Rich media comes of age: how IHEs utilize the web's ability to deliver audio, video, and content to students anytime, and anyplace

University Business, Jan, 2005 by Elizabeth Crane

Widger places the arrival of the perfected integrated technology two years down the road, but he is no less certain of its arrival "An integrated solution will be all done and over by 2006," says Widger, "and it will be affordable, no more expensive than using your telephone."

Teaching How They Want to Learn

Students aren't worrying about an integrated solution, really. They just want to get the class they want when they want it. And that, says Dias, is driving development as well. When a class is available at any time, over the web, then a student's schedule gets that much more flexible. "It's like Tivo for college classes," he says. "Students nowadays have jobs and families. They want to fit classes in when they want."

With the ability to time shift any class and take it at any time, students on campus are taking advantage of the opportunity to take web-based classes as well. This can resolve scheduling conflicts (Is that Chemistry unit only offered at the same time as that must-take History course?) as well as suit personal preferences (No more 8 a.m. English). "Colleges deliver classes 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to a population better able to think from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.," says Dias. Web based classes appeal to the midnight crowd.

It also allows students to stay indoors, warm and dry when the trip to campus is long, wet, or cold. In Anchorage, Alaska (see sidebar), the five campuses of the University of Alaska have experienced an upswing in the usage of their online content, but not by the far-flung rural inhabitants of the state. "Ninety-five percent of kids enrolled in distance learning have an Anchorage area ZIP code," says Rich Whitney, chief information officer at the University of Alaska at Anchorage. He cites the same scheduling and convenience reasons for this, but he adds that his state has many of the same issues with reaching rural students that Rose Ann DiMaria has in West Virginia. Many students prefer not to drive to campus, Whitney says, either because it is too far or because the roads (or lack thereof) make the drive take an inordinately long time. Rural students, whose numbers are so small that to target their needs would be economically unfeasible, are benefiting from the demand of local students for the flexibility and ease of use of online classes. And with dial-up becoming a thing of the past and broadband moving in, Whitney fully expects that trend to continue.

Web Resources:

Sonic Foundry, Inc. www.sonicfoundry.com

Encounter Collaborative www.encounter.net

RELATED ARTICLE: Rich Media 101.

The term "webcast" has been used in many ways, from audio-only broadcasts over the internet to archived video/audio presentations archived on a proprietary server. The original idea of "webcasting" was the broadcast of images in a highly compressed form, says James Dias, vice president of Marketing and Sales at Sonic Foundry, Inc., the makers of MediaSite Live. In other words, it was simply moving broadcast-type media, like TV, over the web. Over time, webcast "has taken on a broader meaning as a catch-all for using compressed video. We call what we do synchronized rich media," Dias says.