Webcast viewed in various lights

Fourth-year history student Daniel Benji never used to miss
lectures if he could help it. Only an emergency could have kept him
away.

But that was before BruinCast, a new service being tested in
four classes this quarter, which videotapes lectures and puts them
online for later viewing.

Now Benji is a little more ambivalent.

“Instead of going to class, I watch the lecture
(online),” he said. “It’s just as
good.”

After seven weeks of testing the program, some professors using
BruinCast are starting to show concern with attendance levels in
their Webcasted classes as students express varying levels of usage
of BruinCast. And though other professors are showing an interest
having the service in their classes next quarter, the longer-term
effects of the program are yet undetermined.

For example, history Professor Geoffrey Symcox has seen his
course’s attendance decrease more than usual and believes
that the Webcasts were not meant to be used as a replacement for
lecture.

“I think that you miss something in the Webcast,”
Symcox said. “The Webcast isn’t like being
there.”

Political science Professor John Zaller has seen a similar trend
in class attendance. But he said while he prefers that his students
come to class, as long as they understand the material and attend
all the quizzes and tests, he cannot find any good argument against
their staying home for lectures.

On the other hand, Professor Dimitri Shlyakhtenko, who teaches
the Webcasted Math 31B, has not seen the same decrease in his class
and believes the effect of BruinCast insubstantial to warrant its
use.

In a survey he conducted earlier in the quarter, only about half
the responding students ranked BruinCast as highly useful to
them.

“I don’t see such a tremendously big benefit to it
that I would go out of my way to make sure they videotaped
it,” Shlyakhtenko said. He added that there also seemed to be
no detriment to the class in having it videotaped and was not
opposed to it continuing.

However, he and other professors have said they were unable to
evaluate whether or how grades have been affected in any way by the
BruinCast system. Chris Dutton, manager of the Audio Visual
Services department of the Office of Instructional Development,
said the formal review will not be made until the end of the
quarter.

Not all students see BruinCast as a viable replacement for
attending lecture.

“It’ll make students more apt to be lazy,”
said Brandon Nuess, a second-year political science and history
student. “They probably won’t (make up the lectures
they’ve missed). … They’ll have a lot of Webcasts to
watch, and they probably won’t do them all.”

However, students like third-year political science student
Stephanie Chan who do not attend lecture on a regular basis have
said they regularly catch up on the weekends.

“I don’t sit there for four hours straight and watch
all the (week’s) lectures,” Chan said.
“I’ll watch some of the lecture, pause it and go do
something else, then come back and watch the rest of it.”

Some, like Chris Dong, a first-year chemical engineering
student, are worried that the Webcasts constrain their ability to
ask questions. Instead, he prefers to use the Webcasts as a tool
for review.

“Our teacher goes really fast, so while you’re
taking notes you don’t have time to digest what he’s
saying,” he said of his Math 31B course.

Third-year political science and history student Jason Kelly,
who uses BruinCast for Symcox’s History 123A class, had a
similar opinion.

Students can attend lecture in order to understand general ideas
and then use BruinCast as a resource for further study; this is
especially helpful when a large portion of a course’s grade
is based on lecture material, he said.

Students said the availability of lectures online is useful when
missing class is unavoidable.

“It’s better than copying a friend’s
notes,” Nuess said. “You get things almost
firsthand.”

Dutton said the program would be expanding to include more
classes next quarter partly to accommodate professors who have
requested the service.

However, many of these professors teach in classrooms that do
not have the specialized recording booths of Haines 39 and LaKretz
110, where all four BruinCast classes this quarter are held.

Dutton said the Audio Visual Services department is looking into
more portable filming modes, possibly involving a camera that can
be rolled into the back of classrooms.

Other professors have asked that their class be recorded solely
in audio format, which is also being researched.

Similar programs at UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan
dental school offer lecture podcasts to which students can
subscribe using Apple’s iTunes.

However, the technological potential of Webcasting lectures
concerns Shlyakhtenko. He is worried that in the future, these
recordings may be used to replace professors altogether.

“If it works so well, do they need me?” he said.