Presentation on the Avalon Media System project at the 2012 Digital Library Federation Forum, Denver, Colorado, November 4, 2012.

1. Variations on Video:
The Avalon Media System
Jon Dunn, Indiana University
Michael Klein, Northwestern University
Digital Library Federation Forum
November 4, 2012

2. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
About Us
• Jon Dunn
– Interim Assistant Dean for Library Technologies
and Digital Libraries, Indiana University
– Project Director, Avalon
• Michael Klein
– Senior Software Developer, Enterprise Systems,
Northwestern University Libraries
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3. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Agenda
• Project overview and status
• Demo
• Release 1
• Technical and metadata architectures
• Plans beyond Release 1
• How to participate
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4. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Project Overview
• Funded in part by a National Leadership Grant from the Institute of
Museum and Library Services
• Original name: Variations on Video
• Planning grant:
– August 2010 – July 2011
• Implementation grant:
– September 2011 – October 2014
• Partnership between libraries at Indiana University and
Northwestern University
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5. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Project Partners and Collaborators
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6. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Project Objectives
Goal: Create an open source system to enable libraries and archives to
provide online access to video and audio collections
• Digital audio/video management and delivery
system, focused on needs of libraries and
archives
• Follow an agile, open source development model
• Leverage existing technologies, where feasible
• Communicate and market the project broadly to
increase awareness and grow the community of
users and developers
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7. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
What needs are we trying to serve?
• Libraries and archives (and museums?)
• Wide variety of audio/video collections, uses, and
access needs
– Licensed educational video collections
– Video/audio e-reserves
– Archival collections
– Open access collections
• Research and teaching & learning use
• Long-term management and access
• Tie-in with preservation

8. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Existing Solutions Insufficient
• Institutional and digital library repositories
– DSpace, Fedora, Digital Commons, ContentDM
• Web video services
– YouTube, Vimeo
• Streaming servers
– Flash Media Server, Real Helix, Wowza, Red5
• Classroom lecture capture
– Echo360, Mediasite, Opencast Matterhorn
• Digital asset management systems
– OpenText, NetXposure
• Online video environments
– Kaltura, Brightcove

9. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Project Progress
• Most of development team hired
• Trained on agile development (Scrum)
• Community demo releases:
– Release 0, July 2012
– Release 0.5, October 2012
• New name
• Active participation in Hydra and Matterhorn
communities
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10. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Current Activities
• Northwestern hiring one more developer
• Website design
• Marketing and communication planning
• Release 1 development
• Metadata and object modeling
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11. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Development Team
Northwestern University
• Stu Baker, project director
• Steve DiDomenico, scrum master
• Stefan Elnabli, metadata/preservation
specialist
• Michael Klein, lead developer
• Karen Miller, metadata analyst
• Julie Rudder, product owner
• Claire Stewart, product owner/director
• Andrea Zielke, project assistant
Indiana University
• Jon Dunn, project director
• Chris Colvard, lead developer
• Phuong Dinh, developer
• Julie Hardesty, metadata analyst
• Brianna Marshall, project assistant
• Mark Notess, product owner/manager
• Nathan Rogers, developer
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12. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Demo
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13. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Release 1
• Expected in February 2013
• Goal is to support installation and piloting by
partners
• Functionality
• File upload, transcoding & descriptive metadata: manual or batch
• Batch loading via dropbox and tabular data file
• Authentication and authorization – optional integration would require use of
LDAP or some minor programming
• Red5 and Adobe Flash media server support
• Discovery via Blacklight faceted search & browse
• Playback on desktop browsers & mobile devices (iOS & Android)
• Basic monitoring & troubleshooting
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14. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Release 1 Pilot Support
• Distribution packages
• Both source distribution and some form of preconfigured
package, e.g. VM image
• Installation & configuration documentation
• Email support
• Advice on hardware & software requirements by Jan 1
• Goal: Small pilots/tests can be run on one server or VM;
larger scale use may require distributing functions across
multiple machines
• Content & metadata from pilots can be migrated
forward to future versions
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15. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
R1 Architecture
Avalon Media System
Archival
Storage
Solution
AuthN
LMS,
websites
ILS
Hydrant Rails App
Hydra
Head
Black-
light
Ruby-
horn
Media Player
(Matterhorn Engage)
Fedora Solr Matterhorn
Media Server
(Red5, Flash)
All
Desktop,
Mobile
Browser,
Drop box
Search, browse,
view media
Ingest (batch or
manual): video,
audio, metadata
Integrations Users
Collection
Manager
Can-
Can
Omni-
Auth
AuthZ
 after R1
 Avalon code
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16. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Authentication
• OmniAuth
• Multi-provider authentication middleware for Rails
applications
• Providers are known as “strategies”
• Dozens of turnkey “provider strategies” including
Google/Google Apps, Facebook, Twitter
• Easily customizable “developer strategies” exist for
CAS, LDAP, Shibboleth, OAuth/OAuth2, OpenID,
Kerberos, and many others
• As long as the provider returns an email address,
Avalon will identify the user

17. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Metadata for R1
• Descriptive metadata
• MODS
• Structural/content metadata
• METS
• Technical metadata
• Will be a focus after R1
• Still looking at PBCore, for technical metadata
and/or as an export format
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18. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Beyond R1
• Releases every three months
• Workflow & batch loading improvements
• Authorization improvements
• Structural metadata for navigation
• Playlists and clip making
• Easy player embedding
• Transcripts
• Publishing out to other systems
• More optimization for mobile
• Focused accessibility work
• We want to know what your priorities are!
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19. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Help with Requirements
• Survey:
– Media server
– Authentication methods
– Metadata
– Media formats
– Distribution packages
– Importance of VM image
Take the survey:
http://tinyurl.com/AvalonWebinarSurvey
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20. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
Participation
• Try out release 0.5
http://pawpaw.dlib.indiana.edu/
• Try out release 1 in February 2013
• See what we’re up to via the project wiki:
http://avalonmediasystem.org/
• Watch bi-weekly demos:
https://wiki.dlib.indiana.edu/x/NxKKHg
• Browse user stories, tasks & bugs in Jira:
https://bugs.dlib.indiana.edu/browse/VOV
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21. DLF 2012 11/4/2012
For more information
• http://avalonmediasystem.org/
• IRC: chat.freenode.net #projectvov
• Avalon e-mail list:
E-mail avalon-l-subscribe@indiana.edu to subscribe
@avalonmediasys
facebook.com/avalonmediasys
• Jon Dunn: jwd@iu.edu
• Michael Klein: michael.klein@northwestern.edu
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