UNC-CH Information Technology Services

ITS launches Capture and Collaboration portal

What tool should faculty choose for classroom capture and/or collaboration needs? The $19 tape recorder, the high-tech capture station that costs several thousand dollars or one of the many other tools that fall between those extremes?

ITS Teaching and Learning has launched an “experiment,” the Capture and Collaboration portal, with hopes to categorize and assess the merits of systems and applications currently being marketed as solutions for lecture capture and student collaboration.

“With all the high-tech tools available, there is little information available that makes it easy to compare each product and choose the best one for the job,” said Joe Schuch, manager of Next Generation Education Infrastructure. “So we have launched a Web site asking members of the education community to visit and contribute their personal experiences using these emerging technologies.”

According to Schuch, the growing number of capture technologies compounds the difficulty in making a well-informed purchasing decision. The cost of entry is high for many products and there are few ways to learn about the experiences that other purchasers have had with them.

“We are looking for contributors so that we can accumulate real user feedback from folks around the world who have had a chance to live with their purchasing decisions,” said Schuch.

Currently, more than 20 faculty and technology staff from across the state and nation have expressed interest in participating in the portal project.

If you are interested in contributing information to the Capture and Collaboration portal, please contact Joe Schuch at joe@unc.edu.