Report on Lecture Capture Study

Thanks to Kathy Spicer who left a printout of the 9/23 Inside Higher Ed (IHE) news piece, "I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please." It also showed up in today's Campus Technology (CT)Research section as "Lecture Capture: No Longer Optional?." Here's a blurb from the Inside Higher Ed article:

The study, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's E-Business Institute, tackles the much-discussed question of students' preferences for traditional versus online learning with unusual rigor. Based on a survey of more than 29,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the university, the study had a response rate of over 25 percent. Almost half of the undergraduates -- 47 percent -- had taken a class with lectures available for online viewing.

Campus Technology's summarized it this way: "about 7,500 undergraduate and graduate students, an overwhelming 82 percent of students said they would prefer courses that offer online lectures over traditional classes that do not include an online lecture component. The researchers also pointed out the implications for these findings extend well beyond the classroom."

The good news part of the study for us is "When asked why they prefer courses that offer streaming lectures online, most students cited making up for missed classes, convenience, improving retention of materials covered, improving test scores, and help with material review prior to class." (CT) Interestingly, "Over 60 percent of respondents said they would pay for lecture capture capabilities, and of those, 69 percent said they would be willing to pay on a "course-by-course" basis rather than bundled fees." (IHE)

We've had mroe and more vendors approach us about the products they sell that can do this. LTC used to do this in selected ILC classrooms using Virage, but our license was never updated (funding issue) and it was discontinued before Fall semester 2007. We should have the capability to do video capture using Podcast Producer. This would require equipping classrooms with video cameras, but appears to be a much less expensive way to go.