Avid Delivers At MBO College Hilversum

In September 2013, 60 Students at the MBO College Hilversum (ROCvA) embarked on the institution's first media operator course. A combination of on-campus learning and internships at leading broadcasters, post-production facilities, government institutions and libraries, the course has been developed with the help of Avid educational initiatives to inspire the next generation of storytellers.
Creative professionals on the three-year course acquire a deep understanding of the entire production chain, from acquisition and ingest, through to advanced editing, media management and archiving.
To combat the growing skills gap for professional media production operators in the Netherlands, Avid, MBO College Hilversum and United Broadcasting collaboratively devised a practical course for media production. To give students access to state of the art technology, Avid deployed an end-to-end workflow comprising Interplay Production Asset Manager, ISIS 5000 shared storage and 16 Media Composer editing suites at the heart of the college's facility.
As part of the agreement, MBO College Hilversum (ROCvA) also became an Avid Learning Partner (ALP). The course follows an Avid Certified Training syllabus localised into Dutch to ensure students are taught media production skills to the highest standards and come out of the course prepared for the demands of today's professional media workplace. Students are assessed quarterly during the three years and sit Media Composer 101 and Media Composer 110 exams at the end of it, which are provided in Dutch by Avid.
MBO College Hilversum media operator course prides itself on the combination of campus learning and internships with established and respected media organisations. Second-year students start the year with a six-month internship working as a media operator. The skills they acquire during the first year of the course - mastering ingest, logging, editing and media management throughout the Avid workflow - ensures they are ready for the demands of a professional working environment, enables them to actively contribute to the media organisation and gain invaluable skills for their careers.
During the course, United Broadcasting also provides onsite training from professionals working in the media room, galleries and OB vans to give students an exact feel for how file-based media is managed during live broadcasts.
Caroline Dogterom, associate consultant at Avid, who was instrumental in bringing together the three companies to devise the course, sums up what the qualification means to media operator students studying in the Netherlands. "For Avid, MBO College Hilversum and United Broadcasting to collaboratively come together is a great example of how all three companies are helping to nurture and inspire the next generation of creative professionals to becoming our future storytellers."
She concludes: "This initiative has been three years in the making. Now with a programme that's centred around industry-standard Avid solutions, MBO College Hilversum is setting a new benchmark for media production education in the Netherlands."

Read the article in the online edition of RFV here.

(IT/JP)