Downloadable audio files of lectures may soon be offered free of charge by the University.
A program that the Pick-A-Prof Web site began in early September with a $5-per-lecture charge has been converted to a free service for the University. The administration is working out the kinks so that the University can begin its own podcasting service through the Blackboard Web site.
"This is something we have to go about very carefully, as we still have to work out what we can use and what we can't," said Judy Ashcroft, associate vice president of the University's Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment. She added that her department has been closely following Duke University and what it has been doing in terms of using iPods.
The technology itself has been found useful, in spite of debate about whether professors have the right to sell their lectures.
Under the original Pick-A-Prof plan, professors would receive half of all revenue made from selling the podcast lectures.
The lectures do belong to the professors, but Vice Provost Sheldon Eckland-Olson said that the University has a policy that prohibits students from having to pay to download a lecture when they've already paid to attend the course.
"A lot of these technology issues raise new issues, and we're just trying to work through them," Eckland-Olson said. He said that no actual statute exists for distributing audio versions of lectures. Based on University legal counsel, intellectual property rights cover professors' right to sell their writings but not their lectures.
Advertising professor Gary Wilcox was one of three faculty members who joined Pick-A-Prof to test out the podcasting feature earlier this month.
"There's some complicated issues about the ownership of the lecture and who has the rights that I don't want to get into, but really my only goal was to experiment with the technology," said Wilcox.
He pointed out that in his class of 60 to 65 students, about one-fourth have downloaded the lectures in the past two weeks. At the beginning of the semester, only three or four students were downloading the podcasts. Wilcox partially attributes the spike in usage to an upcoming test in his class.
"That's the reason you do this sort of pilot," Wilcox said. "To see if it turns out beneficial to students, because there's no other reason to do it, and then we can roll it out University-wide."
Ashcroft said that at the moment, integrating the podcasts into Blackboard has been progressing slowly because many professors do not want to surrender intellectual property rights to downloadable files, even though the lectures would be restricted by electronic identification to class members.
Podcasts are not the only technological initiative the University is taking at this point. Early Wednesday afternoon, the instructional division received approval on a proposal to work with the multimedia center in the Flawn Academic Center. They plan to offer all students the opportunity to work with recording and editing of audio and video. Ashcroft said the details of the plan have yet to be worked out.
