The staff of the Center for the Virtual University. Left to right, Mike Smith, Andy Joyce, Evelyn Marren, Susan Pollack, Justus Baumgartner, Todd Larson, Joannie Cheng, Carrie Gahagan, Theo Stone, and Pat Hall.

Center for the Virtual University Unveils Multimedia Introduction to Better Opportunities Program

By Chip Cassano

UMUC's Center for the Virtual University (CVU) premiered an innovative multimedia introduction to the Better Opportunities Through Online Education program at the University's First Annual Awards Dinner on November 3, 2001. Carrie Gahagan, multimedia producer; Andy Joyce, multimedia graphic artist; and Justus Baumgartner, Web multimedia specialist, were responsible for the project's content design, graphic design, and programming, respectively. The team used Macromedia Flash—a Web-friendly multimedia format—to integrate animation, text, and sound in an eye-catching presentation that Theo Stone, assistant provost and director of CVU, called "outstanding."

Theo Stone, director of the Center for the Virtual University, with a state-of-the-art flat-screen monitor in the new Faculty Media Lab.

"What this does, in a very neat and creative way," Stone said, "is show how the partnership [between UMUC and Goodwill Industries] is creating opportunities for underprivileged individuals. But let me just brag about how clever [the UMUC team] was." While Flash was well-suited to the project because it generates a compact and portable file, Stone said, it isn't particularly adept at handling video. To get around that problem, the team used a series of scans of still images and linked them together to create the illusion of movement.

"It was just a very clever way to finesse the problem," Stone said, and one that helps highlight some of the capabilities of this relatively new unit within UMUC's Office of Distance Education and Lifelong Learning.

"CVU develops innovation to improve the quality of online learning at a distance," Stone said. "We are the multimedia specialists within UMUC." That means that, in addition to creating multimedia presentations like the one showcasing the Better Opportunities program, CVU oversees UMUC's television studios and television channel, and supports best practices in online learning—an emphasis that has won several sizeable grants from the Verizon Foundation.

The new Faculty Media Lab, in the Student and Faculty Services Center, is a promising addition that puts simple multimedia solutions—audio, video, electronic "chalkboard" animations, and more—within reach of all faculty.

"This is what I like to think of as the low-hanging fruit in multimedia for online learning," said Stone; "we now have resources that are going to be tremendously valuable for faculty members as well as course designers and distance education coordinators, helping them enrich the online environment."

For more information about the Center for the Virtual University, visit the Web page at www.umuc.edu/odell/cvu.