We've been looking at new ways to gather data from our business processes and apply them to process improvement. Nancy Hill, project director for our department recently analyzed data gathered from several years of processing streaming videos. She identified a number of patterns that will be helpful in reducing the manual video processing workload for Jon Metty, our intrepid web developer and streaming video expert. One direction for improvement is to identify departments and people who generate the most video content and then develop workflows that simplify processing their content.

Here are a couple of research-based items of interest:

Apple announced new tools for education recently, including enhancements to iTunes U and textbooks for iPad. If you have an iPad the free Life on Earth textbook available in the Books section of the iTunes store is a good example of what's possible with the new textbook tools.

I wasn't able to attend the national Educause conference in Philadelphia but there was a lot of interest in an announcement from Pearson about a new "free" LMS called OpenClass. Michael Feldstein has a thoughtful post about it in his e-Literate blog. There's also a follow-up post today. Well worth a read, especially for those interested in open source learning management systems.

Introduction to Clinical Oncology a new, publicly accessible online course in the Professional Oncology Education series from MD Anderson is now available in Sakai@MD Anderson. The course was developed by Maura Polansky, MS, MHPE, PA-C and Alma Rodriguez, M.D. for use by physicians, physician assistants and others involved in the care of cancer patients.

David Weinberger of the Berkman Center posted this video of Harvard library staff and users talking about digital libraries.

Shaun Caldwell, Program Director for Radiation Therapy at the MD Anderson School of Health Professions had a problem: students applying for the RT program were having difficulty understanding all the prerequisites and steps required for completing their applications. Shaun wanted to make the process smoother for applicants by explaining things clearly in an online module.

Shaun consulted with Nancy Hill of Academic Technology Services on how to deliver the project. Together they came up with a design that centered around short explanatory video clips and  resources like check lists and web links. Shaun didn't have a budget for the project so he and Nancy agreed to use it as an opportunity to test some new low-cost production techniques. Jon Metty built the final web pages.

The result is How to Win at the Application Process. Here's an overview of the tools and techniques used to deliver this module:

• Video - shot with a Canon T3i DSLR camera.
• Audio - recorded with a Sony PCMD50 digital recorder. This could also have been done with lower cost recorders like the Zoom H4. Using an external recorder produces much higher quality audio than the camera's built-in recorder.
  
• Synchronization of audio and video - done automatically in software using Singular Software's DualEyes.
• Video clip editing and titles - Apple Final Cut Pro X
• Web page editing - Adobe DreamWeaver. Some JQuery was used for the video window effects.
  
• Video player - The MD Anderson accessible video player developed by Jon Metty and Haili Tu.
• Module delivery and evaluation: Sakai@MD Anderson course management system.
• Additional assistance from Mrs. Potato Head in Shaun's office.
  

Using this relatively lightweight approach to media-enhanced module development was a great learning experience. We plan to apply the experience to delivering future projects faster, cheaper and better.

Academic Technology Services recently upgraded the Sakai@MD Anderson server environment by adding a third server to the server cluster. Sakai is our course management system for academic and community learners. Anand Mehta, our Sakai administrator, worked with Data Center Operations and Technical Services to provision an HP server with more than twice the combined capacity of the older servers. Over the next few months we plan to add a fourth high-capacity server. The fourth server will complete our upgrade and will give us the ability to support thousands of simultaneous users with reduced downtime and faster response times.

The largest group of new students in the history of the School of Health Professions arrived on August 23rd for fall term pre-orientation. Our team at Academic Technology Services took a new approach to student orientation and account setup this year. Last year was our first full year using Sakai and we experienced a heavy load of support requests from students during the first few weeks of the term. Most of these requests were related to password reset and VPN access issues and often occurred at a time of crisis, such as when a student was about to take a test.

Most of the course sites in Sakai@MD Anderson are for instructor-led courses, like those offered by the School of Health Professions. A growing number, though, are self-paced online courses. The most common format so far is straightforward: a series of recorded presentations often with picture-in-picture of the speaker. The Breast Cancer Course, part of the Professional Oncology Education series is an example. You can take this course without the need to enroll. Other courses in the series require enrollment and some offer continuing  medical education credit for a modest fee.