by Michelle Hermann
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Likewise, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), a consortium of 14 universities across Pennsylvania, uses Wimba Collaboration Suite to conduct real-time meetings from its system office in Harrisburg. “We have campuses that are four, five hours away, so it’s just not practical for a lot of folks to come to Harrisburg for a two-hour meeting when you have to spend eight to 10 hours on the road for it,” says Bob Hails, distance learning coordinator.
IN 2005, ADMINISTRATORS AT RUTGERS, THE STATE UNIVERSITY of New Jersey, encountered a hefty challenge when major construction on a key connecting road between its largest campus and New Jersey interstates threatened to disrupt travel and create traffic headaches that summer—a project that was expected to take more than three years to complete. Fortunately, Raphael J. Caprio, vice president for Continuous Education and Outreach, had planned a year ahead to combat the commuting chaos with videoconferencing. The solution incorporated Sony’s PCS-TL50 IP-based desktop videoconferencing units, which enabled more than two dozen deans scattered across five campuses to conduct regular meetings and ad hoc communications.
Videoconferencing is most often touted for distance learning, but the technology is also changing how campus business is conducted. With high gas prices, airfares, and other travel costs, as well as university matters reaching beyond the campus grounds, officials are turning to videoconferencing as an efficient and cost-effective method for meeting in real time.
Since video equipment is already heavily used for educational purposes, higher ed institutions do not have to necessarily start a business-minded conferencing system from scratch, says Joan Vandermate, vice president of marketing for the video solutions group of Polycom. “They already have a great framework to start from.” She and others at Polycom are seeing some IHEs simply leverage the systems deployed in classrooms and other institutions adding a few more additional units, for conference rooms, to their existing networks.
It doesn’t hurt that videoconferencing has come a long way. Early adopters experienced costly equipment, the need to install ISDN lines, and herky-jerky deliverance, says Jan Zanetis, a market development manager of education and training for Tandberg. Today’s systems cost as low as a few thousand dollars, operate through an internet connection, and have high-definition video and audio. With adjustments made to suit a network’s firewall settings, systems are set to go upon installation.
Lee M. Colaw, vice president of information services at Pacific University (Ore.), led the effort in July 2006 to connect Pacific’s four campuses. Creative Labs’ mobile videoconferencing unit, Creative inPerson, was selected. The university now has 31 Creative inPerson units, with president’s cabinet members, deans, and department directors each having one. “It’s just been another tool in our toolbox for increasing communications,” says Colaw.
The university is based in Forest Grove but also has a health professions campus in Hillsboro, a psychology and optometry campus in downtown Portland, and an education campus in Eugene. Faculty and staff meetings often meant having to drive to a central location and rent a hotel room, not to mention being out of the office. Videoconferencing “has significantly cut down on trips. We will continue to do a lot more of that,” says Colaw.
On the East Coast, the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems at Pace University (N.Y.) is using videoconferencing for meetings involving faculty and staff from its campuses in New York City and Westchester County, which are about 40 miles apart. As Constance A. Knapp, interim dean, points out, “Every time I get on a train to come to the city for a meeting, it costs my school about 20 dollars.”
The conference room on Pace’s Pleasantville campus converts to a videoconference room. Knapp says the setup “affords us the time to do that, when there is no way I could travel for two hours for a half-hour meeting.” Pace’s network can connect up to five large rooms on five campuses, two of which are usually set up for videoconferencing. Any one of the rooms can go out of network and hook up to another location on a Pace campus or elsewhere. They were developed about a decade ago for teaching so that courses with lower enrollment on each campus could be combined, says James F. Stenerson, director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology.
The University of Notre Dame (Ind.) is another videoconferencing veteran. The technology was used primarily for the executive MBA program and for student career placement efforts. Others began requesting a videoconferencing facility for meetings, explains Dewitt Latimer, deputy CIO and chief technology officer, and about three years ago a facility designed for videoconferencing was constructed.
Videoconferencing plays a major role for Notre Dame in correspondence between states and overseas. During the 2007-2008 academic year, a total of 118 video and Access Grid conferences and 15 WebEx sessions—connecting to 11 different countries and 20 states—were conducted. The university’s London program has used international videoconferencing the most. “Two or three times a year, we would make a trip over there,” says Latimer. “This allows us to conduct face-to-face meetings now anytime we need to.”
Notre Dame has a Polycom 9004 high-definition, fixed-room system housed within the new videoconference facility in the IT Center that can seat up to 18 people, as well as a portable system consisting of a Polycom FX single camera codec and two flat-panel LCD monitors that access a 100MB Ethernet connection. Access Grid videoconferencing software is used to host multipoint videoconferences, primarily among other research institutions and national labs.
Videoconferencing has changed Notre Dame’s employee interview process too. Arrangements are made to get potential candidates to a facility so that interviews can be conducted by video. “[We’re] much more inclined to do it now via a videoconference to get it down to just the final one or two candidates before we fly them in,” says Latimer.
For Pacific’s various health clinics, meanwhile, Creative inPerson units have been used when a technician or an attending doctor is away, to enhance communications with professors on the Forest Grove campus when another opinion is needed, says Colaw. Both staff and students use videoconferencing to work jointly on committees and projects, such as a partnership with a remote hospital.
The central information technology office controls the scheduling and equipment of these large rooms. In addition, says Stenerson, “The [academic] schools have developed their own smaller videoconferencing units to take care of any additional meeting requirements they may have and even some courses.”
Collaboration with Education
Videoconferencing is also becoming a channel for collaboration and training for educators. Professors can get together over video to work on projects or with professional organizations. Tandberg’s Zanetis has seen educators present at conferences from a remote location.
The Georgia Digital Innovation Group at Georgia College and State University, which brings resources for collaboration to higher education and K-12, uses Apple’s iChat and the Elluminate Learning Suite not just to carry on business but also to host and present conferences, institutes, and summits from its home base in Milledgeville, Ga. Apple’s application presents several user options—such as text, audio, or full audio/video—that allow for participants to be seen in real time and in a conference table format. Elluminate’s suite facilitates large online events by supporting the entire cycle—what happens before, during, and after the real-time online session.
Apple’s iChat “duplicates and mimics as if we are sitting around a table talking,” says DI Group Director Jim Wolfgang. “We can share applications. We can do slideshows, show a keynote presentation mainly in a work session environment or as a guest speaker presentation. The record feature provides the equivalent of electronic minutes.”
Wolfgang used Video iChat on a weekly basis to develop a workshop and two presentations for a national conference with a Georgia College colleague and Keith Politte, manager of the Technology Testing Center at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. “It made it much easier, using video chat for us to plan over the eight weeks,” says Wolfgang.
In September, the DI Group used Elluminate to host a live online conference for 180 nursing faculty throughout the University System of Georgia. Eight speakers were connected to 40 locations. Due to Hurricane Hannah, several participants dialed in from home. Prior to the Elluminate solution, the drive-in conference of 50 registrants was to be canceled because of budget cuts.
The Utah Education Network, which provides training and technical support for teachers, is also using videoconferencing for professional development. A weekly half-hour program known as “The Faculty Lounge” centers on demonstrating emerging technologies such as podcasting and Web 2.0. Delivered through Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional and Adobe Captivate 2 software, the program allows K-12 and higher ed teachers to join the live web conference show from their homes or classrooms. “It’s just another place they can come to try to get a handle on what is happening with technology and get some ideas of how to better use it with students,” says Tim Stack, web academy coordinator and instructor. “It gives them a chance to see that they are not the only folks out there trying to figure some of this [technology] out.” The shows are recorded and archived.
Likewise, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), a consortium of 14 universities across Pennsylvania, uses Wimba Collaboration Suite to conduct real-time meetings from its system office in Harrisburg.
“We have campuses that are four, five hours away, so it’s just not practical for a lot of folks to come to Harrisburg for a two-hour meeting when you have to spend eight to 10 hours on the road for it,” says Bob Hails, distance learning coordinator.
All PASSHE members, ranging from the Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, outside of Erie, to West Chester University, outside of Philadelphia, have videoconferencing facilities. In Harrisburg, PASSHE has six videoconferencing rooms, with its multisite bridge managed by the network operations center at West Chester. Two examples of how PASSHE has used videoconferencing:
--In January 2007, for a summit on planning for the pandemic flu. The summit touched on areas of concern, from facilities to residential life, in the case of an outbreak.
--This September, for a Bloomberg University (Pa.) faculty member talk on promoting study abroad. Five breakout sessions occurred simultaneously in Wimba-based virtual rooms, and attendees could move from room to room.
Shades of Green
Videoconferencing is often thought of as a green saver, but it’s not just money that can be saved with the technology. Qumu, which offers a web-based software solution designed to manage video applications and leverage existing video, storage, and distribution hardware, helps users see how the technology promotes sustainability as well. Its online calculator can help higher ed users estimate what their institution’s carbon footprint would be. Qumu also has a list of 10 green ways video can be incorporated in common business operations.
These tools “can help produce the type of quantitative data that says the university is consuming this much less carbon,” explains Scott Safe, Qumu’s vice president of product strategy and marketing. Safe adds that the reasoning behind videoconferencing is often driven more by communication needs but that adding a green objective can justify the savings that come with using it.
Vendors are also marketing the environmental benefits of videoconferencing. Tandberg’s green-focused website (www.seegreennow.com), for example, offers calculations along with educational tips about reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Qumu’s website has similar tools and tips.
A more visible bonus to using videoconferencing is getting administrators, faculty, and staff comfortable with the technology. Using it can become so second nature, campus communities may eventually long for the occasional in-person meeting. At Pace, which held planning meetings for an annual faculty institute on campus this way, Knapp says, “it’s gotten to the point where we’ve actually started to miss seeing each other, and we thought we should really meet once a semester face to face.”