomar Departments. The Library vets the media request, ATRC digitizes the media, DRC handles the closed captioning, and at the end, faculty allows students access from within the LMS.

Within the last few months, 481 media entries were played 13,374 times for more than 5343 hours. This new service allows the students to access from very diverse geographical areas within the USA and overseas as shown in the tables underneath.

References

Crews, K. (2002). Copyright Law for Distance Education: The Meaning and Importance of the TEACH Act. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/teachact/distanceeducation (Accessed October 10, 2016).