streaming media platform to encode, edit, and deliver course materials through its customers’ intranet, extranet, and Internet connections. Using Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint 2002, Taecan.com production staff enhances CLE material by incorporating slides, HTML, audio, and video into synchronized rich-media presentations. The process is simple and the results are engaging.
Taecan.com provides online continuing legal education (CLE) to the worldwide legal community. The word taecan derives from an Old English word meaning: ”to show or help to learn how to do something.” Since 1998, Tcan.com has provided online access to CLE for more than 250,000 licensed attorneys and paralegals worldwide. Through state bar associations, specialty legal associations, law firms, corporations and government agencies, attorneys have used Taecan.com to fulfill their professional education requirements from their desktops via an intranet, extranet, or Internet connection.
In 40 states, attorneys are required to complete a jurisdiction-specified number of CLE credits. Traditional continuing education options include attending a live seminar, which often involves travel and expense, or watching a video provided by a bar association or other courseware provider. Taecan.com offers an online alternative to busy legal professionals practicing law in the 25 states that allow online learning. CLE content is developed by partners and is jurisdiction specific.
Taecan.com needed to find the best solution for hosting and streaming its partner-provided content in a convenient and timely way. Many legal professionals face significant deadline pressures, have little tolerance for media incompatibility, and often wait until the last minute to address their mandated CLE requirements. Taecan.com’s IT department wanted an enhanced streaming media editing and deployment solution that would integrate with existing Microsoft Windows-based hardware and software, could scale for planned growth, and would allow Taecan.com to predict performance under varying traffic demand. It also needed security features for future product enhancements. Taecan.com must be able to provide its direct customers with an engaging user experience, and its partner bar associations with the volume and quality that their members demand.
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Taecan.com deployed Windows Media to stream course content for on-demand use and chose Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint 2002 to enhance seminar training content.
Windows Media is used for encoding, editing, and streaming online course materials. Taecan.com uses the Windows Media Encoder 7 to encode raw audio and video content into the Windows Media digital format, and Windows Media Services for Windows 2000 Server for delivery. Ease of use, compatible installed hardware base, and favorable cost of entry led Taecan.com to switch from Real Media to Windows Media. It now uses Windows Media for all new content and is in the process of migrating all older content into the Windows Media format.
Content is created in two ways: it’s provided by a partner in VHS, Beta, MiniDV, or DAT formats, or Taecan.com staff attends a seminar and captures the content (audio or video) directly. In some cases, content is digitized for online viewing and posted ‘as is’ to the Web. However, content containing detailed data usually requires enhancement and additional information.
Microsoft Producer makes it easy for Taecan.com production staff to edit video or audio and combine it with PowerPoint slides, HTML, and secondary audio tracks, resulting in a rich-media presentation. "In the past, we simply did not have a tool that would enable us to combine streaming video with a slide show. Now, with Producer, we can ensure a more interesting and higher quality user experience without a production hassle," says Jeff Hopkins, manager of the Information Technology department. "Using the Synchronize and Capture Wizards, the team can take the digitized audio or video and synchronize it with the slides and output it to Taecan.com’s media servers in just a few minutes."
For many customers, Tcan.com captures live CLE programming by assigning a professional production crew to a live CLE seminar sponsored by a bar association. The production process is quick and easy. After encoding the audio or video, a production specialist uses the Capture Wizard in Producer to index and synchronize all of the elements in the presentation.
"Choosing Producer to create rich-media content seemed obvious to us," Hopkins says. "Our demand for Producer coincided with its release."
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The combination of Windows Media and Producer provides a solution for Taecan.com that not only addresses current production, streaming, and customer service requirements, but also supports future growth of the online CLE industry.
Choosing the Windows Media platform has improved Taecan.com’s internal processes for delivering a high volume of partner CLE content by 100 percent. Using the Windows Media encoder, the production staff can generate content for multiple connection speeds (56k, 256k, T1, corporate LAN) with a single encoding pass. Eliminating the need for multiple encoding passes, the production staff can encode twice the volume of content. With this increased encoding speed, Taecan.com can respond to its bar association partners with higher volumes of complex CLE content—especially during deadline periods.
The seamless integration of Windows Media with Taecan.com’s existing hardware and software has fulfilled important corporate objectives: simplify the overall production process, reduce production time for partners, and reduce production costs internally.
The volume for streaming media-related customer support has decreased by nearly one third since migrating to the Windows Media platform. Because the majority of the legal community’s desktops run Windows, users are familiar with the Windows Media player and troubleshooting is minimal.
"Lawyers are busy serving their clients and with CLE mandatory in most states, they struggle to find time to travel to CLE seminars," Taecan.com CEO Patrick Vane says. "The Internet provides a convenient and cost-effective alternative. Viewing a course should be an engaging and easy experience. The Windows Media platform and the player make this possible."
Deadline pressures are often present, and the need to respond with a quick turnaround to multiple partner bar associations is essential.
"The online CLE we are able to deliver using the online facilities of Taecan.com gives us an additional educational medium and another means of delivery," says Cecil Caulkins, director of education at The Missouri Bar. “It makes our programming content available 24/7, and that is a plus.”
Deploying Windows Media and Producer has significantly enhanced productivity and efficiency. The production staff has improved its weekly course load, or production rate, by 900 percent with the production and deployment of more than 40 courses per week.
According to Mike McQuaid, a manager of major markets, "Our partner bar associations have a mandate to provide CLE programming to their members. Taecan.com’s rich-media initiative has enabled us provide them with the quality and volume they demand."
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This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
© 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Microsoft, PowerPoint, Windows, the Windows logo, and Windows Media are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
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Taecan.com provides online continuing legal education (CLE) to the legal community in North America and around the world. Most states require that attorneys earn a jurisdiction-specified number of CLE credits each year. Taecan.com uses Microsoft Windows Media® as its
