Here's why :
1) No New Content. Recent changes to our local CME program means we don't offer the live lectures like we used to. It's been almost a year since we last posted a program.
2) Broken Links. Changes to our servers and where support documents are stored and accessed means many of links to handouts and presentation files are broken. Likewise, recent changes to WebEx links means even more links are broken.
3) Staff Reductions means I don't have time to update all these old links.
4) No Credit. We haven't been able to offer CME Credit since 2011 through the video blog. Programs are posted for informational purposes only.
I will however, leave it as an archive of what CME programs we offered through the years and how. I will NOT be updating links, however. It has a different historical/archival purpose now.
We've had a great team of people working to make this project happen through the years.
I heartily thank ALL of YOU for your help in making this project happen. It was definitely a group effort! It's been a wonderful journey.
Carole Carow - Medical Staff Office for keeping us informed, and managing speakers and people on presentation days; helping to communicate the availablilty of new programs.
Brenda Gabielson, Julie Skalmoski, and Kathy Adams from the Education Dept for "wrangling" the raw video and audio files and coming up with a process to make it work. This was Brenda's introduction to blogging.
Michele Matucheski (me) for coming up with the idea to use free blogging software, coordinating the project and keeping it on track, making improvements along the way; writing "copy" for the posts and announcements.
Cath Hursh and Suzy Wasmuth - Our Volunteer Videographers.
The CME Committee - Dr Kehrberg, Peg Sheik, Russ Sesto, Dr Auferheide, Marilyn Belter, Dr. Lois Jacobs, Dr Nancy Homburg. [Too many people to name individually. My apologies if I've forgotten anyone ...]
Lisa Sorenson, Michelle Lindner, Tanya Johnson - Our CME and Medical Staff Coordinators - keeping the programs on track, and lining up speakers every other week.
The Mercy Medical Center Food & Nutrition Staff for feeding us lunches for all those lectures.
After 7 years, we've evolved a lot through time. Here's a brief summary of the timeline :
2007 When we first started the CME Video blog in 2007, it was a means to make our CME Lectures more widely available to the medical staff who were not able to attend the live program.. We'd been recording the programs for years and making them available via VHS / DVD recordings, but these were seldom checked out. Using a blog format allowed us to move the program online and "break into" the world of web video that would be more easily accessible 24/7.
When we posted a new program, we sent out an announcement to all our medical staff with the specifics about the new lecture and links to watch it online. We did not rely on people going out to check the blog for new content, but made an effort to drive traffic to it. This way, it also served as a nice archive for past programs.
We soon realized that watching our CME lectures online as "home movies" was not ideal. We just didn't have the production staff to make it look slick and professional. The tiny viewing window for web video (it's a compacted file and only a few inches wide) didn't help either.
2009 For some programs, we offered a separate audio track as an alternative to the web video for some lectures.
2010 We started offering a separate audio track in addition to the web video. With the presentation slides as a handout, viewers could listen and follow along with a clearer copy of the slides.
2011 We started using a software called Articulate to show a much cleaner version of the presentations. Viewers got a crystal clear view of the presentation slides, coordinated with the audio track. Although this was a much bigger investment of my time (up to 4 hours post processing for each program), the end results were much improved. See an example.
We continued to offer the audio tracks and additional info about each program, including handouts. During this time, our Volunteer Videographers continued to record the sessions on DVD as a backup. And there were times we had technical difficulties and were very grateful to have the backups.
2012 Since I had taken over the post-production work on the files, I was able to make some other improvements such as offering a single post that included the support info, handouts, etc, along with the audio files and ppt with audio. Previously, the video and audio files were posted in separate entries. We were able to bring everything together in a single coherent post this year. See example.
2013 We started to record the CME Lectures via WebEx. WebEx made some great strides by then and made it much easier to record a meeting and then share a url. Previously, this was not an option as it was needlessly complicated and we couldn't host the gigantic files it produced. This improvement allowed us to record the lectures in real time, and saved staff time in post-production. We still got the professional, clean look we achieved with Articulate. This was the best of both worlds! Another process improvement. See an example.
Thanks again, everyone. This has been a most rewarding project!
--Michele Matucheski
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