Notes about the Multimedia Unit for the Audit of the Media Centre

1. Goals
   • GENERAL EDUCATION: building educational multimedia to help students and lecturers learn and teach
   • TECHNICAL TRAINING: train local people (students, staff and outsiders) in interactive multimedia skills
   • R & D: research mutlimedia's potential and future in education
2. Organisation
   • Multimedia is a sort of meta unit, in that it consists of a central core that utitlizes members of other units and departments (Graphics, Video, Audio, Extension)
   • Pros of this approach
     • Flexible and inexpensive (no additional staff required)
     • Provides ongoing training for many staff
     • Potential Career Development: if Multimedia section enlarges in the future, we could provide fulltime jobs that use these new skills
   • Cons of this approach
     • As staff from other have other more primary committments, they can be less reliable/accountable to their Multimedia projects
3. Fund-raising
   • EXTERNAL WEBSITES are not an ideal approach to fund-raising because it is innefficient (web rates not very high in Suva) and competes with local businesses, actually serving to hurt the community
   • MULTIMEDIA TRAINING --open to external as well as internal -- can be efficient way to raise extra funds that is very much in line with our goals. The following intenral courses could be modified for external/ profit:
     • WebClass with Sam (HTML, PHP, JS)
     • IntrotoMultimediaWorkshop
     • ?AccessibleWebdesignWorkshop
     • BasicAudioEditing
     • GraphicsFlashClass
     • TepFlashClass
     • JournalismWebClass
     • WebForEducation
     • BasicWebEditingAndFtp
   • FEE STRUCTURE
     • Our services are open to abuse because we do not currently charge for labor
     • We must agree on rates for equipment usage
4. Ideas for Future
   • If Multimedia unti gets busier in future, may need dedicated staff/ equipment
   • If we continue to use Graphics/ Audio/ Video, they must upgrade their equipment.
     • For example, Detlef is the only computer in Graphics with USB, which means everything requiring USB transfer must go through him.
     • The only way to transfer files with Audio is through email (slow and unreliable) or CD (waste of resources)
     • Suggest a server that all of the media centre share, with distinct read/write privileges, for efficient transfer of files.
   • Staff Loyalty: we often lose our best staff because we do not offer a simpel route of promotion. Internal Staff must get first priority to new positions while safeguarding for stasis and nepotism