Lecture Capture | News
Michigan Virtual University Provides Tools To Create Online Courses in Nigeria
A nonprofit online university in Michigan will provide the tools to faculty and students in Nigeria to create online video courses using a lecture capture platform.
Michigan Virtual University, based in Lansing, MI, and Venture Garden Group are providing the Mediasite lecture capture platform, developed by Sonic Foundry, to create video courses at The Center for Distance Learning at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife, Nigeria. The courses will be available starting in the fall, and students and faculty will be given Android devices to view the Mediasite videos.
"Aside from this project, e-learning is not happening in Nigeria. It's starting to evolve as a discussion, and there is great demand for college-level education. E-learning is the only practical way to bring a significant new group of learners into the fold," said Kirby Milton, vice president of operations at Michigan Virtual University. "When I heard the scope and the scale and what the project was trying to accomplish it was an immediate leap to Mediasite as the core technology for us to capture hundreds of hours of lectures and present them in an online format."
In January, Michigan Virtual University, which began using Mediasite in 2007, and Venture Garden Group, provided training for faculty at a Nigerian resort on how to present in front of a camera, using Mediasite Mobile HD Recorders. During this training, 58 lecturers created 500 hours of course content, including the subject areas of accounting, education, and nursing. They plan to double the amount of course content by the time the courses are deployed, and videos will also be available on a network.
The Center for Distance Learning building at Obafemi Awolowo University, which is now under construction, will include lecture halls and studios with Mediasite software and necessary bandwidth. It will use the Mediasite Enterprise Video Platform, and in the future it will implement the Mediasite Desktop Recorder to record video on a computer.
Obafemi Awolowo University is a public university that consists of a central campus, student residences, staff housing, and a teaching and research farm.
For more information about Mediasite, visit sonicfoundry.com/mediasite. For additional information about Venture Garden Group, go to venturegardengroup.com. To find out more about The Center for Distance Learning at Obafemi Awolowo University, check out oaucdl.edu.ng.
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Tim Sohn is a 10-year veteran of the news business, having served in capacities from reporter to editor-in-chief of a variety of publications including Web sites, daily and weekly newspapers, consumer and trade magazines, and wire services. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @editortim.
