Four members of a University of Saskatchewan team will speak at Harvard University in June about the success the U of S has had in developing and using innovative technology that allows classroom lectures to be recorded and made available to students online.
(From left to right: Adam McKenzie; Jonathan Bird; Christopher Brooks; Greg Logan)
Matterhorn is an open-source technology jointly developed by the U of S that is being used by more than a dozen institutions around the world. In total, some 13 different North American and European partner institutions participated in the project. In the last year alone, more than 2,500 U of S students have watched lecture videos in the Matterhorn system – equivalent to approximately 414 days of video content.
Christopher Brooks, a U of S PhD student in computer science, Jonathan Bird, an instructional support specialist with Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Adam McKenzie, an ICT software developer and U of S graduate student in computer science, will each be presenting at the Opencast Matterhorn 2012 Unconference from June 6 to 8 at Harvard University. U of S computer science graduate student Greg Logan will be presenting remotely from Saskatoon.
Their four presentations will outline the success the U of S has had developing and using the innovative technology which allows classroom lectures to be recorded and made available to students online.
“Our local experiences with lecture capture through Matterhorn combined with its wide adoption globally add to a growing body of evidence that this technology can contribute positively to our teaching and learning efforts” says Jim Greer, University Learning Centre director. “With more flexible access to lectures, thousands of our students in dozens of courses can review course material whenever they wish or catch up on what they may have missed on a particular day. Early analysis shows a positive connection between use of the Matterhorn technology and increased student success.”
“In addition to the international collaboration on this open source technology, the project also involved teamwork and cooperation among graduate students, researchers and staff in multiple departments at the University of Saskatchewan,” says Ed Pokraka, Director of ICT Planning and Governance.
The University Learning Centre, ICT, Media Access and Production (eMAP), and the Department of Computer Science and its Laboratory for Advanced Research in Intelligent Educational Systems (ARIES lab) were all involved in the project’s development and implementation.
Christopher Brooks, a computer science PhD student was the original technical lead on the project and key to the project’s success. As part of his graduate studies, Brooks is now doing an extensive analysis on its usage, benefits and effects.