STELLAR (Semantic Technologies Enhancing the Lifecycle of Learning Resources): Jisc Final Report

[Project Summary] As one of the earliest distance learning providers The Open University (OU) has a rich heritage of archived learning materials. An ever increasing amount of that is in digital form and is being deposited with the University Archive. This growth has been driven by digitisation activity from projects such as AVA (Access to Video Assets) and the Fedora-based Open University Digital Library ‘a place to discover digital and digitised archival content from the OU Library, from videos and images to digitised documents’. Other digital content is being captured from web archiving activities, such as work to preserve Moodle Virtual Learning Environment course websites. An evidence based understanding is required to inform digital preservation policies, curation strategy and investment in digital library development. Following the Pre-enhancement, Enhancement and Post-enhancement methodology set out by Jisc, STELLAR adopted the model of a balanced scorecard to ascertain the value ascribed to the non-current learning materials. Four aspects were considered: Personal and professional perspectives of value; Value to the Higher Educational and academic communities; Value to internal processes and cultures; Financial perspectives of value. The outcomes of the survey indicated that stakeholders place a high value on the materials, and that they perceived them to have value in all areas evaluated. Three OU courses were chosen from the digital library for the transformation stage. These materials were enhanced and transformed into RDF, a process that required more extensive metadata expertise and effort than was expected. Following enhancement the RDF was accessed through a tool called DiscOU, created by a member of the project team from the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute. DiscOU uses both linked data and a semantic meaning engine to analyse the meaning of the text in a search query. This is matched against the meaning of the content derived from an index of the full-text of the digital library content. In the final stage stakeholders were asked through a survey and series of workshops to use the DiscOU proof-of-concept tool to assess their perception of the value of this transformation. This has revealed that overall, academics and other stakeholders in the university do believe that the value of the selected materials was positively impacted by the application of semantic technologies

Automatic detection and extraction of artificial text in video

A significant challenge in large multimedia databases is the provision of efficient means for semantic indexing and retrieval of visual information. Artificial text in video is normally generated in order to supplement or summarise the visual content and thus is an important carrier of information that is highly relevant to the content of the video. As such, it is a potential ready-to-use source of semantic information. In this paper we present an algorithm for detection and localisation of artificial text in video using a horizontal difference magnitude measure and morphological processing. The result of character segmentation, based on a modified version of the Wolf-Jolion algorithm [1][2] is enhanced using smoothing and multiple binarisation. The output text is input to an “off-the-shelf” noncommercial OCR. Detection, localisation and recognition results for a 20min long MPEG-1 encoded television programme are presented

XML-driven exploitation of combined scalability in scalable H.264/AVC bitstreams

The heterogeneity in the contemporary multimedia environments requires a format-agnostic adaptation framework for the consumption of digital video content. Scalable bitstreams can be used in order to satisfy as many circumstances as possible. In this paper, the scalable extension on the H.264/AVC specification is used to obtain the parent bitstreams. The adaptation along the combined scalability axis of the bitstreams is done in a format-independent manner. Therefore, an abstraction layer of the bitstream is needed. In this paper, XML descriptions are used representing the high-level structure of the bitstreams by relying on the MPEG-21 Bitstream Syntax Description Language standard. The exploitation of the combined scalability is executed in the XML domain by implementing the adaptation process in a Streaming Transformation for XML (STX) stylesheet. The algorithm used in the transformation of the XML description is discussed in detail in this paper. From the performance measurements, one can conclude that the STX transformation in the XML domain and the generation of the corresponding adapted bitstream can be realized in real time

Localization and recognition of the scoreboard in sports video based on SIFT point matching

In broadcast sports video, the scoreboard is attached at a fixed location in the video and generally the scoreboard always exists in all video frames in order to help viewers to understand the match’s progression quickly. Based on these observations, we present a new localization and recognition method for scoreboard text in sport videos in this paper. The method first matches the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) points using a modified matching technique between two frames extracted from a video clip and then localizes the scoreboard by computing a robust estimate of the matched point cloud in a two-stage non-scoreboard filter process based on some domain rules. Next some enhancement operations are performed on the localized scoreboard, and a Multi-frame Voting Decision is used. Both aim to increasing the OCR rate. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed method

Technology Enhanced Learning Guide

Technology is changing how students learn and how we research. Perhaps you want to use technology to enhance communication or improve student support. You may want create a distance learning activity, a flexibly delivered module or indeed a whole course. You may simply want to find out where to find authoritative information, or to see what support exists for this type of work. The University is committed to delivering high quality learning and teaching, using technology where appropriate, in order to offer a distinctive Southampton educational experience. Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), also known as e‑learning, is becoming increasingly important to students, teaching staff and the institution. This guide highlights some of the most important matters to consider. It is intended to help you to tackle the key issues that determine the success of TEL projects and to work on those projects in a considered way. Written with the input of colleagues from around the University, it prompts you to ask important questions and points you to sources of up-to-date knowledge and advice. Technology changes rapidly. This guide is about managing the work in a practical way. The University supports the use of a variety of TEL approaches for teaching and learning and colleagues are ready to offer their experience and advice. Each person has distinctive skills and specific experiences. No single person will have all the answers you are looking for. Be ready to investigate alternative approaches that suit you and your students’ needs in different ways. - Madeline Paterson, University of Southampto

From media crossing to media mining

This paper reviews how the concept of Media Crossing has contributed to the advancement of the application domain of information access and explores directions for a future research agenda. These will include themes that could help to broaden the scope and to incorporate the concept of medium-crossing in a more general approach that not only uses combinations of medium-specific processing, but that also exploits more abstract medium-independent representations, partly based on the foundational work on statistical language models for information retrieval. Three examples of successful applications of media crossing will be presented, with a focus on the aspects that could be considered a first step towards a generalized form of media mining

Access to recorded interviews: A research agenda

Recorded interviews form a rich basis for scholarly inquiry. Examples include oral histories, community memory projects, and interviews conducted for broadcast media. Emerging technologies offer the potential to radically transform the way in which recorded interviews are made accessible, but this vision will demand substantial investments from a broad range of research communities. This article reviews the present state of practice for making recorded interviews available and the state-of-the-art for key component technologies. A large number of important research issues are identified, and from that set of issues, a coherent research agenda is proposed