Real-time Content Creation for Multimedia Didactics

In order to solve the inevitable problem of lecture overlaps, to reduce problems of mobility, and, more generally, to promote the concept of Flexible University, the Politecnico di Milano, has developed flexibile tele-teaching systems that enable large numbers of students to remotely attend lectures as they take place, and to review previous lectures in an off-line fashion. In particular, PdM designed (and is currently using) advanced teleteaching facilities within the EC-sponsored “Blueprint for Interactive Classrooms” project [1]. Such facilities are ergonomically sound for lecture-stile presentations to large number of students [2,3]. They are based on two video contributions: the lecturer’s video and an additional video stream that accommodates presentation slides or an Over-Head Camera (top view of the desk) or a video contribution from a PC, a VCR, a DVD player, a codec, etc. In this paper we propose a system that uses this teleteaching setup for effortlessly generating multimedia didactic content in real time. The goal of this system is twofold: a realtime creation/indexing of multimedia presentations to be accessed off-line through webterminals connected to the University Intranet; and an implementation of novel tele-presence delivery mechanisms for the "virtual classroom" lecture delivery scenario. All this will allow educational institutions to update hypermedia didactic servers "on the fly" (with no re-editing needs), or to deliver a multimedia lecture while it is being given. Real-time didactic content creation is crucial for the development of Flexible Universities as it allows Academic Institutions to create didactic archives with modest effort and cost.