From Gloucester to Cornwall, Moving Image Education (MIE) hubs are evolving throughout the South West, explains Richard White. Screenings of media made by young people, seminars that link into the media curriculum and in-service training, as well as regular meetings of members, are features of these hubs. The existence of a well-established media centre with a recognised education function was a clear benefit in establishing hubs in Bristol and Exeter; but developing a hub for Swindon and Wiltshire, has required different strategies.
Swindon has a long-established media arts and education organisation, Cre8 Studios, but despite the popularity of media in the curriculum and as a community arts medium there was no county-wide network. In 2002, Wiltshire Youth Arts Partnership responded to an initiative from South West Screen to help develop a MIE hub for Swindon and Wiltshire. At about that time Wiltshire College gained Centre Of Vocational Excellence (CoVE) status in Digital and Broadcast Media. The College recognised the hub as an important tool for collaboration and disseminating good practice and put their expertise and resources behind it. Erratic attendance and difficulties associated with the timing and location of meetings has adversely affected the startup of the hub. The CoVE team, on the basis of experience using bulletin board technology in elearning, proposed the use of this technology as a solution to this problem.
Supported by a small grant from SW Screen, the Wiltshire College?s Interactive Media Centre built a portal and bulletin board for the hub (Hubbub). The portal offers links to hub members? sites and the bulletin board provides a range of moderated discussions and notice boards. Access from the portal is restricted with most content only accessible to registered members.
Hubbub was launched in January 2004. A number of collaborations that pre-existed the bulletin board are continuing to develop and discussions are taking place on media training and education topics. Monitoring of the site shows that there are considerably more hits than there are contributions. There is much to do in terms of turning those hits into registered members actively contributing. Some further functionality has recently been added and a new forum created to reflect interest from other MIE hubs in the region.
It is too early to assess the value of Hubbub to Swindon and Wiltshire MIE hub. Bulletin boards grow organically and it is anticipated that the combination of developmental work by active hub members and the interest and support of the other hubs in the region will have that effect. Building a virtual community that has tangible outputs not only has to overcome the fear of commitment involved in delivering on those outputs but has to overcome the anxieties associated with new ways of working. Nevertheless the virtual community at Hubbub is an innovative attempt at compressing time, dispensing with geography and making face-to-face meetings the hot encounters they should be.
Richard White is Development Officer: Interactive Media Centre, part of the Wiltshire College Centre of Vocational Excellence in Digital and Broadcast Media e: richardwhite@wiltscoll.ac.uk; w: http://www.imc24.co.uk; http://www.mediahubbub.co.uk; http://www.wyap.org.uk