Project 2 scenario
In this project, you will work in a team of three people to design a video collection that supports the city of
Austin’s goal to encourage its citizens to “reduce, reuse, and recycle.” Austin is the first Texas city to put
forth a zero-waste plan, with a goal to reduce waste sent to landfills by 90 percent by 2040. The city
recognizes that an extensive outreach plan, encouraging both residents and businesses to adopt zero-waste
goals, is vital to the success of this project. This video collection, targeted toward individual residents, is
one component of this outreach initiative. Residents will be informed about the collection, upon its
completion, through an insert in their utility bills.
City officials have decided to specifically target adult Austinites who do place some recyclable materials in
the city-provided bins but who haven’t yet considered other ways to practice the 3Rs. These residents
would, however, like to decrease the size of their utility bills. Utility costs go down when residents are able
to use less electricity, use less water, and dispose of less trash (rates are currently based on the size of the
refuse bin). Future city plans involve even more direct correlations between the amount of trash a
household generates and the bill for disposing of this trash in landfills (a “pay as you throw” system), and
water and energy use that exceeds reasonable thresholds per household will be charged even higher rates
than the current system mandates.
This is a long-term plan, and part of the city’s goal for this video collection is to show residents the extent
of activities that might contribute to zero-waste initiatives, from reducing consumption of natural resources,
such as water and fuels, to reducing our impact on the environment through lessening greenhouse-gas
emissions, as well as producing less trash and other obvious waste. In addition to preparing the ground for
long-term lifestyle changes, however, the city has several short-term goals: to encourage composting and
other means of eliminating organic waste from landfills, to encourage home improvements that enable
reduced resource consumption, and to encourage reuse of materials that are neither recyclable nor
compostable.
The city is hoping that this video collection will both educate residents on goals and strategies for
accomplishing their own zero-waste goals and inspire residents to take action and contribute their efforts
toward the community plan. To ensure a creative, original approach to this project, the city is soliciting
candidate designs through an open competition. Your team has resolved to enter this contest and win the
bid!
While the final proposal (your assignment) is due on the last day of class, May 6, we will have a more
formal analysis and critique session in class on April 29, with a group of outside experts to provide
feedback and play the role of City of Austin decision makers. Each team will present a 10-minute pitch that
concisely and elegantly summarizes your ideas and rationale. The format and structure of the presentation
is up to you. Some form of visual summary and representation will probably be a good idea, but whether
that involves slides, handouts, or merely projection or distribution of your sketches (or something else) is
up to you. While all team members must be involved in preparing the presentation (of course), everyone
does not need to speak; that also will be up to you.
INF 385U, Digital Media Collections
Spring 2010
Project tasks for next week’s class (April 1)
For next week’s class, perform the following tasks as indivduals:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Write a preliminary reflection, as you did for the first project. (Details on this activity can be
found on the Schedule page of the course Web site, for week 2).
Ask at least two potential users to answer the questions on the provided user research template (the
questions are similar to the first project but slightly altered to reflect the project 2 scenario).
Find, describe, and download seven video files to contribute to the source library for project 2
(more detailed instructions follow).
As necessary, begin conducting subject research on zero-waste initiatives, composting, and
municipal reduce, reuse, and recycle programs, to fill in gaps in your knowledge. While you are
not required to bring any research notes to class next week, you might compile notes to share with
your group.
While these activities are individual work, your group may wish to coordinate tasks 2, 3, and 4, so that you
obtain the data most useful to your project. In class next week, we will have time for each group to share
each member’s individual reflection and create a group document that incorporates everyone’s individual
thoughts.
Video collection instructions
The content of the video files that you select is up to you. However, to conserve our disk space, please
restrict your selections to files under 15 minutes in duration. Additionally, each person should ensure that
at least one of the seven videos they collect is accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people (has closed
captions or is signed).
Rename each file with a descriptive name, but keep track of its original filename as well. For each video,
you will need to supply the following metadata:




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Filename (the one you created).
Original filename (the one used wherever you found the video).
Title.
Sentence summary (really, one sentence).
Abstract (a longer description of the video’s contents).
A spreadsheet template, compatible with Excel 2004, will be sent via e-mail to use in compiling this
metadata. The name of the file is INF 385U project 2 videos.xls. Please rename this file to append your last
name at the end of the original filename. For example: INF 385U project 2 videos Feinberg.xls.
By the time that class begins on April 1, send your spreadsheet to me via e-mail
(feinberg@ischool.utexas.edu) and upload your seven videos to the videos-new folder on the scirocco
server, just as you did with the files you wanted to add to the project 1 source library. (If you never got an
iSchool account and thus don’t have access to the server, compress your video files into an archive and
send them to me via e-mail.)
To facilitate browsing the collected source library, we will import all the selected videos into a new Open
Video toolkit library. I will also distribute the compiled spreadsheet of metadata.
INF 385U, Digital Media Collections
Spring 2010