Telling UW stories
Friday, October 06, 2006
Ken Frazier is serving as interim Director of DoIT and campus Chief Information Officer. Frazier is also Director of UW?s General Library System. When Professor Michael Petrovich first recorded his lectures on Russian History for the “University of the Air,” no one guessed that dairy farmers, bank clerks, and housewives would become his devoted and loyal audience?but they did. In the hands of a master teacher, history was transformed into a captivating story. Recording and broadcasting the performance of UW?s best teachers proved to be one the University?s finest examples of the Wisconsin Idea in action. Nearly thirty years later, we continue to have creative UW talent (and now much better tools) that could deliver inspiring and engaging programming to a much wider public.
The continuing expansion of online and broadcast video outlets presents a great opportunity for UW-Madison to spread the word about its teaching, research and community service. The challenge is: besides sports, we don?t have enough programming to televise.
Take the Big 10 Channel, for example. Set to launch in 2007 as a 24-hour television outlet for Big 10 sports, the channel will deliver football, basketball, volleyball and more to satellite and cable providers nationwide and to the Internet. But with 168 hours a week to fill, I expect Big 10 Channel programmers will be eager for some interesting content outside of the sports realm. UW-Madison clearly has an opportunity to fill some of that niche.
Or consider ResearchChannel. A consortium of more than 50 leading research and academic institutions, including UW-Madison, ResearchChannel provides a way for us to describe the work of our researchers and spread the success story of our university through video. We have contributed 12 programs so far, a number that compares favorably with our peer institutions. But we have a lot more to say, and ResearchChannel needs more programming as it expands its viewing reach through deals with Dish Network and Charter Communications.
These television outlets are hungry for programming, and we have on our campus the energy, creativity and expertise to provide it. The research and teaching under way at UW-Madison will provide a rich narrative, and people here have the know-how and facilities to produce it on video. Staff from DoIT, UW Communications, the Instructional Media Development Center in the School of Education, Engineering Media Services, the Video Resource Center in the College of Letters & Science, and elsewhere on campus are eager to create informative, entertaining video productions.
What we need are ideas for content.
Video, either via broadcast or streamed over the Internet, can be a tremendously effective medium for sharing knowledge, fostering good will, recruiting students and faculty, and communicating with the citizens and taxpayers of the state. Building this programming is a terrific opportunity for us. What we need is your input and suggestions for innovative and interesting stories.
Any ideas? Please send them to me at
kfrazier@doit.wisc.edu -- Ken Frazier
Interim CIO