Name and e-mail: Vic Jenkins (v.k.jenkins@bath.ac.uk) and James Barrett (j.barrett2@bath.ac.uk)
Keywords (pedagogical):
Keywords (technical): Podcast, Audio
Discipline: n/a
Year/ability: n/a
Course title: n/a

Background
The e-Learning Team has recently broadcast the first of a new monthly series of podcasts about using technology to enhancing learning and teaching.  As part of this process, members of the team explored the technology and skills needed to record, edit and publish a podcast. Their experiences are shared here to provide some pointers for others who may want to use produce podcasts for learning or in other contexts.

What took place?

The podcast was initially developed and planned using a design model for DALOs (Digital Audio Learning Objects) created by Andrew Middleton and Richard Carter at Sheffield Hallam University. This design model has been made available online here (follow the link to the Dalo Toolkit).

The elements of the podcast were recorded separately; including introductions and an interview/Q&A session.  These audio files (MP3) were then ‘tidied up’ and joined together with music in the editing process. The musical assets were an introduction (12 sec), an internal “bumper” about 5 seconds long to join or separate different sections, and an “outro” (12 sec again) at the finish.

The finished MP3 audio file was posted on a blog along with a text introduction and URL links to useful information referred to in the podcast itself.

What was the role of the technology?

Audacity was used to record and edit the audio for the podcast.  It is a free download that is fairly straightforward to use. This software and user documentation are available here . Audacity presents audio as a graphical timeline which is intuitive to locate, select and apply effects to, or delete segments of audio. The segments of audio and music within the project can be spliced together and adjusted before export. Because we chose to publish our output in MP3 format, audacity was configured to use the LAME encoder, again free software to download.

Wordpress is where we have set up a blog to host the audio files and the URLs that link to further information on related websites.  Adding the podcast to a blog allows listeners to subscribe to an RSS feed so that new episodes are sent directly to their RSS reader when they are published. You can sign up for a Wordpress account here.

Why didn’t we use blogs@bath.ac.uk or LMF to set up the RSS feed? We wanted to make the podcast as technically compliant as possible, with the media properly embedded in the feed so as to work well with any aggregator. Although blogs@bath carried a link to the file and would probably work reasonably well with many feed readers and aggregators, it did not correctly enclose the url in an “enclosure” tag. We used LMF to host the media files, but although it could be used to produce a more compliant feed, there was very limited control over the content, and we felt it was important to provide some relatively rich textual material to support the audio, e.g. providing images and/or links to further reading.

If you have any questions about these technical (or any other) aspects of this case study, feel free to contact Vic or James on the e-mail addresses above for more information.

There are guidance materials on the technical aspects of creating a podcast available here from JISC Digital Media.

Outcomes

How did the participants find it?

Everyone involved in the project was initially reluctant to hear their recorded voice but soon became accustomed to it.   It was surprising how much time it took to plan, organise, edit and publish the finished product. Yet, the actual recording time needed was relatively short, so interviewees who took part were easily able to give their time to the project.

Issues/problems

What tips do you have for others?

Content

  • Using the DALO planning form really helps with organising ideas and planning the content.
  • If you need to write a script for any element of the podcast, deviating slightly from it when recording will make the audio seem more natural.
  • For interviews and Q&A sessions, a structure can help make participants more comfortable with the recording process as they can see the direction the discussion will take and prepare answers for the questions they are likely to face.

Microphones

  • Can be booked and borrowed from AV (in the Library).
  • If you have time, run test recordings with a variety of microphones and see which give the best results – recording quality varies greatly!
  • Don’t put up with bad recording quality – there is probably a simple fix for it. Get help!

Recording

  • If you make a mistake half way through, don’t re-record from the start. Leave the recording running and pick up where you left off.  It is relatively easy to join sections of audio together later in the edit process.

Plans for the future

The podcast series will continue to develop with episodes on a monthly basis.  The structures for publishing are now in place (Wordpress blog, podcast page on the e-Learning website) so each new episode should be simpler and easier to produce.  Opportunities for listeners to comment on the podcast have been provided at all points where it is published, so feedback will be planned into upcoming episodes.