MIT World

Scope Statement

Start-up (June-August 2000)
Version 1.73 - 6/28/2000

Justification

1. Important, valuable on-campus presentations are being presented at MIT.
2. Subject matter is of demonstrated interest to MIT’s off-campus community.
3. High-quality on-campus video production services are in place.
4. Internet technology enables worldwide distribution.

Therefore, a 24-hour web video channel is an efficient, effective solution.

Project description

1. MIT-World will be a 24-hour, 7-day asynchronous streaming web program service and on-demand internet library of recent and newsworthy videos.
2. It will be the first and only web-video program service to present a full spectrum of MIT ideas and activities to the world, including science, technology, humanities, and arts programming produced, presented, or selected by MIT staff and advisors for an intellectually-inquisitive audience.

3. It will be targeted to corporate partners, alumni, staff, and students.

Deliverables

The major deliverables for the start-up phase of this project are:

1. Complete project plan and set of project documents.
2. Full design of channel operations system.
3. First prototype with basic functions.
4. Second prototype with full function.
5. Full test of prototype with existing program materials.
6. Detailed data for sustaining (year one) services and marketing.

Constraints

1. Just over two months to set up service with existing materials.
2. Limited experience in broadcast channel operations.
3. Additional internet bandwidth is required.

Success criteria

• Meet planned milestones during start-up (to September 2000).
• Stay within start-up budget.

Narrative Summary

Year One: June 2000 - May 2001

Version 1.82 - June 28, 2000

• Project Administration: Center of Advanced Educational Services.
• Programming and Video Production: MIT Video Productions.
• Advisory Committee - Founding Members: Office of Corporate Relations’ Industrial Liaison Program and Alumni Association.

Background

Each week, on the MIT campus, scores of internal and external speakers give talks, seminars, colloquia and other presentations. The talks, open to the public, are substantive, often news worthy, and frequently present unpublished material - ranging from specific research results to more general perspectives on technology, management, and societal trends.

Many of these talks are of great interest to a much broader community, including MIT’s corporate partners and alumni, on-campus people, and members of the public with special interest in the subject at hand.

The average attendance, however, is limited due to personal scheduling scheduling, geographic and other constraints.

Project Proposal

MIT Video Productions, a division of the Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES), is creating and operating a 24 hour-a-day, 7 day-a-week TV station on the World Wide Web (WWW) called MIT-World. CAES assumes principal responsibility for planning, capturing, and disseminating presentations via an advanced, professional, WWW interface that will be updated regularly.

Content selection will be made with advise provided by an advisory committee — including founding advisors the Office of Corporate Relations’ Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), and Alumni Association (AA) — based upon the group’s in-depth knowledge of the MIT corporate and alumni communities.

It is anticipated that the likely areas of focus will be in the domains of information technology, management, and finance, as well as specific seminars and presentations that are technical in nature, and general trends in society, the arts, and humanities.

With the financial support of corporate sponsors, CAES will video record these public seminars, colloquia, speeches, and presentations using the latest asynchronous webcasting and video-streaming technologies, CAES will make available the rich content of these talks to a broader community.

When implemented, the program offers the potential to tie together in new and profound ways the broader MIT and technology communities worldwide.

Benefits of Corporate Sponsorship

A limited number of corporate sponsorships of MIT-World are available. Sponsors will benefit from this investment in a number of ways.

First, sponsors and their employees will gain access to an additional source of deep and wide ranging expertise and knowledge without having to leave their workspace. By receiving the on-campus talks and lectures made available through the WWW, each sponsor’s employees will enhance their own understanding and awareness of cutting edge research results and perspectives on topics of crucial business interest.

Second, sponsors will gain increased visibility with a highly-sophisticated and influential audience. Sponsors’ support will be explicitly acknowledged and incorporated as part of MIT-World’s distribution. A logo and “credit line” — worded to be acceptable to both the sponsor and MIT — would be placed on the web site.

Third, the sponsor will gain the right to use the name MIT-World in association with its own promotion of this service as determined by MIT-World guidelines.

Finally, sponsors will be part of a ground-breaking partnership with MIT in bringing leading-edge research and knowledge to a web-based global community interested in staying abreast of advances in technology, management, and society.

Implementation Details

The MIT-World web-video channel will operate in two ways.

First, MIT-World will “web-cast” video programming 24-hours-a-day, with each presentation broadcast at least four times during the first day and at least two different days of the week. This will support time zones worldwide, busy executives’ travel schedules and other constraints. The schedule will be presented via a web-based “TV Guide”-style grid format.

For presentations more than one to two weeks old, the material will be archived and available in streaming video as “video on demand.” In that way, the content recorded during the first year of operation of the TV station will be continually available to viewers.

The MIT-World site will be user-name and password-protected. Access will be limited initially to threegroups: (1) ILP-member companies and selected corporate partners of MIT; (2) MIT alumni; and (3) the MIT on-campus community.

Phase One - Organization and Strategy: June-July 2000.

During this phase of work, the CAES production team will work closely with advisors and technical staff to develop the work schedule and deliverables. The CAES production team will include staff from several CAES organizations: MIT Video Productions (MVP), Streaming Media and Compression Services (SMCS), the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI), and the Educational Media Creation Center (EMCC), The key deliverable of Phase One will be a detailed project plan.

Phase Two - Design Specification: August 2000.

During this phase of work, the CAES production team will develop the programming, production, communications, and distribution plans for the channel, as well as a maintenance plan.

Phase Three - Prototype and Test: September 2000- October 2000.

During this phase of work, the CAES production team will digitize and integrate previously-produced content with a new channel operations system and ensure that all functions smoothly. It will also include any necessary rework and corrections.

Phase Four - Production and Operation: October 2000 - May 2001.

During this phase of work, the CAES production team will videotape, edit, digitize, and put online the video programming of the channel. During this phase of work, the CAES production team may identify a number of recommended refinements and modifications for the second year of operation. If this occurs, CAES representatives and sponsors will determine how to budget for those refinements and modifications.