Don, can you tell us a bit about IU's Academic Media Production Spaces (AMPS)?
UITS Collaboration Technologies and IU Online installed full-service or self-serve AMPS on each IU campus to provide recording facilities for faculty. They're set up to produce high-quality audio and video content. The main AMPS team works out of the Bloomington and Indianapolis full-service spaces.
Our mission is to help faculty create high-quality media that benefits students. We produce video for online classes, eLearning, interviews, training videos, and things like that. I was just at a shoot in an Emergency Medicine simulation lab, capturing video of the steps you take to put in a chest tube.
There's no charge to faculty for AMPS team support. Most of the professors who come to us have been trying to do video production on their own, and then realize a colleague has been getting our help with their videos. It's very word of mouth.
How can faculty learn more about each of the AMPS?
Don: Faculty can visit our website and click on their home campus tab to learn what's available. Also, there's a campus-specific email for project requests.
In the full-service spaces, you get access to state-of-the-art recording facilities and equipment, along with help from video production professionals like me. My colleagues and I have done this for years, and we're available to help you.
Even in the self-serve spaces, you get access to a setup that produces studio-style effects using familiar recording tools. You can use a "green screen" effect to superimpose yourself over anything on the computer screen—and in some self-serve AMPS you can use "Handwriting Extraction" to bring your chalkboard or whiteboard writing to the front of the screen (so you're not blocking it with your body).
Jim, how did Don and the AMPS team help with your physiology class?
Don has helped edit and record around 70 videos for my physiology class (PHSL-P 215). I run a flipped classroom where I ask students to watch two to three videos before each class. The videos are 7-10 minutes long, and I embed quiz questions into them using PlayPosit. These videos help familiarize students with the content prior to class—and they're short enough that students can go back and review specific concepts.
Would you recommend other faculty work with AMPS?
Jim: Yes! While I know many faculty will use a traditional lecture, I still think they could create short videos that students could reference, essentially their own Khan Academy for their class. AMPS are little known and underutilized. While that makes it easy for me to book time, it could be a huge asset to IU if more faculty take advantage of the things AMPS can do.
What are some ways you've used AMPS or plan to use them in the future?
Jim: I co-teach my class, and yesterday we finished recording the videos for the nine weeks I will teach in the fall. Next, I will be working with Don to record the final six weeks of class videos, which I will use in the spring.
This fall, I will also be working with Don to create a video library for a new class I start teaching in the spring (PHSL-P 454 - Environmental Physiology).
I want to help the doctoral students in the anatomy education program create a few videos they could share with students at IU—and put in their teaching portfolios, so they can show some of their work when they are on the job market.
Why not do it yourself?
Jim: I used to work at another university that didn't have a resource on campus like AMPS. While I was working there, I recorded and edited my own videos. They were fine, but with Don's help I have been able to produce much higher quality videos. Everything I have wanted to do or try I have been able to do.
