Our relatively short research journey into Macromedia and its use at Johns Hopkins University took us to several other examples of web conferencing/live-online-meeting tools: namely Centra, which was acquired by SABA in January, and Linktivity. Centra Symposium is the web conferencing tool of choice for the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Instructional Technology Lab (ITL). Linktivity’s web conferencing tool is being used at UIC’s College of Medicine Department of Medical Education (DME).
 
Of course, there are other major web conferencing/live-online-meeting tools out there that we did not cover in this issue of Educational Pathways - such as Elluminate, Horizon Wimba, Microsoft Office Live Meeting, and WebX. All of these, by the way, are also excellent choices.

WebDemo Tools Working Well

At the UIC DME, Gerald Stapleton, associate director for Distance Education, told us how DME adopted the Linktivity WebDemo product about five years ago. Linktivity was acquired by Inter-Tel in October 2004 and now refers to WebDemo as part of its Web Conferencing Express, Professional or Enterprise versions. Stapleton added that DME is a self-supporting unit very much concerned about the cost of the technology it utilizes, and WebDemo was more affordable and not much different than any of the much more brand-identifiable, aforementioned web conferencing tools. Plus, at the time of the DME’s adoption, some of the other major web conferencing products were not so brand-recognizable or even in existence yet.

DME has used WebDemo inside its distance education Master of Health Professions Education program. However, most recently it has been used primarily for its DME Seminars initiative, which was launched in the Spring of 2004. The DME Seminars are webcasts comprised of PowerPoint slide presentations with audio and video that are streamed to the Real Player format and also converted to podcasts. These “casts” cover UIC College of Medicine works-in-progress, as well general topics of interest to medical educators. Professionals in the health professions are invited to attend. Stapleton, for instance, recently presented a seminar titled “Connecting Learners in the Digital Classroom: Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, and Other Tools for Communicating and Collaborating.” At press time, 13 webcasts, all freely accessible to the public, were archived at the DME site, with titles ranging from “Combatting Oral-Health Disparities: A Manpower Approach” and “What Factors Influence Under Represented Minorities in Their Choice of Medical Schools?” to “Medical Education for Cultural Competence” and “Embryo Wars: The Ethics of Human Stem Cell Research.”

“These seminars have really enabled us to reach out to people,” says Stapleton. “We have found WebDemo to be a very useful and user-friendly tool.”

Simplifying the Recording and Archival Processes

DME Research Information Specialist Phillip Bertulfo explains that the webcasts and podcasts are created inexpensively, with not-so-high-tech, but adequate, equipment. Basically, Bertulfo has a Canon camcorder connected to a computer for video recording (without any special lighting equipment) and some audio recording equipment for audio recording that he takes into the room where the webcast is being presented. The audio equipment consists of a microphone and a Yamaha mixing board also connected to the computer that uses a program called Sony Sound Forge for recording into a WAV file as the presentation is being webcasted. When the presentation is completed, Bertulfo converts the WAV file into an MP3 file and publishes that as an audio podcast. Within one week of the presentation, he syncs together the video, audio, and PowerPoint slides and archives it all on the DME Seminars website.

“We are sort of like a garage band operation,” jokes Bertulfo. “But our faculty have responded in very positive ways. We get a lot of requests from faculty to let them know when the archive is finished so they can forward the URL to colleagues they know would benefit from the seminar.”

Gadget Geeks with iPods

Stapleton and Bertfulo both agree that the audio podcasting segments of their seminars seem to be the next wave for disseminating information to interested audiences. “There are a lot of gadget geeks out there who are MDs or want to be MDs,” says Bertulfo, referring to the increasing population of professionals (not just teens) who own iPods these days. “We thought this would be another way for individuals who travel to conferences, for instance, to make use of their time more positively by tuning into a podcast of one of our seminars.”

Other Web-based Collaboration Tools at UIC

In another department of the UIC campus, Ed Garay, director of the UIC Instructional Technology Lab (ITL), which is part of the UIC Academic Computing and Communications Center, explains that, overall, he is seeing an increased interest in using multimedia and interactive technologies to facilitate learning. In addition to on-ground and online courses increasingly using online discussion boards, for instance, “we are also seeing web conferencing systems being used to carry on real-time class activities either physically in a room with external audiences (viewing and listening synchronously online), or with external speakers or guest expert speakers being beamed in. We are also seeing the capturing of all that information and making it available for on-demand uses.”

Garay explains that while UIC runs and advocates the use of live, high quality video conferencing over IP networks - created without the expense of using dedicated circuits or an ISDN (integrated services digital network) - “to leverage the infrastructure we have on campus with all the research one institutions and Internet2,” he and his staff are increasingly producing asynchronous and synchronous learning environments that require creating and archiving webcasts developed with Centra Symposium.

“Web conferencing excels at communication or collaboration activities where a talking head or watching people’s faces is less important, and where it is more important to share computer screens or presentations or web tours with voice, and to allow for different degrees of communication and interactivity,” he says.

Why Centra?

ITL bought into Centra, which is branded through ITL as ACCC eRooms, about three years ago. Garay says their choice was driven by two primary factors: 1. It was easy to implement a hosting scenario whereby ITL runs and maintains its own Centra server. “We control the servers; we control the backups and the networks,” he says. “In the end, it becomes a less expensive proposition. We simply bought an inexpensive server and gave it a lot of bandwidth” (than other web conferencing options tool providers that control the server solution and have additional maintenance fees). 2. Centra is easy to use, and does not require a great deal of technical assistance. Garay explains that faculty have learned how to use the tool quickly when they schedule a web conference through the ACCC eRoom service. “We encourage them to take a 20 minute crash course on how to use the tool, but many don’t even do that because it really is very easy to use.”

Replacing Video Conferencing

Garay claims that, in many instances, web conferencing has started to replace video conferencing at UIC, especially in the College of Medicine and College of Nursing. Instead of what used to be marathon-like talking and presenting via video conferences held in video conference centers/rooms, faculty are seeing the benefits of facilitating more interaction and sharing of files and applications with web conferencing tools. Plus there is the added flexibility for people to attend, or present at, web conferencing events form their own computer stations, thus eliminating the necessity of traveling to and from video conference rooms.

Medical schools, for instance, customarily hold what’s called “grand rounds,” which are regularly scheduled review sessions where timely information and case studies are shared between medical professionals. Many of these are now more conveniently being conducted via web conferencing as opposed to video conferencing.

Like UIC’s DME, ITL archives many of the web conferences it hosts and also records and converts the audio into the MP3 format for podcasting, says Garay. “A live webcast might have 20 to 30 people, and then we look at the logs for on-demand use for that same webcast that was archived and the numbers grow exponentially to 3,000 or 4,000 people.”

Websites:

UIC College of Medicine Department of Medical Education
(Note: Click on “Educational Programs” to get to DME Seminars link.)

UIC Instructional Technology Lab

UIC ACCC eRooms Website

UIC Academic Computing and Communications Center

Centra

Linktivity

Elluminate

Horizon Wimba

Microsoft Office Live Meeting

WebX

Sony Sound Forge