1) The document discusses the development of a common media player for the Open University to address the problem of different sites using different player solutions with varying accessibility and user experiences. 2) An initial player was developed in 2011 based on Flowplayer but had design issues. A second version was then developed in 2012 based on MediaElement.js to be more compact and support fullscreen viewing. 3) The player is intended to be easy for content authors to use across different OU contexts like the VLE and OpenLearn. Accessibility testing and input is a priority in the development process.

1. OU Media Player
A joint IET, KMi, LTS, DSS, OMU project
January 2011-June 2012
N.D.Freear, SeGA 3 April 2012
The Open University

2. The problem
● Lot's of OU web 'assets' - OUVLE,
OpenLearn, Study at OU, OU-Drupal,
Platform, research blogs, Cloudworks...
● Each site/ developer finds their own 'solution'
● Different user experiences, branding, levels
of accessibility...
● Plus, a support/ maintenance problem...
● HTML5 anyone?

3. The good... Easy YouTube 2008

4. Who else is doing 'this'?
● 'Easy YouTube', 2008 Flash icant.co.uk/easy-youtube
● christianheilmann.com/2008 ../video-captioning-made-easy-
with-the-youtu..
● 2009 Flash, Maltwiki.org
● Universal subtitles, www.universalsubtitles.org
● ...
● YouTube HTML5, www.youtube.com/html5
● ODI player, 2011 Flash* odicatalogue.co.uk
● Nomensa, 2011-12 Flash* nomensa.com/ ..-open-source-
accessible-media-..
● 2012 Flash* edu.mwjt.co.uk/access-youtube-new-webs..
● ...
(New to me, wac.osu.edu/examples/jwpc )

5. ..the odd... 'ODI' player 2011

6. Who else? part 2
Questions:
● * Why Flash-only in 2011/12?
● Start from scratch?
● Is it flexible? (ODI)
● Are they open-source? Can we/ others build
upon?
● Or, HTML5 media libraries - the same
mistakes again?

7. Our approach
● Don't "start from scratch"
● Build on existing components, including
open source
● Hopefully, contribute back to the community
- code/ patches/ knowledge...

8. The 'solution'
● A common, embeddable player
● *Easy to embed
● OU podcast infrastructure (+YouTube...)
● Service/iframe-based embeds
● oEmbed www.oembed.com
● HTML5 + Flash + Javascript + CSS
● OU brand
● Variants (3): OU Podcast/public, OUVLE,
OpenLearn
● ...

9. The 'solution', part deux
● Unobtrusive accessibility
● Mobile/ tablet support
● Themable
● Internationalized
● Performance
● ...
● Maintenance - only '1' player needs
upgrading

10. January-July 2011
● "Attempt 1"
● Based on Flowplayer - open source Flash
libraries
● Flash 'falling back' to HTML5
● Two "chunky" designs
● Senior management "surprised" - too big for
the VLE
● Bugs in design/ CSS
● No fullscreen (there is a "popout" player)
Used in Cloudworks

11. 2011 'ouice dark'

12. 2011 'ouice light'

13. January-June 2012
● "Version 2" - deployment plan
● Based on Mediaelement.js
● HTML5 falling back to Flash
● But, Flash is not "2nd-class" citizen
● Compact, less obtrusive design
● With Fullscreen - yay!

14. ...and the pretty OU player light 2012

15. Where do I fit in?
● The player will be easy for content authors to
use - we hope!
● No change to authoring practice in SA/ VLE
● Player fairly easy for developers to integrate
● Accessibility practitioners - communicate the
philosophy
● APs - help close the feedback loop
● APs - translation contacts
● ..?
● Watch this space!

16. Roadmap
● Mid-April 2012 - technical test
● May - accessibility/ user-test
● June - OUVLE release
● June/July - OpenLearn, OU-Drupal...
● June/July - documentation
● June/July - hand over to LTS...
● June/July - Mediaelement.js patches
...

17. Questions
● Open source - if, when?
● Stable versus innovative - how?
● LTS support + IET contributions - how?
● WebM encoding - when?

18. Challenges
● Many stakeholders
● Many contexts
● Audio + video
● Mobile debugging
● First impressions count!
● Tech. test, Access. test, test, test...
● Finding time to communicate, as well as
code

19. Links
● OU player prototype, iet-embed-acct.open.ac.uk
../oup/test.html
● Blogs, freear.org.uk ../ou-media-player-project
● http://freear.org.uk/content/ou-embed-proposal
● Watch this space! http://embed.open.ac.uk