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Reforging the Links Final ReportReforging the links between public television stations and their university hosts will only happen by creating a sound business model. It is critical for both the new multimedia outreach and continuing education departments and university licensed public television stations to move toward appropriate partnerships. Together, they have a stronger chance of succeeding in the digital marketplace without sacrificing their specialized missions. - Reforging the Links, proposal In 1998, Wisconsin Public Television's proposal to the Future Fund was approved. In our project plan, we proposed a number of activities. These included:
The primary focus of project activities has been on the business partnership case study. Section 1 of this document consists of a narrative progress report on the partnership process - and the "World Modeling" process used in this effort. It also describes the Links meetings where case study activities, as well as new information from Project Experts and guest speakers, were shared. At the end of each narrative section, related text documents and summaries of the project meetings are referenced. The process of consultation
with PSU and WSU has consisted of ongoing telephone conference calls,
document-sharing via First Class computer conferencing, video conferences,
and site visits. PSU and WSU "core team" members have
attended every Reforging the Links group meeting held in Madison,
and have played a prominent role in validating and "generalizing"
the specific Wisconsin case study to other higher education licensees.
Outreach to other licensees has taken a number forms:
Other speakers/guests James Steinbach--Director
of Programming for WHA-TV Additional
Documents Section 1: The WHA/DIU-LI Case Study Project Background As originally proposed to CPB, Reforging the Links was to document the process of establishing entrepreneurial business partnerships between two university public television stations and their respective campus entrepreneurial content marketing organizations. The business modeling process involved the identification of each partner's assets and liabilities in regards to the development of new multimedia content and to assess the key legal, regulatory, and business issues challenging university-based PTV stations in the converging media environment. While the pre-proposal to the Future Fund envisioned these activities being fully mirrored at, and administered by, the University of Wisconsin and the Pennsylvania State University, the difficulties of distance, legal and contractual requirements, and the changing management at WPSX (Mark Erstling left Penn State to join APTS during the period of final contract discussions), all made it easier to limit the case study activities to Madison. Thus, the bulk of the project activities has been the ongoing documentation of the business planning efforts of Wisconsin Public Television as it seeks to position its Digital Innovations Unit (DIU) as a core partner of the university's web-based distance learning organization: UW System Learning Innovations. In addition to developing new strategies for future production and capital development relationships with LI, WHA-TV has also sought to reposition its broadcast facility as an integral part of the university's internet strategy. WPSX-Television and Penn State World Campus, along with KWSU-Television and the Washington State University Extended Education and Technology division, have been fully involved in reviewing and validating the Wisconsin efforts - at face-to-face meetings, via video and audio conference calls, and by electronic document sharing. An additional group of station participants, the Project Tribunes," were also asked to join with Penn State and Washington State. All project meetings and discussion areas were opened to the Tribune representatives. Similar backgrounds between WHA-TV, the Core partners and Tribune stations has facilitated open sharing of the case study, the identification of new issues and opportunities, and the process of clarification of the most appropriate strategies for future PTV-University partnerships. In addition to their institutional similarities, the public television stations involved in Reforging the Links share an understanding of the changing production environment. The transition from the old broadcasting paradigm to an encompassing and comprehensive telecommunications paradigm begins through new partnerships and alliances. The Links participants have been willing to share their strengths and weaknesses, their opportunities and alliance strategies during each of the project meetings. They have taken the WHA-LI case study reports discussed at these meetings (and within the First Class forums) and have used them in their meetings with their own administrators, in their digital television "justification" presentations, and in their internal strategic planning efforts.
The Partners WHA-TV's Digital Innovations Unit and the UW System Learning Innovations began exploring potential production partnerships and economic opportunities prior to Reforging the Links. The exploration of partnership opportunities between DIU and LI and the subsequent case study provided much of the content for the Reforging the Links project.
Project Techniques and Tools: World Modeling, Compendium and QuestMap The core technique used for exploring partnership opportunities came from the domain of business process reengineering. Project Compendium combines a "World Modeling" matrix with QuestMap meeting facilitation software. Compendium utilizes a flow chart, or matrix of Present and Future Implementation Models. We used this matrix approach throughout the DIU/LI case study, first identifying core processes through detailed task analysis interviews and establishing a Current Implementation Model (CIM). These task models were abstracted and prioritized to identify "essential" business tasks (Current Essential Model, or CEM) of both organizations. As well as the tasks and processes, Reforging the Links Expert panelists and Tribunes contribute additional insight regarding external influences, problems, and ongoing information as to external forces changing the marketplace for LI and DIU. From their feedback, a Future Essential Model (FEM) and Future Implementation Model (FIM) of university-based PTV activities and the core assets of DIU and LI will emerge. In any future partnership implementation (FIM) strategy, the previously identified assets of both organizations will be allocated to provide the greatest support of the new tasks. Crucial missing assets will be identified, a plan for acquiring these assets (through new partnerships, new hires, new equipment, etc.) will be developed, and the Expert Panelists will continue to advise and consult as to their expertise. The documentation of the development of these new strategies, and how best to align existing assets and acquire new ones to support the future plan, will be one of the major deliverables of the Links Project. Formal and informal training prepared the project staff to implement the World Modeling approach and adapt QuestMap to the needs of the project. Project Manager Steven Vedro, Project Assistant Rebekah Irwin, and Larry Dickerson, Director of the UW Extension Communications Division, participated in a two-day training workshop provided by Group Decision Support Services of Washington DC. This training combined "Issue Based Information Software facilitation techniques" (IBIS) with the graphical display tool provided by QuestMap. Additional training and support in World Modeling techniques was provided by Albert Selvin, Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Bell Atlantic Network Systems Advanced Technology. Mr. Selvin participated in the initial case study interviews between DIU and LI and contributes his expertise in World Modeling techniques and meeting facilitation during Reforging the Links face-to-face meetings.
QuestMap's graphical icons, modeling templates, hyperlinking and database capabilities, have allowed Project staff to both track meeting and World Modeling interview discussions, and to build database-like reports that draw from the questions, ideas and arguments shared at each of the project's previous meetings. These summary documents, in turn, have formed the starting point for each of the project's subsequent meetings.
Mapping the Current Implementation Practices at LI and DIU Project staff met four times during the months of July through August with Learning Innovations, and three times with DIU to "world model" the current implementation of content and capital acquisition and production and operations tasks. Key production and management staff participated from each organization, including the following:
For each function or task, the following questions were asked (fig. 1):
Figure 1
These World Modeling questions helped form a Current Implementation Model (CIM) of each of the partners' production and funding processes. As the interviews progressed, essential similarities, differences, and key assets shared between institutions were revealed. The "current implementation" interviews also revealed explicit and implicit problems and opportunities -- many emerged only in the context of thinking about specific roles, tasks, and real work situations. Using Compendium techniques, the Questmap files of each of the interviews were queried to generate a list of problems, opportunities, know-how, organizational systems and information objects, and tangible resources associated with each current task. These large lists were prioritized and condensed by a team consisting of:
The resulting lists were, in turn, shared with Project participants via First Class and the Links web site. Through a process of discussion and voting, these lists were "essentialized" to the common problems and opportunities shared not just by DIU and LI, but by all of the Links managers. These include the following: Top
Future Problems for the Partnership Future
Opportunities for the Partnership The knowledge and abilities
associated with each DIU and LI current task, and the tangible equipment
and information objects associated with this knowledge, were combined
into a single list of PTV's and Web-based Distance Education Unit's
"core assets." This list was also discussed by all participants
and reduced to the following:
Business Process Modeling and SWOTs Exercise In parallel with LI/DIU World Modeling process, the Core Partners and Tribunes completed two similar assignments throughout the summer of 1999 and submitted white papers to the First Class on-line conference site. The first assignment was to prepare a SWOTs Analysis for their respective organizations. The second was to look at their current business practices in the four key areas of Content and Capital Acquisition, Production and Operations, Marketing and Distribution, and Post-sale Product Support. These papers, combined with the DIU/LI lists and maps, would form the basis of the creation of a more general "Current Essential Model" (CEM) for university-based PTV and D/Ed production organizations. The list
of shared SWOTs reveals the concerns of both public television
stations and continuing education units:
Two sets of four business process papers were requested from each Links participating institution - one set for PTV and one for the entrepreneurial distance education/web organization. The four subject areas and the questions associated with each of them were as follows: 1. Content and Capital Acquisition
2. Production and Operations
3. Marketing and Distribution
4. Post-sale Product Support
While not every participant completed this exercise, 15 papers were posted on the First Class discussion site. Each of these papers is available in the on-line Library. Allied with the case study interviews taking place between DIU and LI, these process papers illustrated where current practices, opportunities, assets, and problems converged or diverged between institutions. Larry Dickerson, former Director of the UW Extension Communications Division, reviewed each paper and prepared a summary for review prior to the September 1st, 1999 Links meeting. The QuestMap outline of the SWOTS discussion revealed the following core ideas: Idea : SWOTS summary
discussion 1 Question : What
are the strengths and opportunities...
1.2 Question : Of
both?
1.3 Question : Of Web-DE?
2. Question : What
are the weaknesses...
2.2 Question : Of
both?
2.3 Question : Of
Web DE? 2.3.1 Idea : Bureaucratic
rather than entrepreneurial business practices
After reviewing how PTV
and D/Ed were different in their approaches, Larry asked the meeting
to suggest areas of cooperation for "future partnering"
where these processes overlapped. The key suggested "overlap"
opportunities for selected PTV business practice area follows:
Discussions with Extension Administrators Validating "Why bother with Reforging2 the Links?" The list
of partnering possibilities developed at the September 1st,
1999 Links meeting was then combined with the top opportunities
generated by discussions between DIU and LI. The resulting document
was then shared with all Links participants, and was used as the
template for a series of discussions between LI and DIU senior management
and the UW Extension Chancellor and Vice Chancellor that took place
during the fall of 1999. At these meetings, this
list of top opportunities was tested against the set of reasons
Byron Knight and Mike Offerman each gave as to "why bother
with the reforging exercise." New reasons were added, other
ones were deemed to be of less importance than originally thought.
Most interestingly, a
new area relating to how WHA-TV could help the university Extension
Division (home of both organizations) "position itself for
the 21st Century" was developed during these high-level sessions.
This renewed interest in "cooperating with Extension,"
dovetailed nicely with both Penn State's and Wisconsin's support
of the "Engaged University" concept. The role of public
television's digital production and distribution assets in the fulfillment
of the Extension mission became an important element in future Links
discussions and outreach presentations.
The resulting set of "administratively-validated" Top Reasons for PTV and D/Ed to Reforge was shared with Links participants at the December 2, 1999 meeting. The meeting reviewed these "reasons why" and also looked at the problems these new relationships would have to overcome. The process of developing a "future essential model," built on these new areas of cooperation, was started. Idea: "Portaling"
(Matching) TV audiences to new DE/CE opportunities Idea: Creating
"good TV" with "hooks" to DE Idea: Developing
new investment relationships; mechanisms to accept outside (speculative)
investments (in cash or faculty time) are needed Idea: Learning
to Acquire, Promote, and Deliver "On Demand" Programming Idea: Identifying,
Supporting and Marketing "star faculty" via new media
In addition to validating the "reason why," and beginning the development of a future essential model (FEM), the December meeting also provided a venue for two "break out" sessions. One was focused on the role of University PTV stations as "gateways" to Internet-2 development, the other provided an opportunity for executive producers from a number of Links stations to share their experiences new media partnering and job-sharing. Staffing requirements, where to learn technology skills, the changing role of a multimedia producer, and potential models for new media products, were some of the questions raised. The panelists shared their contention, and the Links participants agreed, that successfully creating new partnerships will involve more than exchanging production staff members. New processes will need to be developed, new job descriptions created, and new kinds of training programs developed for these new positions. The following questions were raised in the Producer's Panel discussion:
Ms. Tina Hauser, a WHA-TV producer, who was "loaned" to LI for a one year "observation period," led a panel discussion on her experiences at LI. She had hoped that in exchange for contributing her video production skills, she in turn would gain new media, instructional design, and digital streaming skills. She reported that the experiment had yielded mixed results. Without formal systems of training and mentoring, new media development and production skills were not well-transferred between organizations. The producers recommended
that the Links Project find a way for them to continue their discussions.
In response, a follow-up videoconference was conducted on February
2, 2000 and an additional break-out session was added to the April
26 group meeting.
By the end of 1999, the
Project participants had progressed from an inventory of tasks and
assets associated with the Current Implementation (CIM), to an accepted
understanding of the Current Essential Model for university-based
PTV operations. They then moved on to identifying the forces leading
to the creation of a Future Essential Model (FEM) for university
PTV operations. They also validated the new tasks PTV stations would
have to undertake as part of this new model. One outcome of the process
of validating the "reasons to partner" was a shift in
focus from developing future capital acquisition and investment-seeking
strategies, to those based on making PTV operations an integral
part of the university's outreach mission. While "frustration
with complex university processes" remained a "top problem"
with both LI and DIU, and while developing new capital acquisition
strategies remained important to both organizations' development
directors, by the end of 1999, commercialization strategies were
no longer WHA-TV's chief reason for cooperation with LI. Instead of arguing for
"more freedom to make money," Links participants began
to develop an argument for renewed university support of PTV operations
based on the following digital technology opportunities:
Subsequent Links meetings in Year 2000 were focused on aligning the identified "core assets" of PTV with these new opportunities in digital production and distribution - for distance and continuing education partners, and for the tomorrow's "enhanced television" broadcasts. They also asked how public television and distance learning units might use their intellectual property and brand-name assets to move their partnerships into the marketplace.
January
- July, 2000: In February 2000, a series
of video teleconferences were held between Wisconsin Public Television
and Penn State Public Broadcasting to validate the core strategies
to support the key public television and distance education partnership
goals. Prior to the videoconference the Links Core participants
were also invited to rank order the earlier strategies, problems,
opportunities, and assets lists. The top-ranked items from each
list were then used as discussion triggers for the video conference
sessions. The results of this poll follows:
During the videoconference, each of the top strategies was discussed. Some of the observations relating to the addition of local enhancement "hooks" or "portals" within national programs, included the following:
Concerns relating to developing on-demand program services focused on the need to experiment with program indexing technologies in order to master "video asset management" techniques. Classroom lectures, K-12 programs and other "niche" content were identified as likely content for such experimental services. Internet-2 was seen as powerful transport medium to connect campus-based PTV servers across the country. The participants in the videoconference suggested that campus PTV stations work more closely with their counterparts within Extension and the Computing Services units to identify potential grant funding for multimedia, internet-based, or interactive/enhanced television productions.
How to leverage public television's top-ranked assets in support of the top-ranked partnership strategies and identified new opportunities, became the focus of the remaining Links meetings and guest presentations. The March meeting included two presentations on the future market and emerging technologies of "enhanced television" and on-demand video services. The first, "Enhanced Television in Public Broadcasting" was led by Chris Atizena, Associate Director of Technology from PBS. The latter was led by nationally-known interactive media consultant and journalist, Gary Arlen. Gary discussed seven key issues for PTV stations as they face the interactive media future:
Gary suggested that university PTV stations have a unique "branding advantage" in having both a PBS association and a locally-respected university name. He suggested increased collaboration between universities, building content for specialized audiences around "disaggregated and repackaged" video assets. In the afternoon, Links "expert panelist" attorneys Michael Skindrud and Paula Jameson led a discussion of new media and university-based intellectual property rights. Mr. Skindrud moderated a panel consisting of Dr. Graham Spanier, President of Penn State University, Dr. John Wiley, Provost of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dr. Stuart Gordon, Director, Technology Transfer Office San Diego State University Foundation. Ms. Jameson summarized the panel's observations and observed that in the future, universities would have to act more like television producers in acquiring and protecting the multi-level rights to their intellectual products. The final activity of the March meeting was a review of the top strategies in terms of (a) how well they matched the original Links' goals, (b) leveraged new opportunities, and/or (c) reduced or exacerbated the identified problems for university PTV station entrepreneurial activities. The discussion of these strategies confirmed that the Links project had adopted a much more "public service" centered partnership model than had originally been conceived by WHA's DIU and Learning Innovations. While the participants still were interested in "entrepreneurial strategies" relating to new media production, the top-scoring strategies focused on leveraging public television's production skills and systems, and its new DTV datacast and interactivity technology assets to support the university's public service mission. Revalidating public
broadcasting's unique relationship to university Extension, to continuing
and distance education, and to community partner organizations was
seen as a more important priority than raising external investment
capital for public television media production. Much of the success
of the Links process has been to provide station participants with
a vocabulary (of identified assets and new knowledge) to use with
their university administration. Spring Activities During the spring (April-June), Byron Knight (WPT) and Mike Offerman (LI) continued their "partnership" meetings. Their focus, like the Links process itself, turned more to redesigning Extension's "new media" activities. Developing a Center for Media Innovations that would support the work of the university's public broadcasting units (WHA Radio and Television), instruction teleconferencing (Instruction Communications Services) and distance education facility (the Pyle Center), and the needs of Cooperative Extension and the UW System, took center stage. Many of the Questmap-charted lists of assets and opportunities were used by Byron at these meetings. As a follow-up to these meetings, and as a direct result of the Links effort, an inter-departmental team was organized to develop new models for coordinating Extension telecommunications and computing activities. Interactive television, DTV datacast, server-based video delivery, and Internet-2 connections, were all identified as Wisconsin Public Television strategies that should be supported by Extension administration. One outcome of this study was the creation of the Broadcasting and Media Innovations Division of Extension, recognizing the critical "link" between public service broadcasting and the future of the "digital land-grant university." The overlap between the Reforging the Links effort and the PTV Internet-2 Initiative (another Future Fund project) also grew during this time period. The membership of the two projects was drawn from the same pool of university stations - stations that already had good working relations with their campus Information Technology units and senior administration. Five of the Links participants (core stations WHA, WPSX, KWSU, and "tribune" members WKAR and KAMU) were also active in the Internet-2 project. In addition, John Reim (KBYU) and Bill Buxton (WUSF) of the I-2 Project, attended the spring Links sessions. Thus, it was appropriate for the final Links meeting to include discussions of how Internet-2 could be a test-bed for future PTV programming and production operations. The final Links meeting took place on July 12 and 13 at the Pyle Center in Madison. In addition to the Links participants, these meetings were also attended by station managers involved in the Internet-2 Project and the Higher Education Telecommunication Consortium. The combined sessions focused on the following four areas:
David Liroff of WGBH responded to the Links "asset mapping" and "future essential model-building" with the observation that "technology was freeing audiences to chose their own media experiences based on their needs, not the best laid plans of public broadcasters or universities." He suggested that stations focus on customer interests, not just leveraging their self-defined "assets." Drs. Judith and David Leroy suggested that public television was still a powerful community resource, and a potential focus for community identity. The continued sharing of PTV and local university extension outreach - both respected "community brands" - was encouraged. Doug Weiss described how CPB was directly responding to the initial Links business partnership challenge on a national level. He summarized the efforts of CPB to research the economics of a university-PTV-business partnership in the production and distribution of distance learning programs. The afternoon of July 12th was set aside for "hands-on" demonstrations of Internet-2-based video applications. Server-based "video-on-demand," remote searching and preview of indexed video assets, and locally-created interactive television examples (using WebTV) were presented both as a preview of internet technologies, and as actual implementation examples of university-PTV partnership strategies. Beyond these "future-technology" presentations, group discussions over the two meeting days were focused on "what was learned" and "what should be the next steps." The Core station managers and distance education leaders described their expectations and their surprises over the course of the Links effort.
Slide
presentation at NUTN/Links Mtg in Toronto Prior to her NUTN presentation, Dr. Oaks had asked the Links members to share the ways Links had stimulated new projects and/or new cooperation between PTV and distance education on their campuses. Some of the examples she shared with her colleagues in Toronto (and reported back to the Links session via videotape) included the following e-mail excerpts: Like many university licensees, our station had grown away from the institution and was finding it difficult to re-establish meaningful partnerships. As a result of the Reforging the Links meetings we re-focused our efforts. It took a few lunches and candid discussions, but our persistence was rewarded when the station was invited to be a member of the Virtual Instructional Team for the Advancement of Learning. This led to regular contact with our peers through joint projects including the creation of a CD, web site and an inventory of university resources… Other discussions with Academic Computing and the university Internet-2 representative explored digital video, video streaming and Internet-2. - William Buxton, WUSF-TV At Penn State, we
have a long history of collaboration among Public Broadcasting,
Distance Education, and Cooperative Extension. However, the collaboration
has not been active for the past decade or so, and the three units
have moved apart. Today, we are all part of the same general organization--Outreach
and Cooperative Extension--and we are all take initiatives to move
to a digital environment. Reforging the Links has given us an opportunity
to work together and think creatively together across organizational
lines to envision a new, collaborative, multi-audience, multi-level
programming approach based on an interest in common content areas
or common social problems. We are hoping that one of the legacies
of Reforging the Links will be new programs that attract better
funding because they attack issues in a multi-dimensional way and
make better use of University resources. - Gary Miller, Penn
State University I think the principal benefit to SDSU has been coming together with other institutions and public television stations to discuss distance learning, strategies, practices, etc. This has been something new for us - generally it is difficult just to get different departments, colleges, faculty at the university to come together to discuss important development and collaborate on projects - despite a general desire to do so. Most of the time it seems we each reinvent the wheel -- and suffer from the same mistakes. The Reforging project has enabled us to learn from other universities and to share with others what we have discovered on our own. The thing I anticipate most from the project is the development of best practices - for marketing, development, production, distribution of distance ed projects… The Reforging project enabled us to come together (distance ed &PBS sides of each institution) - something I don't think would have happened otherwise. - Traecy Lau, San Diego State University The final portion of the meeting was devoted to "next steps" planning. Three small group discussions took place: one group focused on the production partnership strategies, the second on PTV and university relationships, while the third looked at community engagement in the age of media-on-demand. Each group was provided with the list of top strategies and opportunities. They were asked to suggest short-term steps stations should consider implementing in the next months that would build on the Links process. The Production Team recommended the following:
Questmap Document of Production The University Relationship Team stressed the importance of "building on the collaboration to date." They felt that the Links Project had already raised the visibility of PTV at a number of university distance education and extension gatherings [the aforementioned NUTN meeting, Byron Knight's presentation at the National Association of State and Land Grant Universities and Colleges (NASALGUC), Steven Vedro's talk at the National University Continuing Education Association (NUCEA)], and that it was critical to "keep up the visibility." They agreed with the David and Judith Leroy that the area of "civic engagement" was a natural partnership opportunity for local public television stations and their "engaged university" neighbors. They also recommended that public television be included in national standards-setting forums working on media-based "learning objects." Questmap Document of Distribution The Community Relationship Team endorsed the development of PTV-based "information portals." They suggested that university PTV stations take the lead in creating new links to faculty-developed multimedia, community and continuing education and extension division resources via interactive television links, station websites, and new outreach partnerships. "Just do it," was their recommendation! The meeting concluded with a recommendation that the assets of the Project be made available to other PTV licensees who may discover themselves being asked to engage in an asset-mapping and links-defining process with their community partners a year or two down the line. Questmap Document of Partnerships
From April of 1998 through July of this year, the University of Wisconsin's WHA-TV, with the support of the CPB Future Fund for Television, hosted a series of conferences, online discussions, and a structured case study looking at strengthening the relationship between university-based PTV stations and their host institutions. With the participation of station managers, distance education professionals, and television and web-based producers from 10 campuses, the Reforging the Links project tackled the challenge of identifying the core "digital assets" that would insure that PTV had a "seat at the table" when the university was allocating "new media" resources. In the midst of increased fascination - and financial support -for e-Learning ventures and the development of web-based interactive media production and delivery, how could public television's one-way, broadcast-based, linear storytellers make themselves not only relevant, but also necessary? The initial partners
for Links were WHA-TV's Digital Innovations Unit (DIU) and the University
of Wisconsin System's Learning Innovations Center (LI). The former
was created by WHA to aggregate its digital production resources
under a single executive producer, and provide that producer with
permission to experiment with new technology. The DIU was provided
additional training and equipment resources for multimedia production.
UW Learning Innovations was created by the Board of Regents to market
the university's multiple campus courses to an international audience
for online learning and corporate training. Byron Knight, General Manager of WHA, and Michael Offerman, Executive Director of LI, agreed to spend a year investigating how each unit could benefit from the other's expertise - in production, financial and operational management, marketing, and development. Key staff agreed to meet regularly, and some individuals "interned" across units. As this relationship developed it became clear that other university PTV stations could benefit from the results of the WHA-TV Learning Innovations collaboration - and the Wisconsin project could also learn from the experiences of other station managers who were also trying to "reforge" their university links. With the encouragement of CPB Future Fund, WHA-TV enlisted the station managers and distance education directors of Penn State University (WPSX-TV) and Washington State University (KWSU-TV) to form the core partners of the Reforging the Links effort. Distance education and public television managers from seven other stations joined these six representatives. Over a two year period, this group met six times at the UW-Extension's Pyle Center to share experiences and strategies, hear from guest experts, critique the DIU-LI strategic business planning process, and identify PTV's core assets and future strategies as higher education business partners. The Links partners agreed on these five areas of research and development: Capitalization, Funding and Underwriting, Content Development, Talent Rights and Rewards, University Connections and Disconnects, Production and Operations, Technology, and Marketing and Distribution. Meeting discussions, experts' white papers, presentations, and the "asset mapping" process were documented using Questmap software, and all materials have been posted to the project web site reference library. Public television stations and campus distance education units found common reasons to "reforge" at least some links. At first, meetings focused on the status of relationships between PTV partners and their campus distance education (DE) "new media" organizations. Through a guided process of homework assignments, station managers and staff met with their distance education media production partners, continuing education, and extension administrators to develop an initial set of "partnering benefits." The resulting "top reasons for reforging the links" included the following: At the operational level:
At the organizational level:
At the institutional level:
This last bullet point proved very important because eventually, some of the public television participants expanded their relevance to include the "Outreach" and "Extension" initiatives of their campuses. Over the past two years the Kellogg Commission has issued a series of reports on the future of land-grant Universities. These reports entitled, Returning to Our Roots: The Engaged University, have stimulated thought and discussion about how "new media" can be utilized to engage the university in its community. This idea was stimulated in November of 1999 when representatives of the University of Wisconsin Extension demonstrated how interactive television was being used to interactively link public television programs to the content of UW Cooperative Extension. With these group goals in mind, Links meetings became a venue for sharing best practices, strengths and weaknesses, as well as a forum to discuss how best to "leverage" PTV's physical, intellectual and information "assets" to support these shared objectives.
At first, meetings focused on status of relationships between PTV partners and their campus distance education (DE) "new media" organizations. Through a guided process of home work assignments, station managers and staff met with their distance education media production partners, continuing education and extension administrators, to develop an initial set of "partnering benefits." Many of the reasons for
developing stronger partnerships focused on new technology challenges
- how to effectively produce new multimedia content, how to distribute
digital content, and how to retrain staff to operate in this new
environment. Other reasons were driven by the impact of competition
and the new marketplace for e-learning, and the need for PTV and
distance education to act more "entrepreneurial." The
opportunity to develop new models for extending the university extension
and public service mission into the digital age, was also a frequent
suggestion as a "top reason." With these group goals in mind, Links meetings became a venue for sharing best practices and strengths and weaknesses, and discussing how best to "leverage" PTV's physical, intellectual and information "assets" to support these shared objectives. 2. Reestablishing the PTV-University relationships overshadowed the initial focus on finding entrepreneurial investments Ironically, the Links project probably exceeded expectations for all the participants except one - the primary DE partner, UW Learning Innovations! In the words of Michael Offerman, Director of LI, "having been in on the conceptualization, I had hopes that were probably unrealistic, and were not fully realized." Dr. Offerman is correct that the WHA/LI Links partnership did not result in Wisconsin Public Television building "a new business partnership with its campus entrepreneurial content marketing organization." The emphasis here is on "entrepreneurial". The ability of publicly supported institutions to compete in attracting venture capital and corporate clients was a major topic of the Links meetings. This goal, while still being explored by WHA and LI locally, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting nationally, was the lowest-ranked final strategy of the Links participants. From about the end of 1999, it was clear that the majority of station and university participants were less interested in entrepreneurial ventures than they were in redefining their "public service media" roles in light of new technologies and the reevaluation of the university extension and outreach mission. This redefinition became an important outcome of the Links experience. For Wisconsin and Penn State the renewed focus on the "extension mission" became very significant as distance education, cooperative extension, and public broadcasting all report to the same Chancellor. In these two large land-grant universities the mission of extending the university through digital technologies became as important as seeking online entrepreneurial ventures. Links meetings provided a venue for sharing best practices, reviewing station strengths and weaknesses, and exploring new production and distribution opportunities. They provided access to nationally recognized experts, a place for station "new media" producers to develop cooperative production projects , and an opportunity for station managers to have focused discussions on how best to "leverage" the assets of PTV in a university setting. 3. The "World Modeling" process succeeded in stimulating change The structured use of "World Modeling" techniques to map both the business processes and the "assets" of PTV stations generated a series of discussions about a "future essential model" for university-PTV cooperation. These discussions focused on such things as:
From these discussions, many stations created (and shared with each other) new job descriptions and joint appointment position descriptions. Identifying the many unique assets within PTV also helped station managers present themselves as still "relevant" to their campus's interactive media plans. Digital and enhanced television technologies, video server resources, multimedia production skills, audience knowledge, storytelling ability, and rate-based production processes were all identified as unique valuable assets of PTV organizations. Ongoing discussions of strengths and weaknesses revealed areas where stations could contribute to their distance education units in terms of project development, production, marketing, and talent relationships. They also highlighted areas of conflict - sometimes in mission, sometimes in the "culture" of the business. In some areas it was discovered that cultural differences among the staff needed to addresses; in others it was recognized that PTV and distance education audiences were different, and that serving these needs required different approaches to the business. Finally, the process helped each partner identify strategies that allowed their unique assets to support the other's core mission. Creating "enhanced television" programs that use PTV's assets in storytelling and interactive technology to "portal" viewers to distance and continuing education programs and Extension-developed information resources was one such "future essential" business model. 4. Links was a catalyst for changes in the relationship between Wisconsin PTV and other University technology organizations Despite the failure to produce massive amounts of new private sector investment in Learning Innovation's multimedia distance learning production, the World Modeling Case Study had a significant impact on both LI and DIU. By making the case that public television -- and especially digital public television -- was essential to the delivery of enhanced online courses developed by LI, attention was drawn to the importance of state investment in digital broadcasting datacast production and delivery technologies. The creation of the Digital innovation unit within Wisconsin Public Television and the staff relationship with UW Learning Innovations gave each staff a new perspective regarding their products. For the TV staff, it drew attention to that fact that there will be more to their jobs than producing linear television programs. They will be called on to put their storytelling and video/audio production skills to work in creating new forms of visual media. Some will reside on the internet, some will be broadcast, and some will serve as the basis of interactive instructional programming. The designers and developers of online courseware learned of the rich production value of utilizing streaming audio and video within their courses. More importantly, the
process of identifying new media assets within WHA-TV stimulated
high level discussions on the organization of telecommunications
activities within UW-Extension and the UW System. Links has resulted
in WHA-Television becoming a core partner in Extension's media assets
reorganization and an important player in the mission of outreach
within the University System. Finally, UW System recognized
the station as a partner with Extension in supporting the work of
the Department of Defense-funded Academic Advanced Distributed Learning
Co-Lab for distance education innovation. 5. Links succeeded in establishing University PTV's "new tech credibility" - on campus, within higher education, within the PTV community Links sessions became more than a place for distance education and PTV administrators to meet and compare notes. Participation in the Links process became a mark of credibility. For Wisconsin it meant national visibility for WHA-TV, Learning Innovations, and the Pyle Center; for many of the participating stations, their involvement with Links provided an entry key into the "new media" plans of their university administration. Links stations were "invited to the table" along with campus internet web site managers and CD-ROM producers. Interactive and digital video production and "wireless digital distribution" were recognized as PTV assets that were still relevant in the internet age. Just as Links raised the visibility of the participating stations on their individual campuses, it also raised the visibility of public television within the higher education community. Because of Links, Byron Knight, Muriel Oaks, Michael Offerman, and Steven Vedro each had the opportunity to address a number of professional gatherings of university extension, distance and/or continuing education, and campus Internet-2 managers. The participating university-based
stations also gained increased visibility and credibility within
public broadcasting. Byron Knight, Dennis Haarsager and Other stations -- university (WOSU), technical college (WMVS) and community-based (KTCA) - sent representatives to Links meetings, and at least one station representative (from UNC-TV) found his job duties expanded because of his Links involvement.
A number of continuing relationships grew out of the Links project. Many of the stations are continuing to encourage their producers to meet together with their campus peers, and with partners from the other participating stations. Calls for a "multimedia production summit" and for a pilot project on "local/national enhanced media collaboration" came from the Links producer participants. These initiatives are being followed up by WHA-TV in its proposed transition of "Reforging the Links" to an "Evolving the Links" project. The Links effort made it possible for WHA-TV to recognize its "core assets" in (a) video production and project management, in (b) knowing how to recognize and respond to changing audience needs and interests, and in (c) its unique relationship to university-based content knowledge and digital media facilities resources. Based upon these assets, it has identified the following three technology areas as critical future essential business activities:
A follow-up proposal to the Future Fund will suggest a coherent plan for incorporating the above strategies into PTV business practices. Partners within the University of Wisconsin Extension, UW System, other Links and Internet-2 project participants, and from community-licensed PTV organizations, will be identified and recruited to carry on these Links-inspired activities.
In order to share the benefits of the Links process with as many stations as possible, the Project staff will convert the Reforging the Links web site from a "current status" resource for members to an interactive project archive. Project meeting minutes and selected Questmap representations, white papers and Powerpoints, and audio and video clips from major presentations will be made available to all PTV stations through June 30, 2001. The Project will also research the cost of (a) copying the entire web site to CD-ROM. This format will allow for wider distribution, a longer "shelf life," and faster access to project content. The costs to add a "runtime" license for Questmap to this CD will also be explored. This addition would allow users to display all the project maps, to use the Questmap "search" function, and to open the "notes" fields associated with each Questmap icon. Finally, the costs and a sample syllabus for a seminar on the use of the project database tool and the World Modeling Asset Mapping Process, will be developed by the Project Consultant and submitted to CPB along with the CD-ROM production cost estimates.
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