Technical Guidelines

These guidelines were written by Vika Zafrin, Digital Scholarship Librarian.

You will be going out into the field and recording audio and/or video interviews. These guidelines explain what equipment and software you’ll need, and walk you through creating sample audio and video files, uploading them to the Russian Chat website, and publishing the interviews.

Technical Assumptions

We assume that you have a laptop running Windows or Mac OS, and a smartphone running iOS or Android, that you can use in this class. If you do not have these, or if they are running another operating system, please let Prof. Malykhina know ASAP and contact Dr. Zafrin as per below.

What You Will Need

• Hardware
  • A phone tripod — optional, but strongly recommended. These are available for purchase on Amazon for $9-25 or so. It doesn’t need to be fancy; tabletop is fine.
• Software
  • Laptop
    • Adobe Creative Cloud, and within it, Audition CC. You will use Audition to record, edit, and compress audio-only interviews.
    • VLC media player. You will use this free and open-source software to compress video interviews.
  • Phone
    • Adobe Premiere Clip. You will use this to record video interviews.

Software Setup

• Adobe Creative Cloud
  • First, request a free-to-you license from IS&T. Allow a couple of days to receive this license.
  • While you’re waiting for the license, acquaint yourself with the suite if you haven’t already.
  • Once you have received this license, follow IS&T installation instructions for Mac or Windows as appropriate.
  • Once you’ve installed Creative Cloud, follow the Installing Individual Applications instructions at the link above, and install Audition CC.
• VLC media player
  • Install it on your laptop from here, for the appropriate operating system.
• Adobe Premiere Clip
  • Install this free app on your phone from the app store.
  • The following instructions for logging in with your BU credentials were created using APC for iOS. Doing this on an Android phone should be very similar or identical:
    • Start up app; skip past any suggested additional app downloads
    • Press “Sign In” and accept the “Automatic Backup Enabled” notice. Enter your full BU email address (yourusername@bu.edu) in the email address field. DO NOT enter your Kerberos password or anything else in the Password field. Press “Sign in.”
    • You should see a screen that says “Choose an account for [your email address].” Press “Enterprise ID.”
    • You should be redirected to the usual BU web login window, with the BU logo at the top. Log in as you do for any other BU service (your username is NOT your full email address here).
    • You should see an empty My Projects screen. If you see it, you’re done. If you have any trouble with this, contact the IT Help Center (see below).

Questions?

If you have trouble with the installations, please contact the IT Help Center (353-HELP or open a ticket here).

What’s Next?

After you’re done with the technical setup, please proceed to the Technical Setup Assignments.