Administrators, faculty, and staff at five member institutions discuss their experiences with IHETS services.   

March 30, 2007
Contact: communications@ihets.org

Taylor University’s experience with IHETS services has mainly been with its e-learning services, particularly IHETS' Indiana College Network (ICN).  Taylor University was the first Independent Colleges of Indiana (ICI) member to join with ICN and embrace the Home Institution model.  Taylor University continues to support the consortium as an Originating Institution, providing online courses to students at other ICN member schools—both public and private. 

“Purdue University West Lafayette is by far our largest user,” reports Kevin Mahaffy, director of the Taylor University Center for Lifelong Learning.  “Our courses are popular among many of their athletes.  The convenience and flexibility of our courses fits well with their busy schedules.  Other students appreciate getting a course or two from a biblical perspective to augment their public education.” 

Mahaffy sees the integration of systems as one of the greatest technology and e-learning challenges facing Taylor University in the next three to five years.  “Many of our current systems do not ‘talk’ to each other.  This creates instances where human interaction is necessary to make the systems run smoothly.  Furthermore, an e-commerce solution is a major concern.  Too many commercial e-commerce solutions are geared toward marketing products and not course and registration needs.  Those that do are often quite expensive or come with additional costs to make them ‘talk’ with existing systems.  Online enrollment, registration, and purchase of materials are also vital to a growing online department,” said Mahaffy.  “The technical collaboration / facilitation and the proposed consortial licensing services available through the IHETS consortium will help address these challenges.”

Mahaffy reported that, through the services the IHETS consortium offers, higher-education options are made available to all Hoosiers. “ICN has made a concerted effort to connect all schools, both public and private, in ways that are a win for the school, the student, and the state.  What has been done has been nothing short of impressive with the variety of schools we have in this state.  ICN also promotes training conferences and monthly meetings where ideas are shared, problems resolved, and a collaborative environment is promoted among peers,” said Mahaffy.

For Bryan Morrison, assistant professor of physical education, Valparaiso University, IHETS Interactive web conferencing service has improved his ability to connect with students and freed valuable classroom time for more focused lectures. 

Professor Morrison reported that Web conferencing has given him more flexibility in his schedule this semester.  “While at Arizona State University for a week, I was able to give my lectures as if I were in the classroom. My students back in Indiana could ask questions verbally if they had a microphone or through the live chat feature. We were able interact just as if we were in the classroom together.”

IHETS Interactive also has an add-on that allows for the addition of audio and video files to any PowerPoint presentation.  The add-on will then convert a lecture to a Flash movie and shrink it for distribution.

“This has been useful in our P.E. classes as an additional source of information for the students,” said Morrison.  “The students can watch the lecture anytime by downloading it through our course management system. In one of my courses this semester, I have uploaded videos that I used to show in class. This removes the actual viewing of the video from the classroom. I can still use the videos for demonstration and discussion purposes directly from my laptop, but now the discussion is more directed.”

Professor Morrison also recently posted his review of IHETS Interactive web conferencing service to Valparaiso’s Summit newsletter to raise awareness among his colleagues of the service’s potential for collaboration and classroom instruction.

Cathy Salyers, library director at Saint Joseph's College first learned of the services IHETS offers when the local Rotary Club conducted an on-campus video conference which IHETS helped facilitate.

When the chair of Saint Joseph's board of trustees asked if any type of web conferencing could be provided for a board member unable to attend a board meeting in person, Ms. Salyers thought of IHETS.  “When I had a need again, I contacted IHETS and was told about the IHETS Interactive service”, said Salyers.

“Overall, our experience with the service has met our needs,” Salyers reported.  “It is very easy to use with a very small learning curve. And cost certainly was a factor. As an IHETS consortium member, we were able to use the service with a very small outlay of money for hardware. The total was probably less than $350.  It’s been well worth the cost.”

For the Indiana Chapter of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (I-ASIS&T), IHETS video conferencing service has been a real timesaver and enabler.  The Chapter, which has about forty-five members scattered throughout the state, was looking for a way to reduce barriers for members to participate in their annual business meetings.

Pascal Calarco, who leads the Library Systems Department at the University Libraries of Notre Dame and is the current chair the Chapter, first learned of IHETS from a colleague and fellow I-ASIS&T Officer when planning the January 2005 meeting.  “We usually hold our business meetings in early January, and with the weather in Indiana that time of year, anything we can do to save people from having to drive long distances is very welcome," said Calarco.

"My colleague had experience using video conferencing and thought it would meet the need to have a distributed, statewide meeting for us.  We haven't looked back since.  We’ve used the service for our annual business meetings for the past three years," Calarco explains.  "We’ve linked sites at Indiana State, IUPUI, IU Bloomington, IU Fort Wayne, Notre Dame, and Indiana University Medical in Indianapolis for these meetings, saving members a great deal of travel time and expense," he added.

Following this initial experience, the Chapter held a tri-chapter regional Midwest meeting in July 2005. The meeting, on Google and Libraries, was hosted at Notre Dame and linked sites throughout Indiana as well as student chapters at Wayne State in Detroit, MI, and IU Bloomington.  "Students don't typically have a great deal of money to travel, so this was a way to engage library science graduate students with some very timely speakers and programming," Calarco explained.  "We had a great experience, with about sixty people attending at Notre Dame, and another twenty-five students at the two remote sites."

Since then, they have held two more business meetings, one hosted at Indiana University Bloomington, and the other at Notre Dame.  Calarco also attributes the success of the distributed meetings to the hardworking video conferencing staff at sites throughout the state.  "The IHETS staff - Jeff Miller's group here at Notre Dame, and all of the folks at locations around the state - really make this service work; kudos to all for a job well done!" 

The I-ASIS&T group is in the planning stages for another joint event with the Michigan chapter on gaming and libraries for late spring.  This event will also utilize the IHETS video conferencing service with multiple locations around the state and a local hosted site at Notre Dame.

Andrew Cunningham, systems support analyst, Butler University, was researching video conferencing solutions for a grant the College of Business Administration received for the purpose of enabling a service. He learned about IHETS Interactive web conferencing service after being contacted by George Khazal, IHETS digital media consultant, as a result of an inquiry.

“As a member of the Independent Colleges of Indiana (ICI), Butler University is a member of IHETS. However, we were not aware that this service was available to us free of charge. I made an investigative query, and was promptly contacted by Mr. George Khazal, who thoroughly explained all of the services that are available to ICI members,” said Cunningham.

“We are investigating ad-hoc solutions such as Skype, high-end solutions such as those offered by Polycom, and mid-range solutions such as Acrobat Connect.  IHETS Interactive is still in its infancy at Butler, we’re currently using it for administrative purposes only, but so far it appears to be a powerful and accessible product that will be very useful in future conferencing efforts.”

According to Cunningham video conferencing technologies can often have a steep learning curve and are expensive to implement and was impress with the ease-of-use of the IHETS Web conference system. “IHETS Interactive is very simple in comparison, with very little setup and an intuitive and accessible interface. We are very optimistic about the possibility of this product on our campus,” he said.  “We’ve not had any technical difficulties. IHETS sent a professional trainer to assist our instructional technology staff with the product. Any difficulties were quickly ironed out by the trainer, who was very experienced and helpful.”

Cost is definitely a factor, both for us and for those that we conference with (especially our friends who reside in developing countries). IHETS Interactive is a fantastic option from a cost perspective. As its use is free, yes, it was very cost-effective for us. We did purchase several web cameras, and we plan to buy headsets and possibly "Flash Paper" and a Flash video encoder for enhanced use of the IHETS Interactive product.”

“We have not had a chance to showcase this product yet. However, we plan to demo it for our internal staff and for the College of Business Administration in the near future.  And we are in the process of registering our Polycom unit with the IHETS gatekeeper so that we can also leverage this service. We are certainly interested in taking advantage of other IHETS services.”

To learn how IHETS services can assist your member institution, contact George Khazal, IHETS digital media services consultant, at gkhazal@ihets.org or 317.263.8870