Cornell taps AV Solutions for online degree program

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Aug 11, 2006

EAST SYRACUSE - Cornell University has hired a company with offices in East Syracuse to design and install an on-campus control room and studio and off-site centers in cities across the country to support a new online degree program.

The company, AV Solutions, is a subsidiary of Toshiba Business Solutions New York.

The facilities will give Cornell's online students a more interactive program, which will include video conferencing. The experience will be similar to being in an actual classroom, without, the need to travel to Cornell.

Online classes are becoming the norm for many colleges these days. However, Cornell University says it is going beyond the Internet to a more interactive online program via video conferencing, enabling participants to earn their executive M.B.A. in a classroom setting without traveling to the Cornell campus.

The on-campus control room set up by AV Solutions resembles a television studio and is now on the Cornell campus tour for prospective students.

The biggest difference between the new program and early online efforts is actual interaction with instructors via video-conferencing. Students are put into learning teams of six to eight people and assigned a location in their home city where they meet three weekends of the month for 17 months.

Using twin 42-inch Sony plasma-screen monitors, students watch the professor through a live broadcast, which allows them to ask questions and receive responses. Information travels over the Internet.

The program is currently at capacity with 87 students and this fall will be at 17 sites in 14 different cities across the United States and Canada, With this technology, Cornell hopes to double its enrollment in the program by the 2007-2008 school year.