Mark Nestor
Campus Chief Information Officer
Miami Dade College Medical Center Campus
What do you do when leading edge classroom technology isn't quite good enough? Mark Nestor shares the Miami-Dade experience.
Your campus embraced podcasting early. What limitation did you discover?
iTunesU was implemented across the entire college in 2007. It's been an overall success with 7,000 to 8,000 downloaded podcasts weekly. But it was little used on our medical campus. That group of faculty felt the production time and effort for each podcast was excessive. When we analyzed the production requirements together, I came to agree with them.
As you began looking for a solution, what classroom limitation also became your concern?
We formed a college-wide committee and discovered the obvious. Faculty speak faster (120 words per minute) than students write (20 words per minute). Students in the classroom are focusing their attention on writing notes, rather than understanding the material.
How many people were affected by the speed problem?
At the medical campus, probably all 3,000 students. Perhaps even 170,000 Miami-Dade students at one time or another. Perhaps anyone who's ever attended a class and tried to capture an entire lecture by note-taking. The eventual solution is actually one of those 'Boy I wish they had that when I was in school!'
Who helped in the search for solutions, and how many solutions were considered?
Ten committee members shopped seven companies with lecture capture solutions. Within two months we narrowed the list to three finalists.
What helped make the shopping process successful?
We were pleased with all three finalists, and we felt that each of them would have been a good choice. A marketplace with some maturity makes the shopping process enjoyable. The vendors were free with their time, including hands-on time with their solutions. All of those factors made it very unlikely we would make a wrong choice.
What solution did you select, and when?
A couple months later in fall 2008 we chose Panopto. They are a relative newcomer to the marketplace. They have a software-based solution that originated at Carnegie Mellon University, and it was easy to install on campus servers, in classroom computers, and on faculty computers at home. We also like their Socrates Project which provides the software at no cost to higher education, and we pay only for support, which is quite good. The software itself has proved to be stable and quite user-friendly. At this time, one hundred faculty members have signed up to use it.
What money results can you cite?
We've spent zero on software licensing, which represents an estimated savings of as much as $100,000. During year one we spent just $6,000 for support, but that will likely incresase as more faculty adopt the product. We've not had to purchase any new hardware during year one, because we were able to use existing excess capacity. Additional personnel have not been necessary.
What classroom results can you cite?
The instructor and his or her lecture are visible on a web page in video and text. With cross-links, fast-forward, rewind and the like. Critics are fond of predicting that lecture capture solutions result in fewer students attending classes. That has proven untrue here, as we've seen no reduction in classroom attendance.
What student satisfaction results can you cite?
Local anecdotes confirm recent research that lecture capture solutions improve student satisfaction - and learning performance as well. Our students tell us they like it very much. In fact, Panopto automatically creates a podcast version of the lecture in addition to the web-based version. This has allowed us to send a copy of iTunesU with minimal effort--a feature that students love. And once our students have tasted it, they want more.
Do you see another killer app on the medical horizon?
Absolutely: electronic health records. And I see a marketplace explosion coming for people with health informatics expertise and skills.