“Empowering Faculty to Broaden
Learning Boundaries: Making the
Technology Transparent"
John Arpino: Manager Audio-Visual Design and Engineering
Yordanos Baharu: Director, Instructional Technologies Lab
Eric Alvarado: Director of Academic Technologies
George Washington University
• Main campus – Foggy Bottom
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Located in Washington, DC
Approximately 100 buildings on a 5x5 grid
Less than 4 blocks from the White House
Next door to IMF/World Bank and State
Department
• 27,000 FTE
– 20,000 students (50% undergraduate and 50%
graduate and professional students)
– 3,000 faculty
– Of the 20,000 students, 8,000 are residents
• Major medical center
• Many other smaller campuses in the
region
Technology @ GW
• Decentralized IT infrastructure
– Information Systems and Services
• Primarily networking backbone, enterprise
applications
– Academic Technologies
• Primarily classroom and lab technology
– Other localized technology support for
colleges with university
Academic Technologies @ GW
• Approximately 50 FTE across three
campuses
• Over 100 classrooms equipped with
technology
• Over 20 computer classrooms/labs
• Multiple Virtual LANs within each
classroom and computer lab
– 1 dedicated for IT; 1 dedicated for AV
Academic Technologies @ GW
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Hosts a virtualized server environment
Centralized Help Desk – Solutions Center
Tiered support for both AV and IT
Internal design and install groups for both
AV and IT
• Certified AV and IT staff
Academic Technologies @ GW
• In-house application developers and
multimedia designers
• Dedicated instructional design team
• Independent instructional development lab
• In-house media development suites
• ISP Hosted CMS – Blackboard
– In-house development of multiple applications
Academic Technologies @ GW
• Initiates the Faculty workstation refresh
program
• Initiates the Student workstation initiative
program
• iTunes U school
• Campus-wide deployment of:
– Course response system – Turning Point
– Lecture capture system – ColonialCast
DRILLDOWN OF
BLACKBOARD@ GW
GWU Blackboard Setup
Test & Development
System
INTERNET
• ASP Hosted
• 6 App Servers RAC
Db Server.
• Tier 2 BC setup at a
different datacenter.
(RTO 24 hrs RPO 12 hrs)
Redundant
Firewall
Staging System
Production System
Application Cluster
Database – Cluster for
high availability and
scaling
Database Storage
Bb Usage Metrics
Percent of courses using Blackboard
Available Courses
Available Courses (excluding LAW)
70
64.1
59.8
60
53.07
54.7
47.39
50
43.6
37.35
40
30
20
60.21
38.35
24.47
16.03
10
0
Fall
2003
Spring
2004
Fall
2004
Spring
2005
Fall
2005
Spring
2006
Fall
2006
Spring
2007
Fall
2007
Spring
2008
Fall
2008
Blackboard Login Metrics Fall 2008
Unique Logins*/day
Average
9743
MAX
13118
MIN**
2992
Dec-08
106,584
Nov-08
262,791
Oct-08
324,433
Sep-08
293,969
Academic Technologies Goal
• Empowering faculty
• Create an environment that users can
readily master without the need to learn
new software or interfaces for each task.
• Is not about learning to use technology.
It’s about using technology to learn.
• Minimal disruptions to teaching and
learning
Academic Technologies
Solution
• Create Networked Learning Environment
using a courses management system
(Blackboard) as the HUB for all course
related activities.
• Create a common user experience that
seamlessly incorporates other learning
applications.
Networked Learning Environment
Why Blackboard?
• That is where the users are
– over 10,000 Unique Logins/day
– 65% of all courses use Blackboard.
– Over 19,000 student have an active course in
Bb
• Maximize the Learning Environment by
making use of available API’s
Academic Technologies
Implementation
• Four Major Components
– Blackboard
– iTunes U
– Colonial Cast
– Classroom Technology infrastructure
• “State of the art” equipment
• Dedicated AV network
• Centrally hosted server environment
The Blackboard Piece
• Two Pieces
– Single sign-on for users
– iTunes U course site creation and
management (the management component is still
in development)
Single Sign-On
The iTunes U Piece
(What Makes GW Different)
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Single Sign-On via Blackboard
Course creation and scheduling via Blackboard
In-house administration application
Top 20 authenticated iTunes U site
27 classrooms able to automatically capture
vodcasts using Echo 360
History of iTunes U at GW
Year 1
History of iTunes U
Year 2
History of iTunes U
Current
iTunes U Growth
iTunes U Administration App
• Easy to govern a user’s access
• One stop shop for help desk and support
• Course management and creation
iTunes U Admin App
Add Faculty
iTunes U Admin App
Edit Site Content
iTunes U Admin App
A Deeper Look
Automated Course Capture
(Colonial Cast)
• Apreso System (Fall 2006)
– Audio only
– In-house development of file upload to iTunes U
• Apreso System (Spring 2007)
– Enhanced Podcast (audio and VGA)
• Echo 360 (Fall 2008)
– Appliance based model
– Vodcast (audio with full motion VGA)
Echo System Architecture
Vodcast Example
Distance Learning Classroom
Capture
• Built 2 classrooms for Project
Management Spring 2007 (video, VGA,
and audio)
• Moved to streaming and iTunes U delivery
Fall 2007
• Expanded to 5 classrooms and two other
Business School Programs Fall 2008
(more advance cameras, and mic solution)
Full Rich Media Classroom
Capture
• See video
Our Future Plans
Fall 2009
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Soft quotas for iTunes U
More expanded user roles
Course management tools
Auto-scheduling of captures
iTunes U site redesign
Expand to other campuses
More user feedback
Additional in-house developed Bb tools
And much more…
Conclusions
• As you eliminate barriers and make technology transparent,
adoption rates go up.
• iTunes U downloads
– Increase of 658.59% from Spring 07 to Fall 07
– Increase of 36.31% from Spring 08 to Fall 08
• Growth (Total Students enrolled in iTunes U courses)
– Increase of 380.95% from Spring 07 to Fall 07
– Increase of 106.65% from Spring 08 to Fall 08
• Student driven requests
• Faculty driven requests
• ECAR Report data
– 62% of respondents stated they do not skip classes when materials
from course lectures are available online
Faculty Quote
It is abundantly clear that iTunes U represents one of the
best possible ways for us to augment and enhance the
sometimes all-too-familiar classroom experience in the
future. In a world in which knowledge in nearly all
subjects is expanding at an astounding pace,
participation in iTunes U will provide instructors with an
innovative means for including more information and
employing better ways to convey it in the future.
Richard P. Tollo Associate Professor of Geology1997
Trachtenberg Teaching Price Recipient
Questions