In 2008, I was commissioned by City of Sunderland College to produce a series of Digital Revision Notes for Physiology and Biology students. These would be made available on the course VLE system for download as podcasts by students as an adjunct to written and other online materials that could be listened to on the way to, from and between classes or at home.
We decided to call the first, Physiology, stage of the project “iPhys” (well, why not) and as a result the department came up with twenty draft scripts (we had to split a long one, so this became 21), covering such topics as Enzymes, Gas Exchange and the Lungs, Homeostasis & Hormones, and so on.
I decided to approach these in the same style as “The Book”, as played by Peter Jones in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, presenting the information over a nice synthesised music bed to avoid the presentations being too dry and technical, so I drew extensively on music from EMI Music’s KPM Production Music Library, formerly an employer of mine, and particularly music by Dave Vorhaus, whose material may be familiar to viewers of Channel 4’s Night Gallery some years ago. In addition, I used some more recent pieces by other composers. Each segment has a standard outro with a theme tune.
The benefit of using production library music (rather than commercial music) for a project like this is that you don’t need a separate PPL (Phonographic Performances Ltd) licence to cover the use with the record company: all that was required in this case was a Podcast licence under the PRS LOEL (Limited Online Exploitation Licence), the fee for which is based on the number of pieces of music times the number of listeners. With the number of listeners being known and limited to enrolled course students, we came in well under the required maximum number of “streams” to qualify for the lowest annual fee: a very reasonable amount.
Each topic runs for about five minutes. I started off with a pilot recording to fine-tune the concept, and once we had made a few minor changes the project was given the go-ahead. I’ve completed 17 of the segments so far and the reaction has been excellent: we are already planning similar projects for other departments.
As a special treat for the students we gave them a seasonal gift of a reading, with appropriate eerie music, of a Victorian ghost story.
Much as we would like to give you an example here, the licensing arrangement doesn’t let us. However we will happily tell you more if you are interested in a similar project. Just contact us.
