With a large number of instructors and even larger population of students, it was vital that creating videos be as easy as possible. If instructors were able to create videos with minimal effort, they would be more receptive to using a streaming video solution. As part of this video project, the Department of Romance Languages transitioned from digital camcorders with mini discs to Flip Video cameras. Flip cameras allow instructors to record multiple videos – such as a series of presentations and interviews – and easily download them to a computer for upload to the streaming solution.

The site access structure is setup in a pyramid.  At the top is the full-time faculty responsible for supervising graduate teaching fellows and the undergraduate curriculum.  Next are the course coordinators, the fixed-term faculty responsible for managing course content and instructors for their respective course.  Next are the instructors and, finally, the students.  Language directors and course coordinators are set manually by FLRCVideos administrators and stay fairly constant from year to year.  Students and instructors are connected to the University Registrar, which yields a report of all classes being taught in the language departments using FLRCVideos.  This allows easy changes in access settings for each semester as students, instructors, and the number of sections for each course fluctuates.  Finally, instructors are able to upload a class roster, making videos available to only their students.

Initially, Flip cameras were used to help assess instructors by recording full classroom sessions. Afterward, instructors began to use the cameras to record student interviews and presentations. Using the existing access controls of FLRCVideos, instructors were able to upload these recordings and grant restricted access to members of the class or only students that appeared in the video. This has proven to be a very helpful tool in second language acquisition since it allows students to observe their own performance, which reinforces instructor feedback and enhances learning.  Since the videos are available for the semester, students can watch as many times as they want and use them to prepare for later assignments.

As more presentations, interviews, and classes are recorded, language directors and course coordinators observed more classroom activity, evidenced by the significant number of views for all course related videos. The availability of these videos to coordinators and language directors aids in identifying potential instructional problems and, more importantly, instructional innovation. This provides an opportunity to share these videos with other instructors or instructors in subsequent semesters.