Disseminating podcasts on the Wirksworth server

Podcasting home

This page contains information on how to disseminate podcasts that have been uploaded via the WebCT podcast uploader to the server 'wirksworth'.

When you upload an audio clip via the Podcast Uploader in WebCT, it'll be given a unique URL such as:

mms://wirksworthii.nottingham.ac.uk/Podcasts/files/549917/pharmacokinetics1_1.mp3

You can copy this URL into an email or Word document or a web page. If you copy such a URL into your browser, it will likely start up a media application, such as Windows Media Player or Quicktime or similar, which will try to connect to the Wirksworth server and request the audio stream. Although you upload within WebCT, files on Wirksworth are available to anyone on the WWW, so you can publicise the URLs even to students and end-users without WebCT accounts.

URLs starting with mms: (multimedia streaming) are specifically for streaming (?) audio/video and don't allow you to download the file. If you want to make your file available for students to download, copy the mms: link but change the 'protocol' to http:, eg:

http://wirksworthii.nottingham.ac.uk/Podcasts/files/549917/pharmacokinetics1_1.mp3

Your students can then right-click on this link in their browser and save the link target (ie the audio file) to their MP3 player or local disk.

Downloading 'kludge' for WebCT

Podcasts can be made available in two formats: streamed and downloadable. A streamed file can't be saved to disc as it comes as a continuous data stream from the streaming server, and you have to be at the computer in order to listen to it. The downloadable files can be saved, but because of the peculiar way that WebCT works you can't use the normal method for saving files in a browser (right-clicking on a link and choosing "Save target as") - if you try this you'll just get a strange error from the browser. Instead you need to open the downloadable file in a media player on the computer you're using - this will usually be Windows Media Player, but depending on how the computer is set up it may be Quicktime or Real Player or some other application.

If you click on the downloadable file link your media player should start to play the MP3 clip. You can then choose File|Save As from the player's menu which will allow you to save the MP3 file to disk, including a portable MP3 player if you have one plugged into the computer. If the media player starts up in a browser window, as Quicktime often does, then choose File|Save As from the browser menu. Some MP3 players and iPods may be clever enough to download the audio clip by themselves without you needing to manually save the file.

If this is too much of a pain in the neck, and it is an awful faff particularly for technically-naive students, then you'll find it easier to use the video.nottingham service to upload and disseminate your audio podcasts.