Scope statement

Rationale

The Dartmouth experience is comprised of uncounted stories shared among students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Some of those stories — features, interviews, lectures — have already been recorded and produced on audio and video. Many others could also be captured and shared with colleagues and constituents to enhance understanding of Dartmouth’s leadership role in higher education scholarship and research.

Dartmouth staff members possess many of the creative and technical skill sets required to excel in the presentation of narrative digital media. The creative and production processes, however, are complex, and digital video requires an infrastructure that can handle the growing demand for the delivery of digital assets via broadband connections to the Internet.

Therefore, a discovery project would identify existing campus resources, as well as the gaps that need to be filled to assure the successful creation and delivery of a public digital video Webcast that illustrates the depth and breadth of the Dartmouth experience.

Focus groups would meet a total of three-to-five times to develop recommendations.

Purpose

Evaluate and prioritize the resources required (both existing and proposed) to provide a robust system for creating and delivering live and recorded digital media via broadband to Dartmouth constituents, both on- and off- campus for use by the Office of Public Affairs as they strive to meet their mission of advancing the public communication goals of the College and its component parts.

Objectives

• Identify public communication goals and objectives.
• Identify resource enhancements required for a robust system.
• Prioritize resource enhancements that would provide the greatest influence on success.
• Identify costs for the top three-to-five resource enhancements so Public Affairs management can make an informed decision on whether to proceed with implementation.

Project deliverables

• List of current digital media production and delivery resources.
• List of potential resource enhancements.
• List of prioritized enhancements, as ranked by surveying a focus group comprised of current and potential constituents.
• Order-of-magnitude estimates for enhancements that provide the greatest influence on successful delivery of digital media via broadband.
• List of identified obstacles to success.

Project constraints

Limited resources: Less than 20 percent FTE for three months for discovery project management.

Success criteria

Final report, integrating constituent input, to provide enough context for Public Affairs management to make an informed decision on whether to proceed on resource enhancement.