Content Feature: New School

The evolution of the Internet has involved a myriad of fleeting moments whena genuine sense of future potential strikes the mind. For Larry Rowe,professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and head of theBerkeley Multimedia Resource Center, a key epiphany came in January 1994, atthe Multimedia Integrated Conferencing for Europe (MICE) event at UniversityCollege London.

"There were several very interesting effects from [MICE] that convinced me —and frankly, I suspect a lot of other people were already convinced — thatthis stuff was really going to become big-time," Rowe explains. While atMICE, he had his first taste of the potential of streaming when giving atalk that was webcast live. "I come from Berkeley and I go to London, andsome kid from Los Angeles is going to watch this at five o'clock in themorning. I thought — there's something strange going on here."

The following day, Rowe headed up to Edinburgh to give the same talk. Beforeentering the room he was stopped by an eager student wanting to congratulatehim on his talk before he approached the podium. The student cleared up theconfusion by saying he had watched the webcast from UCL. When Rowequestioned why he would want to watch the same talk again, the studentresponded, "I've got some questions to ask."

Visions of streaming education danced through Rowe's head.Streaming media has landed in academia with a complex splash, the ripples ofwhich won¹t be reliably interpretable for some time. Virtually every campusin the nation hosts online services, including streaming audio and video.Where streaming is not a part of the plan, administrations are contemplatingit.

Columbia University has shown itself to be a leader in integrating streamingtechnology into higher education by developing online course offerings,relying both on internal resources and on outside e-learning companies tofacilitate the process. Smaller colleges, such as the University of Phoenix,take advantage of the Internet's level playing field to develop a studentbase with no geographical limitations. An estimated 2 million students willparticipate in distance learning in 2002. Anyone with a decent computer andfast access need apply.

But not everyone is jumping for joy. Concerns about technical quality, thesocial implications of remote learning, and intellectual property rightsform certain hurdles to the adoption of streaming in many academic circles.Still, what might appear as a futuristic realm to some, and perhaps a threatto the integrity of the traditional faculty-student relationship to others,might also be viewed as a new manifestation of long-running traditions."There's a long history of correspondence courses, a long history ofdistance learning," says Tom Streeter, director of the Streaming MediaProject at University of Cincinnati. "And that history is rolling into ourexperience with what we're doing now."

It was bound to happen, but beyond just the obvious extension of distancelearning technology, the advent of reliable streaming has made onlinelearning a much richer, more convenient, and even more seductive prospect.That potential has been greatly enhanced by the growth of broadband accesson and off campus, and the strength of the tools for delivering the content.

Now, years after his awakening to the power of webcasting, Professor Rowesteers the development of a system he originated — the Berkeley InternetBroadcast System (BIBS) (http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/bibs) which broadcasts anincreasing number of classes over the Internet. Early in 1999, BIBS launchedby offering Nutrition Sciences 101. Despite shabby technical quality — poorcodecs and bad source video — the class drew praise from a segment ofstudents. They wanted more, and they got more: BIBS is offering up to 16courses this semester. Now students can watch professors deliver material atany time, within hours of the original class.

Rowe, whose own multimedia history dates back to digitizing course materialonto laser discs in the late 1980s, feels that BIBS represents a uniqueapplication for streaming. It has, as Rowe comments, "tended to focus not oncontinuing education for industry or individuals, but on improving thequality for people on campus."

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