About
The Virtual Degree Ceremony (VDC) Project explored the use of telepresence to connect with online students who completed their studies and wished to participate in a ceremonial event. Traditionally, students and guests attended a degree ceremony in person, but the VDC aimed to adapt this for remote learners using online technologies. The last Virtual Degree Ceremony was webcast live on July 5, 2002.
The 2003 ceremony was unfortunately cancelled. In 2002, the virtual degree ceremony was extended to all taught masters graduates and featured a pre-recorded address by the new University Vice Chancellor, Brenda Gourley. The 2001 ceremony was webcast live on April 18, 2001, and included interactive elements like chat, slides, and animations. The first virtual degree ceremony, held on March 31, 2000, targeted graduates of the Masters Programme in Open and Distance Education and was available as a streaming replay.
Information from the resource website
2000 virtual degree ceremony introduction by Peter Scott – (MA in ODE), March 31st 2000
The first worldwide virtual degree ceremony took place at 16:00 BST on March 31st 2000. This ceremony was the first in the Open University calendar for 2000, and therefore the first in the new millennium.
The Vice Chancellor presided in the Berrill lecture theatre of the Open University campus in Milton Keynes, whilst the event was webcast to the world. The ceremony was aimed at the worldwide body of students who graduated from the Masters Programme in Open and Distance Education. Given that this was a small body of students (the graduating cohort was only 26) and that as they were from as far afield as Taiwan, the US, Iceland and Hong Kong, this was felt to be a most appropriate vehicle for their graduation.
A web based ceremony was also felt to be a suitable venue for the presentation of an honorary degree to Tim Berners-Lee.
Our ideas to support this ceremony included using a student-generated yearbook, and phone-in audio notes to add a personalized flavour to the proceedings.
A limited number of virtual tickets were issued to faculty and invited guests.
2001 virtual degree ceremony introduction by Peter Scott – (MA in ODE) – 18th April 2001
The second worldwide virtual degree ceremony from the Open University was webcast live on April 18th 2001 at 15:00 GMT/UT. The live ceremony included chat, slides and animations as well as audio and video from the Berrill Lecture Theatre in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom. Apart from staff on stage, the auditorium itself was entirely empty during the presentation – as all the audience were remote!
This ceremony was again aimed at the worldwide body of students graduating from the Masters Programme in Open and Distance Education. Given that this was a small body of students (a graduating cohort of under 40) and that they were truly online and distant learners, it seemed an appropriate vehicle for their graduation. In addition to the UK based participants, students attended from as far away as New Zealand, Brazil, Denmark and the USA. We are currently reviewing whether this method could be applied more widely to different student bodies.
Our ideas to support this years ceremony included using a student-generated yearbook, and phone-in audio notes to add a personalized flavour to the proceedings. One audio note was selected to be used for each contributing student during the appropriate part of the event.
Students graduated at home whilst baby-sitting, in the office with colleagues and a glass of champagne, and even with a cappuccino in a local cyber-cafe. A student in New Zealand joked that it was so early/late that he was graduating in his pyjamas! One graduate, a lecturer at the King’s College London Dental Institute, even invited her students to join her in a physical celebration of the virtual ceremony!
2002 virtual degree ceremony introduction by Peter Scott – (all taught Masters graduates) – 5th July 2002.
The third worldwide virtual degree ceremony from the Open University will be webcast live on July 5th 2002 at 15:00 GMT/UT (16:00 BST). The live ceremony will include text chat, slides and animations as well as audio and video from the Berrill Lecture Theatre in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom.
This ceremony will be aimed at the worldwide body of students graduating from all taught Masters Programmes.
Our ideas to support the ceremony include using a student-generated yearbook plus audio notes to add a personalized flavour to the proceedings. One audio note will be selected to be used for each contributing student during the appropriate part of the event.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Discover the foundation of our early online event experiences – these FAQs explored the possibilities of live, browser-based streaming. They addressed essential questions and troubleshooting tips for participants engaging in a pioneering virtual graduation ceremony. From explaining system requirements to providing solutions for common technical issues, these FAQs offered comprehensive guidance tailored for the early days of webcasting.
2001 FAQs
What should I see?
This event is designed to fit entirely within your browser on your desktop pc. You should see a small video window (in the top left hand corner of your browser). The video will be from a live ceremony in the UK. The Open University Pro-Vice Chancellor for Technology – Professor Diana Laurillard – will be presiding over the cermony and awarding the degrees. There will be a small number of fomal talks after which your name will be called out and you will be congratulated on your award.
At any point, you may click in the region below the slides in order to send a text question or comment to the other participants. All comments and questions are public, and you can opt to view the discussion as the event progresses.
We anticipate that the event should take no more than 30-40 minutes.
What do I need to take part?
Essentially, you will need a computer with a sound card with speakers or headphones, so that you can recieve the audio/video. You will need to be connected to the internet via a decent modem (ideally 56k or better), or a local area network.
If you go to the test page and can see the video, hear the audio, and see the sample interface, then you are in good shape to take part on the day.
What if something goes wrong?
Despite extensive testing, webcasting is a relatively new technology, so it may be that you will have some interruption in your service. One possible problem is that the audio/video stream may stutter or stop. In this case you may find that stopping and starting the video may clear this problem. Another possibility is that you may lose a connection to one of the communicative features such as text chat. In this case you should be prompted to re-connect. Finally, if a serious problem arises, you may find that closing all windows and relaunching the browser may clear these problems.
If you encounter any problems with the testing of this material – you should email us immediately.
What can I try first if it breaks?
One quick fix that is handy when inside one of our shockwave apps is to try right-clicking over the application. (Control-Click on the Mac) . This will give you a contextual menu, from which you may try to RESTART the shockwave. Usually, it is worth trying to click on the left hand side of the screen – somewhat beneath the video to try to restart.
Over the video, this may let you start and stop the video stream.
Are there any known bugs?
When working with relatively new pieces of software there are always things that we know about that may take a while to fix properly for everyone.
Forced Updating of the Shockwave browser plug-in, is where the browser you are using has a copy of Macromedia Shockwave which it thinks is out of date. It may prompt you to go macromedia.com to try to fix this problem.
Interrupted AudioVisuals are where the sound and video feed may stutter and stop for short periods. This is most likely to be due to a variety of network related congestion problems. Live, networked video places a significant pressure on both your machine and the internet resources – which it should manage.
Poor Quality AudioVisuals aint so much a bug as a feature of networked video. The quality of the video and audio you receive is an interaction between the ability of the network to carry the data and the ability of your pc to play it back to you. In general, we aim to select a compromise stream quality that gets you enough data to understand what is going on (being particulary important to hear what the speaker is saying!), but not so much that it cannot be replayed by a reasonably specified pc.
What can I do now?
Go to the test page (select ‘Test your Workstation’ from the menu) and see if it works! If you are checking this close to the live event time, then you will be directed to the live pages.
2002 FAQs
What will I see?
This event is designed to fit entirely within your browser window on your computer – it doesn’t require any other applications. During the live event you should see a small video window (in the top left hand corner of your browser), broadcast from the ceremony in the UK. The Open University Pro-Vice Chancellor for Technology – Professor Diana Laurillard – will be presiding over the cermony and awarding the degrees. There will be a small number of formal talks after which your name will be called out and you will be congratulated on your award.
At any point, you may click in the region below the slides in order to send a text question or comment to the other participants. All comments and questions are public, and you can opt to view the discussion as the event progresses.
We anticipate that the event should take no more than 60 minutes.
What do I need to take part?
Essentially, you will need a computer with a sound card with speakers or headphones, so that you can receive the audio/video. You will need to be connected to the Internet via a decent modem (ideally 56k or better), or a local area network. Your browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape) will need to have both QuickTime and Shockwave plugins installed.
If you go to the Test Your Workstation page and can see the video, hear the audio, and see the sample interface, then you are in good shape to take part on the day.
Please note that the multimedia content of the means that it is very bandwidth-intensive, that is it needs to pull a lot of data across your Internet connection. If you are using a modem and have a noisy telephone line, its quite likely that your video window will be jumpy.
Where can I get the plugins?
You can download the two essential plugins directly from the ‘makers’ websites:
The plugins are also included on the Open University’s ‘On-Line Applications Version 3’ CD-ROM CDR0430.
What if something goes wrong?
Despite extensive testing, webcasting is a relatively new technology, so it may be that you will have some interruption in your service. One possible problem is that the audio/video stream may stutter or stop. In this case you may find that stopping and starting the video may clear this problem. Another possibility is that you may lose a connection to one of the communicative features such as text chat. In this case you should be prompted to re-connect. Finally, if a serious problem arises, you may find that closing all windows and relaunching the browser may clear these problems.
If you encounter any problems with the testing of this material – you should email us immediately.
Are there any known bugs?
When working with relatively new pieces of software there are always things that we know about that may take a while to fix properly for everyone.
Forced Updating of the Shockwave browser plug-in, is where the browser you are using has a copy of Macromedia Shockwave which it thinks is out of date. It may prompt you to go macromedia.com to try to fix this problem.
Interrupted AudioVisuals are where the sound and video feed may stutter and stop for short periods. This is most likely to be due to a variety of network related congestion problems. Live, networked video places a significant pressure on both your machine and the internet resources – which it should manage.
Poor Quality AudioVisuals isn’t so much a bug as a feature of networked video. The quality of the video and audio you receive is an interaction between the ability of the network to carry the data and the ability of your pc to play it back to you. In general, we aim to select a compromise stream quality that gets you enough data to understand what is going on (being particulary important to hear what the speaker is saying!), but not so much that it cannot be replayed by a reasonably specified computer.
Firewalls (for example Zone Alarm) can cause problems. Your firewall may ask you permission for your browser to ‘act as a server’ – this is part of the communication process between the Shockwave plugin and our streaming media servers. If you cannot temporarily allow this to happen, you may have to disable the firewall for the duration of the event.
What can I do now?
Go to the test pages (select ‘Test your Workstation’ from the menu) and see if it works! If you are checking this close to the live event time, then you will be directed to the live pages.
What can I try first if it breaks?
One quick fix that is handy when inside one of our shockwave apps is to try right-clicking over the application (Control-Click on the Mac). This will give you a contextual menu, from which you may try to RESTART the shockwave. Usually, it is worth trying to click on the left hand side of the screen – somewhat beneath the video to try to restart.
Over the video, this may let you start and stop the video stream.
What about the phone-in system?
In order that you can record the answers to some of the questions in the Yearbook, we have developed a phone-in system. Dial the number shown and log in using the four digits of the username that was sent to you by email (so if you log in to the VDC system with 1234ab, on the phone you need to enter 1234; replace an X by zero). To confirm that you are the right person, the system will tell you who it thinks you are with a synthetic voice.
Next you will hear instructions on how to pick a question and answer. You are only allowed up to 20 seconds for each answer. The questions are listed on everyone’s Yearbook page so its best to have a read of them and maybe even draft an answer on paper before you call. Once you’ve answered a question, after a short time (normally less than a minute) you can review your answer by visiting your Yearbook entry.
Nearer the date of the event, a member of staff will go though all the submissions and pick one for each student to be played during the live ceremony.
The system, built with ‘Phone Pro’, runs on a Macintosh and is, to be honest, a bit cludgy. It can only support one user at once and cannot call you back to save on your phone charges (we tried doing this but with all the differences between international phone systems it proved impossible).
Why does my uploaded photo look strange?
We don’t know! Suffice it to say that we have tried to reproduce the problem here and can’t. Its just another one of those mysteries of the Internet!
