Then: They gossiped on phones attached to walls. Now: They send reams of text messages on phones that fit in their pockets.

Then: They watched TV shows “same time, same station” and laughed about them with friends. Now: They watch clips on YouTube any time they wish and share them with a Facebook network of hundreds.

Young people know instinctively how to use the e-communication tools of their time. This isn’t lost on marketers. How to leverage new technologies and new channels in communicating brand messages is a recurring theme of the UWEBC Web Strategy & Marketing Peer Group, which I have the privilege of leading. (It’s also the topic of a panel discussion I will moderate at the upcoming E-Business Best Practices & Emerging Technologies conference.)

Nor is this preference amoung young people for e-communications lost on educators, who increasingly regard their relationship with students in terms of providing and marketing services to customers.

This raises a research question: What are student attitudes about courses that include “lecture capture,” or streaming video of lectures posted online? The UW E-Business Institute (UWEBI) — the grant-funded, research-focused sister organization of the UWEBC — decided to explore that question with support from Sonic Foundry, a UWEBC member company.

Our study set out to understand student attitudes toward the value of adding lecture capture to existing courses and to assess student preferences for classes providing streamed content. We sent a survey to 29,078 undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in April 2008. To our knowledge, this study is the first look at student attitudes toward lecture capture among a broad sample of undergraduates at a large public university.

As soon as we issued a press release announcing the study’s findings, we received a level of response that took us by surprise. Insidehighered.com published an article the day of the release. I’ve had more than one conversation with a New York Times education reporter about the study. Wisconsin Public Radio did a piece during morning drive time. The study was featured in a Capital Times tech blog. And representatives from several schools, including University of Southern California and Louisiana State University, have inquired about more detailed information than was contained in the press release or the project report.

It’s clear from the survey’s results that undergraduate students would value the webcasting of their courses’ lectures. It’s also clear that, given the choice, students would prefer a course in which lecture content is recorded and made available as a supplement to classroom instruction. Perhaps in an era of increased competition among schools and increased interest not only in student performance but also in student satisfaction, the study’s findings may help to shape tomorrow’s classroom.

For more information about the study, or about Sandra’s Web Strategy & Marketing practice at the UWEBC, please contact her at 608-265-3299 or slbradley@wisc.edu

ABOUT THE UW E-BUSINESS INSTITUTE
The UW E-Business Institute (UWEBI) is a campus-wide initiative conducting multi-disciplinary research on e-business strategies, emerging information technologies and innovative business practices to help enhance the competitiveness of Wisconsin industry. The UWEBI is currently engaged in research projects funded by The National Science Foundation and The National Institutes of Health focused on driving innovation in the packaging, printing and health-care industries. The UWEBI’s work complements the member-company approach of the
UW E-Business Consortium.