Episode One Transcript

Transcript and References for Episode One

Hi, welcome to this inaugural episode of Even This Acronym, the first and only podcast about podcasting at the University of Leeds.

My name is Sam Wyman, and my pronouns are they and she. And I'm Plamen Momchilov, mine are he/him.

And we're here to announce the adoption of a formal podcasting solution here at Leeds, supported by the Digital Education Service. We started looking into podcasting in early 2022, so when we started this process, we found a strong community already podcasting. But to be able to support this, we would need the tools themselves, the software, which comes with bringing together the existing community to create and centralise guidance and resources so they work for staff and students with little to no experience.

But first, maybe we should start by asking what is a podcast? Let's start. Is it audio content? Yes, but it can link to transcripts, reference the slides or even video versions which show notes and we have show notes. Yeah, by the way, check those out. We've got references. We've got other resources and links down there.

Oh, uh, yes, but it doesn't need to be, like, in a chronological one then two order, like you might structure a lecture. These can be for topical news, so listening to the most recent first or for individual subjects that can be jumped in and out of in their own order. It can be ongoing or just for a small set of releases, like we're doing now.

It's probably a good idea to stick to a regular format and a release schedule so listeners know what to expect, but not at all required. What about public? Um, do they have to be public?

Well, not always. So, podcasting is a creative process, it's a very productive process. And in our experience with it, we often attribute it to our public audience. It is an effective way to reach people. Normally we think of this on a global scale, listening to podcasts in our own time, but public can mean a few different things. A podcast can be created for a general audience, or aimed just at a specific community, and that's called narrowcasting.

You can also release to a limited audience, like within an institution, or for a specific module, and this is something we have in mind for teaching and for learning here at the University of Leeds. Another question you might ask yourself though, is it conversational?

Hmm, uh, maybe. There are lots of examples of podcasts with just a single host, but you also want to keep your audience in mind. A degree of parasocial interaction can be a real benefit, especially in education. The greatest examples of these are probably all from early childhood education programming, but I think this is best put in the introduction to designing for parasocial relationships and learning.

Again, check the show notes by Sesame Workshop¹ as simply people learn from other people. Let's take a quick break, and then we'll talk about how this project got started, and what we found leading up to today.

And we're back with Even This Acronym, a podcasting podcast. That's right, it's so meta, Even This Acronym. So, Plamen, tell us, um, how we got to where we are today?

Yeah, so, we knew that there were different pockets of uses for primarily episodic audio content. There was an existing community that shared practice and overall experiences with this medium. By that point in time, the university had endorsed podcasting to enhance teaching and learning and to promote university campaigns, research as well. So, we started thinking about requirements for the podcasting solution. Mandatory ones being mixing, combining audio.

Like collaborating, recording calls and conversations? Yeah, or edits such as adding music, transitions.

Then we have desirable ones such as video recording. We mentioned earlier video versions. Now that is also a widespread format that we see in digital media now as well. When we started establishing requirements, we connected with those existing communities at university. We were looking at what we had published in general, we met with people who had been making these to understand what their workflow is like, what tools they were using, what they liked about the software to use, what features they considered a must have and what is optional and to get their opinion about a potential end to end solution at University of Leeds. So I say an end to end solution, and that is something we considered at the start, one that was suitable for recording, editing, storing, and distribution.

An end to end solution that can be supported centrally, accessed by everyone, staff and students alike, for teaching and learning, business solutions, all of that. Is anyone else doing this yet?

Well, at this point, we thought we'd take a look at what other universities were doing as well. So, they had in some ways podcasting for learning. There was also video hosting present, but not in that episodic style. You could see the encouragement for use as part of learning and for assessment too, but often this was without university supported software, without a shared infrastructure for this purpose.

Now, earlier you said, considered at the start. We didn't find an end to end solution, did we?

No, we didn't. Um, what we did is, we got into the process of compiling a list of requirements to procure two separate tools. We had organized a working group who were also involved in the vendor meetings for potential podcasting tools from this existing community. So, we also got more people interested around this time to implement it as part of their module.

What's the response and usage been like so far? It's been a lot of enthusiasm, which was great to see.

You know, in early 2022, we're seeing faster, further software developments, uh, podcasting had been even more widespread. There was still at that point in the COVID mindset, lots of experimentation with online learning and simply with communicating digitally with appreciation for the impact of these approaches on student engagement. It is a bit different than, let's say, a lecture capture recording.

Alright, it sounds like there's been great appetite, including from those who maybe didn't have so much experience in podcasting or been involved in one, but still want to make use of it in the context of module teaching. Lots of interesting ideas and uses there. All was left to do was to put the tools in reach.

Well, let's take a quick break, and when we're back, we'll introduce what systems will be available and what's coming next.

And we're back. So after covering what got us to this point, Sam, you're going to talk about what tools are coming to Leeds.

Yes, thanks. As you said, we didn't have one solution that covered everything. So we have a few different systems that create our podcasting environment. A system for wide reaching publishing and distribution, but another specializing in teaching and learning.

Yep, exactly. So, the thing was that the same workflow could not really be applied to both of these uses. So, we have one involving student created content for learning that brings up the issue of privacy and safeguarding, especially around assessment. Then you have another one, which is generally for reaching out to a wider audience.

Even if that wider audience is, say, sharing to an entire module?

Mm hmm. Yep, that comes into it as well.

Perfect. And another concern was giving space for experimentation in learning. A part of university is making those mistakes to learn from. We don't need those published to the wider world. Which is why the first part of our solution is Soundtrap for Education.

It creates this walled garden as a secure space for confidentiality and safe experimentation, while still providing full access to the recordings and editing features. It also offers assignment and group allocation tools for instructors.

That's great. It does cover this workflow for a more private experience. But it raised the question at this point, what if students content is ready to be published and distributed widely? This is something that was brought up when we're discussing the walled garden and what it means for the student experience, of concerns to avoid limiting your autonomy, your journey with podcasting.

hat do we have available if, let's say, we want a podcast to be taken to next year's module or even further for public distribution?

Yeah, there's definitely space for that to be explored and some interesting proposals already. Uh, Soundtrap still supports exporting to mp3 to publish and distribute a podcast to a wider audience, so students can export to another platform, either on their own or supported by the university. This also would allow you to still use your existing marketing workflows by re-uploading to Gradescope or Turnitin. Speaking of other platforms, how about from the publishing end? For that we have Podbean. Podbean is an industry standard for podcasting production and distribution. As with Soundtrap, Podbean offers a host of professional quality resources in a web format as well as a mobile app for editing and post production tools with a minimum battery of entry compared to, say, traditional audio editing suites.

So is this for branded university content for the purpose of marketing and comes?

Alongside that, users can still independently explore podcasting from their own channels. We're not looking to gatekeep or restrict this to only official projects. There's also space to release content internally, such as for professional development course or as part of a module teaching.

So who have access?

We're really excited for education content from academics, but this is going to be open to the whole university network, staff from all areas as well as students. We want to have folks from all areas involved.

Yeah, that would be great to see. It sure has been a long journey to where we are now. It has been a very productive one, and it's great that we're here, being able to announce what's coming for podcasting into university, what tools we have available now to take on, to experiment with, to develop digital skills with this medium.

So, Sam, if people are interested and want to take the next step, What do they need to do?

So for the next two years of this project, we're starting with a limited number of licenses. To manage those numbers, just getting started, we have a simple signup form that goes to our team. We'll have the link to that, the podcasting community team space, and more resources all in the show notes. So please check those out.

And I think all that's left. So thank you, Plamen, for being here with us today.

Thank you for having me as well, Sam. Great to be here.

Right? Yeah. And thank you for listening.

You know, I was looking for something just to use as a cited source, um, something that we can show in the show notes, but there's articles about pedagogy and higher education for podcasting, but if you find a scholarly article from Sesame Street, you have to use it. That's just the rule. Or, Elmo's no longer your friend. And he's my friend.

Show Notes

1. Gray, James & Reardon, Emily & Kotler, Jennifer. (2017). Designing for Parasocial Relationships and Learning: Linear Video, Interactive Media, and Artificial Intelligence. 227-237. 10.1145/3078072.3079736.