University of California Television (UCTV) has launched a web portal that offers UC researchers a simple and cost-effective place to find and share peer-to-peer scholarly presentations in any academic discipline via video and visual media.
UCTV Seminars is a site where UC researchers can share their work with scholars around the system and the world. It is now live and accepting submissions at http://seminars.uctv.tv. The site offers an easy-to-navigate user interface that allows visitors to browse videos by subject area, event date, speaker name, conference, host organization or UC campus.
Presentations must originate from a UC campus or affiliated institution but can feature researchers from universities around the world and can be freely viewed in Flash format, downloaded as audio and/or video podcasts, and embedded in outside web sites. Presentations are also made available on UCTV Seminars’ YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/uctvseminars) and on UCTV’s iTunesU channel.
UC researchers are invited to submit their own video presentations. Formats can range from a simple narrated PowerPoint presentation to a highly produced video. Programs will appear alongside user-submitted metadata, including descriptions, related links, lecture notes, and other complementary materials.
For more than a decade, UCTV has gathered and disseminated general interest programming from throughout the University of California to more than 23 million homes nationwide on satellite and cable, and worldwide on its web site and YouTube and iTunesU channels. Content is intended for the general public, with additional content aimed at K-12 teachers and health care professionals.
Over the years, UC faculty have expressed interest in making seminar presentations available to fellow scholars online, while also having access to other seminars from throughout the system. Unlike videos created for broadcast, these scholarly presentations require less production effort— minimally just the audio and the PowerPoint of the presentation. While some departments and conference organizers offer these kinds of presentations online after a seminar or conference has occurred, most are lost to anyone not directly participating.
