Purdue podcasts class lectures

Kelly Clarkson's latest single now has to split time with economics lectures on some Purdue University students' iPods.\nPurdue students can now access BoilerCast -- an online service debuting this semester which offers regularly updated audio recording of so me lectures.\nThe program meshes audio recording equipment already available in most large lecture halls with the new technique of "podcasting."\nStudents use the service by streaming the lectures through media players programs such as iTunes or by manually downloading individual files from the BoilerCast Web site, said Michael Gay, manager of broadcast networks and services for information technology at Purdue. \n"We wanted to make it available to as many people as possible, so we deployed it as kind of an all-in-one system to make it as ubiquitous as we could," Gay said. \nAudio recordings are available online 10 to 15 minutes after a given lecture ends, he said.\nBoilerCast experienced approximately 1,000 downloads of 35 courses online in the University's first week of classes, he said. As of yesterday, those numbers had increased to 2,000 downloads with 50 courses registered for the service.\nPurdue is not alone in offering online recordings of some lectures, however.\nProfessors teaching between 40 and 50 classes at various campuses in the IU system use either video conference technology or audio-only mp3 files to record their lectures -- mostly for distance learning, said James McGookey of University Information Technology Services. Most of the digitally recorded classes are taught at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis because fewer students live on campus, McGookey said. \nThree professors at IU-PUI participated in a pilot project this spring using iPods with microphone adapters to record their lectures, he said. \n"However, (the project) was designed in an open enough fashion that it's not necessary to use an iPod to record," McGookey said. "Any type of mp3 player, voice recorder or PC with the right setup could be used just as easily."\nMcGookey designed an interface allowing professors to download .wav or .mp3 files onto a central system, said Kurt Guinn, manager of digital media and network services for UITS.\n"IU-PUI was the first target," he said. "But some professors at the Bloomington campus have expressed interest in the technology as well."\nRooms in the lecture hall building at IUPUI have had the capability to record audio as mp3 files for several years now, McGookey said. \n"We've had the iStream system since 2001," he said. "We've had automated streaming capability since that time."\nProfessors who record their lectures can make such files accessible to students at www.indiana.edu/~istream, McGookey said. Students then copy and paste a course-specific URL into the settings of an audio player such as iTunes, he said.\nSome professors may also record their lectures independently of the University's iStream system, McGookey said. "If we set it up for them, though, all they have to do is make sure their microphone is turned on," he added.\nThe central location of the captured files is similar to one utilized by a new service debuting this semester at Purdue, McGookey said.\nUpgrading to the digital age and "podcasting" technology reflects newer, more innovative approaches to presenting information.\n"BoilerCast is really just an upgrade of what was previously a cassette-based audio recording system," Gay said. "It was a terrible inconvenience for students to have to go to the undergraduate library with blank cassettes to copy recordings of their large lecture courses."\nGay added that in one particularly competitive course, students were even known to erase the tapes in order to get an edge on their classmates.\n"Fortunately we weren't keeping the original recordings in the library and were able to salvage them," he said. "But with digital recordings and streaming capability, we don't have to handle any media at all."\nDespite the convenience of services such as iStream and BoilerCast, though, some students and professors expressed concern for possible negative effects.\n"I think the ability to replay lectures could greatly help students by giving them another way to study instead of just note-taking," Purdue sophomore Chris Kanitra said. "However, I can see students using the new technology as a way to avoid going to class."\nGay said he believes otherwise.\n"Any student who thinks this is a viable surrogate for actual class attendance is really fooling himself," he said. "Students who would skip as a result of this service are probably the same students who would be skipping class anyway"