About Us

Craven College is a small, rural Further Education College nestled in the Yorkshire Dales offering a wide range of provision including apprenticeships, undergraduate degrees and part-time adult education. We have over 3,700 students over 5 campuses across North and West Yorkshire. We have 450 staff employed at the College. The main campus is Aireville Campus in Skipton, “Gateway to the Dales” which has recently seen the development of the award-winning new Equine Centre. We also have HE provision at the Aviation Academy at Leeds Bradford Airport and specialist provision at Evolve in Ripon.

Craven College is on a determined journey to enhance and innovate its digital education provision.  As a strategic priority, the development of a renewed Digital Learning Strategy  is underway through consultation with key stakeholders at the College.

The vision for the College is to place “digital” at the heart of learning, teaching and assessment which can be evidenced in the updated Observation of Teaching, Learning and Assessment (OTLA) Processes.  The employment of two Advanced Practitioners working in partnership with the EdTech Lead from September 2023 will help leverage change and encourage staff to adopt pedagogically relevant, digitally enhanced teaching practices that will positively impact on the student experience. The EdTech Lead provides bespoke support and training to teaching staff and teaching support staff to build their digital capabilities. An improved Staff Induction from September 2023 will ensure all new staff can assess their digital skills and explore digital provision to meet their specific requirements for their role.  The JISC Discovery Tool was rolled out to all staff in March 2023 to assess their own digital skills and students will have the opportunity to engage in the JISC Discovery Tool from September 2023.

Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology

In 2020, Craven College became an integral part of the Yorkshire and Humber Institute of Technology which offers a wide range of courses in IT, Graphics and Media and eSports and will be offering a T Level in Digital Production, Design and Development.

Funding from the YHIoT in 2020 spearheaded the College to pilot and experiment with the creation of 360 Video. The purchase of 2 QooCam and 2 Insta360 cameras and editing software Vivista Editor enabled Videographer, Kyle Bark, to experiment with creating educational 360 content. Some of the outputs from this project are outlined below.

Craven Equine Arena

This 360 video resource showcases our new Craven Equine Arena which helps to market the College as being proactive in investing in its campus. The Equine Arena provides first-class facilities for our students and it also supports local businesses and public events.

Graduation Ceremonies

Media students were involved in experimenting with the new technology. Every year Craven College has a graduation ceremony at Skipton Castle and Holy Trinity Church. Four students were given a 360 camera each, two with monopods and two with selfie sticks. They had free rein to record the event and experiment with the technology. The result is an immersive slice of lifestyle video that captures the atmosphere of the event which hopefully inspires future graduates.

Lessons Learned by Kyle Bark, Videographer

Recording in 360 presented several technical and procedural challenges. From the video files being large and difficult to work with to knowing where to stand when recording.

Positioning:
With conventional cameras it is natural to stand behind it in the corner of a room to get the best view. However, in 360 this instinct can be counterproductive as discovered by our students. The camera sees in all directions, so the camera operator is visible no matter where they stand. Positioning a 360 camera in the corner of a room doesn’t make the most of the 360° of vision, because three quarters of the view is obscured by walls. From this we learned that a more central position close to the action works better. Also, camera operators should move away or hide from view when recording (made easier by using a remote-control app).

Length of filming:
Working with 360 footage is challenging because it’s much higher resolution than standard video and requires a process called ‘stitching’ (to turn it from raw data into an editable video file). This stitching process can take many hours to complete depending on how much footage was shot and the speed of the editor’s computer. Our students tended to record for long periods of time causing there to be a lot of data to process. From this we have learned to be more judicious with the length of shots to save on ‘stitching’ time and memory space.

Proxy Files:
Editing the high resolution ‘stitched’ video is very taxing on all but the most powerful computers. To solve this problem we used what’s known as an ‘offline edit.’ This technique involves making low-resolution copies (proxy files) of the high-resolution original footage. These proxy files can then be edited more easily on modest computer hardware. The proxies are then swapped with the originals before export, producing a full resolution end product. Without this process it would have been impossible to produce the graduation video given the computer power available to us at the time.

Hiding the Camera Operator:
As mentioned above camera operators were often in shot. So, we experimented with removing them digitally in post-production. Students who used monopods were easier to remove because the camera was stationary. A clean plate (a shot without the student in it) could be created with Photoshop/After Effects and dropped over the original video seamlessly covering up the camera operator. Because nothing in that part of the frame changes, one clean plate is all that is needed for the entire shot. Other things like monopod feet can be concealed in the same way. Students using selfie sticks are unavoidably always in shot and the movement of the camera made it impossible to seamlessly remove in post-production.  We tried different methods including the AI object remover in After Effects, which didn’t work very well. We also tried sampling a segment of the ground and layering it over the camera operator to conceal them, which worked a bit better although far from seamlessly. Both these methods were very time consuming and resource intensive, so we concluded that it isn’t worth the effort in most cases. If the camera operator is to be concealed, then a far simpler alternative is to cover them up with a logo!

How do I get to College?

Craven College’s main campus is in a rural setting and this appeals to many of our learners. It is close to the local railway station and students can walk through the local park to get there. To re-assure learners of this close proximity and show the attractiveness of the park we enhanced an existing video by utilizing 360 cameras to remake it.

The video consists of a hyper lapse that completes the 10-minute walk from station to the college in about 60 seconds. A previous version of this video was produced with conventional cameras however the footage was quite shaky especially when speeded up.

The video was reshot on a 360 camera and exported as a ‘reframe’. A reframe means that instead of the end user controlling where to look, the video editor chooses the framing. This is then exported as a standard non-360 video.  

Stabilizing video usually requires moving the frame around to compensate for the shake. This leaves gaps at the edges which then need to be cropped. Consider that 360 video has no edge, so can be reframed without leaving those gaps. Additionally, gyroscopes and accelerometers are often built into 360 cameras and can be utilized to produce very stable shots. The result is a much smoother and nicer looking hyper lapse that could not have been easily achieved with conventional camera technology.

Exam Invigilation Training

360 images are also being developed to support staff familiarize themselves with Exam Invigilation Training and raise the profile of the Study Skills Centre. A Thingink licence was purchased by the College to create hotspots with further information on 360 images. Our licence presently limits us from using 360 Video content within ThingLink but we are hoping to explore this further.

Spring YHIoT Showcase

The 360 Video project has enabled Craven College to experiment with this technology and provide feedback. Kyle Bark was able to reflect and consider lessons learned during the creation of the content and these are outlined below for the Spring YHIoT Showcase 2023.

Next Steps

One of the challenges with 360 video production is the time it takes to edit and process content. The College has recently received funding to purchase a computer with a high specification which will speed up the process. The College is also piloting an individual licence of Thinglink which we hope to extend. More exploration needs to take place using the 3D Vista software. The College has recently purchased 9 VR headsets and the College intends to create further resources which will offer an immersive experience for students.