Paul Riismandel

I think 2008 is going to be a big year in educational video, where more forward-looking universities and colleges will be devising and implementing campus-wide media strategies. Key to such strategies are production and ingest, and commercial course-capture systems are one way to simplify this.

The downside to course-capture systems, like Echo360, Tegrity, Mediasite and Accordent (to name just four) is cost. Depending on which system one chooses there can be a pretty signficant initial capital outlay on equipment and software, followed by annual license costs. However, compared to sending out an army of undergraduates armed with camcorders across a campus, course capture systems are a cleaner, often more scalable solution.

Where even just two years ago online video was seen as something mostly in the domain of distance education, increasingly it’s being used to supplement and enhance traditional in-class, brick and mortar instruction. Today’s NY Times has an article on the rising use of these systems to provide in-class course lecture videos to students as streams or podcast, focusing on big universities like Perdue and Kansas State, in addition to commuter schools like El Centro College in Texas.

Like smart clasrooms and learning management systems, the time is very near where students and faculty will come to regard course-capture as an expectation rather than a nicety. Being able to review course lectures will be a factor in choosing a college or university for an increasing number of top students.

Many top-tier institutions would like to think that course-capture is mostly for lazy students who want to cut class or for lower-achieving students who need all the help they can get. On the former, I think they’re wrong. My experience is that the students who will cut class because they think they can make it up by watching the video are inclined to cut class anyway. These are the students who jam my department’s servers the night before an exam thinking they can somehow watch and digest a half-semester of biology in one night.

In fact, what I think we’re finding is that it’s the motivated student who benefits most from being able to review course-lectures, since they allow her to check the accuracy of her own notes by going right to the source. The student already prepared to do well will only further excel when given additional tools and resources. The student who is struggling but wants to do well will also benefit by using videos as a virtual tutor and a way to jog her memory.

Now, course-capture is not suited to every sort of course. Small enrollment classes that focus heavily on discussion and interaction with the instructor may not prove as valuable on video. But large lecture courses with a dominant lecture component are ripe.

There are a lot of ways to go about course-capture. But I think the university or college that doesn’t start working on a strategy now is going to find itself struggling as peer institutions charge ahead.