54 | BUF VC | INDUSTRY
ENHANCING THE LEARNING EXPERIENCE WITH BOB NATIONAL
Since early 2014, users of the British Universities Film & Video Council’s (BUFVC) BoB National service have been able to search for and view over one million off-air TV and radio programmes for use within teaching, learning and research. Sarah Allen-Reading, from the BUFVC, tells us more
B
oB (short for Box of Broadcasts) – a shared off-air TV and radio recording service – was originally
launched in 2009 and has over 150,000 users in 56 subscribing institutions. It enables all staff and students at subscribing UK higher and further education institutions to view, record, create clips and share any broadcast programme from over 60 TV and radio channels, under the terms of the ERA licensing scheme for educational use of copyright material in the UK (
www.era.org.uk). The recorded programmes are kept indefinitely and shared between all users.
A bigger and beter Box of Broadcasts In early 2014, BoB underwent a major upgrade to the service and now provides a number of key new features and much more content for its users. Highlights of the upgrade include access to over 800,000 off-air recordings from the BBC going back to 2007 (resulting in
an archive of more than one million programmes), the addition of 10 foreign language channels, a crisp new website design, the ability to use BoB anywhere in the UK on any device, searchable rolling transcripts and thumbnails, plus a one-click citation to reference programmes in coursework. An extended programme guide,
allowing users to record programmes both seven days in advance and 30 days previous, also means it is less likely users will miss recording and adding a programme to the archive. Plus users can
now add comments to programmes or share what they are watching with their peers via social media.
BoB in teaching, learning and research BoB National can be used to bring all academic subjects to life and can greatly enhance the learning and teaching experience. Lecturers can use it to engage students by adding clips or programmes to their lectures or to their course section on their VLE. For example, they can revisit footage of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign and inauguration to spark classroom debate or showcase clips of the news reports of the Lehman Brothers collapse in lectures. Students are also enthusiastic users
of BoB; using it to re-cap on important topics, enhance their research and improve their subject knowledge. BoB is also a valuable research
tool, allowing researchers to search and analyse words spoken within TV programmes using a basic search or the
“Long gone are the days of being able to stand at the front of a lecture theatre behind a lectern and read something you prepared years ago. Using material from BoB National it is possible to quickly engage a roomful of students with up-to-date and relevant content.” Anna Goatman, senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Manchester
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