News Story

FM recordings now in iTunes

Peter Scott, Thursday 30 Jul 2009

The newest release of the FlashMeeting project software on our main experimental server (which serves the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning community EATEL) now produces podcast recordings of events that can be replayed in Apple’s iTunes and other podcast media browsers.

Users have been able to use our new "groups" feature for some time now to collect their events into coherent communities. Joining a group means that you can have a common calendar for a large community of bookers and attendees – so you will easily see if you are going to miss a meeting!

However, now, you need never lose track of those missed meetings, as you can subscribe to the group events in iTunes, and have the recordings automatically updated to your iPod or iPhone. One cool feature of these devices is that you can review the recordings at 2x speed, to quickly and without losing quality, catch up on what you missed! The podcast subscriptions are secured behind FM login – so your recorded feeds are only for ‘group members’ if security is important to you…

For a busy and active community like the STELLAR network of excellence, or the eContent project iCoper, or even the integrated research project ROLE, these sorts of instant catch up facilities are critical! FM allows the community to visualize the impact of its events; to show the community of participants that is active and even to see where its recorded work is being used; but now… you cannot even get away from this important work if you are on the move!