UNC Charlotte’s Celine Latulipe, Sybil Huskey, David Wilson and Vikash Singh are the researchers behind Video Collaboratory, a recent winner of the Blue Diamond Award from the Charlotte Area Technology Collaborative.
Recognized in the Cool Innovation category, Video Collaboratory is a web-based application designed for teamwork around video documents. Beyond simply viewing video the Collaboratory is equipped to allow co-workers, classmates or friends to review, mark up, analyze and discuss a video remotely. The Video Collaboratory does not produce video content. Instead, it enables individuals to engage in real-time discussions of video content in a group-chat module while marking parts of the video being discussed with color-coded pins.
“You can think of it as a Google Doc for video sharing and collaboration,” said Latulipe, professor of Software and Information Systems, “but in this case, we are not able to change the video like you can when working with a word-based document.”
Years in development, the Video Collaboratory began as the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Dance Draw Project, which brought Latulipe and Huskey, professor of Dance, together.
Charged with creating a series of dance performances and incorporating technology to improve audience experience and track dancers’ movements, Huskey and Latulipe quickly discovered their biggest roadblock was time.
“Think about trying to get everyone involved in creating a performance - directors, performers, choreographers, designers, visual artists, stage techs, lighting, sound, scenery, etc. - in the same room to work together and review film of a rehearsal,” said Huskey. “As we were integrating technology and dance, we needed constant collaboration, which we found was next to impossible to achieve.”
As the technologist on the project, Latulipe was mindful of a third objective, which was to find a way to use technology to support the creative process.
Identifying a problem and potential solution is just the beginning of the story when it comes to innovation. To make it a reality, Latulipe and Huskey welcomed then-Ph.D. candidate Singh and College of Computing and Informatics colleague Wilson, professor of Software and Information Systems, to the team.
Now a faculty member at Vanderbilt University, Singh was asked to help create a tool that would eliminate the need to be in the same physical space to collaborate around a digital video platform but finding himself in a dance studio was an unexpected twist. He remembered thinking, “Where am I? And what am I doing?”
For Huskey, an expert in the creation, analysis and pedagogy of choreography, the benefits were immediate and dramatic.
“The Video Collaboratory allows us, at the creative level, to work together remotely without having to review video at the next rehearsal and in many cases, waste valuable rehearsal space time,” she said. “Now, we are able to post video and before the next rehearsal, everyone can go in, pose questions, solve problems and discuss - in great detail - items to address moving forward. It affords us a level of concentrated specificity that is difficult to achieve in any studio.”
Future applications for this technology are limitless, but the quartet has its eyes squarely set on its benefits in an ever-evolving academic landscape.
“We think academia offers a growing opportunity,” said Latulipe. “More and more classes are being structured in such a way that students are watching videos, and then going to the classroom for active learning. Watching videos for class has always been a solitary, passive activity. The Video Collaboratory can turn that into a more dynamic group activity.”
Students and instructors at UNC Charlotte have proven invaluable to the evolution of the Video Collaboratory.
“Over the past five years, more than 500 CCI students and faculty members have successfully used this tool in the classroom,” said Singh. “Their input has been critical as we update the platform.”
A top-notch, intuitive user interface has been the result.
“Because this was developed by human-computer interaction scientists, in about five minutes it can easily be embraced and utilized by today’s instructors and students,” Huskey stated.
With an eye on what is next, the team is exploring the commercial viability of the Video Collaboratory. Each of the four researchers points to UNC Charlotte’s culture of innovation and collaboration as the greatest catalyst for the project’s success.
“Collaboration is absolutely essential to success with a project like this,” said Wilson. “In fact, it took a year or more before we learned to speak each other’s language - the language specific to a particular area of expertise. Over time, with our common objective in mind, there became an easy blend of terminology that otherwise would likely never cross.”
Read more on the College of Computing and Informatics website.