OCW: OpenCourseWare (Score 1)

You really ought to look into the concept of OpenCourseWare, it's a brilliant concept. MIT's open courseware: http://ocw.mit.edu/ Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL): http://cosl.usu.edu/ These initiatives are providing open-source free course materials including some video lectures available to everyone. I'm confident if you looked into the subject some more you'd see a lot more benefits than the problems you present. I'm not affiilated with MIT OCW in any way (I'm in Europe), but allow me to cut/paste a few lines from their website: >> Results have shown that: 95% of users report MIT OCW has or will help them to be more productive and effective 46% of educators have adopted MIT OCW content to improve their own teaching 38% of students use MIT OCW materials to complement a course they are taking; 34% use MIT OCW to learn about subjects outside of formal classes 56% of self-learners use MIT OCW to enhance personal knowledge; 16% use MIT OCW to stay current in their chosen field 96% of all users would recommend MIT OCW to others And we have also found that MIT OCW is having a significant impact on teaching and learning at MIT: 35% of Fall 2005 entering freshmen aware of MIT OCW prior to attending MIT indicate the site was a significant or very significant influence on their choice of school 71% of all MIT students (undergraduate and graduate) make use of MIT OCW in their research and studies 96% of MIT students using the MIT OCW site report it has had a positive or extremely positive impact on their student experience 40% of MIT faculty using MIT OCW report that the site is a helpful tool in revising/updating courses; 38% use the site for advising students http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/AboutOCW/impact.h tm -- Finally allow me to adress the 'problems' you present in your post. >I'm working at a major university in the US, and have been charged with posting pod-casts of class lectures on the internet. Sounds like a great idea, but have you asked the question: Why? The problems you present and the possible solutions you provide for them leaves me with the big question of why you'd even bother with making the podcasts in the first place. It seems you want to make the podcasts available only because you have to and force people to attend the lectures and make it hard to access the podcasts. In my mind the why has this answer: To provide students with an additional ressource, a hardcopy of their lecture they can view if they: 1) Missed a lecture (sick, overslept or in some other way indisposed). Alternative is that they don't get to hear/see the lecture at all! 2) Review what the teacher went over in a lecture > The problem is whether or not posting the videos would allow students to skip class and just download the lecture, instead. Yes and that's a good thing! It makes it possible for people who are unable to attend the lectures to capture the essence of the lecture without actually beeing there. That could be because they're sick, stuck in traffic, attending another lecture or otherwise indisposed. Personally I doubt a lot of people will stay away from the lectures and solely listen to the podcasts, unless you don't gain anything additional from the lectures - and in that case: what's the problem? >I guess the problem is trying to strike the right balance between allowing good students to take advantage of this resource, but discourage bad students from staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam. I feel this is more of a study tactics problem that you need to teach your students through your introduction to the university / study tactics. > So what methods can be used to provide these pod-casts for the students who actually attended class? In terms of when the lecture should be posted, what would be a good time-frame? Immediately after the class? 24 hours? One week? One class behind schedule? What are you trying to accomplish here? By making the podcasts available later you're immensely decreasing the value for the 'good students' that were indisposed/sick and who might benefit from the lecture and you're not preventing people from viewing all the lectures just prior to the exams, which you described as a problem.