The increased availability of high-speed internet connections, the boom in mobile smartphone usage, and the ubiquity of social networking have all combined to create a wealth of user generated content (UGC). With the expansion of the Universities provision for on-demand video, and drives toward the empowerment of staff and students creating their own media the next step is to crowd source content creation process.

 This project aims to use this democratisation of content capture and production as the starting point for creating new and interactive viewing experiences. In particular, to investigate how the contribution of UGC can enhance the audience experience of large scale events, while retaining high standards for content quality. Professional content producers now have an unprecedented level of access to new audiences. The most famous manifestation of UGC is YouTube which is now so popular that 48 hours of content are uploaded every minute. With this in mind this project will trial a service that allows The University of Edinburgh to crowd source content to be used for events, such as the graduations, conferences, inaugural lectures etc. empowering the people that are attending these events to capture and contribute to the experience of an event directly from their smart devices.  

We have instigated informal discussions with Dr Michael Evans, Research Lead - User Experience BBC R&D regarding the overlap with their Nearly Live Production suite ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/projects/nearly-live-production ) which utilises Bootlegger ( https://bootlegger.tv/ ) a free to use crowdsourcing application developed by Newcastle University.

We have spoken with academic colleagues and have identified multiple events in the next year where we can trial, develop and realise this concept.