Student Assembly approved $500 to continue to finance and support the Lecture Capture Initiative. As part of this initiative professors not currently recording their lectures are given iPods in exchange for doing so, posting the recordings on blackboard and surveying their students about whether they find audio capture useful.
Gaelle Tribie '10 and Neil Kandler '09 of the Student Services Committee explained that Student Assembly has been working on the Lecture Capture Initiative with Academic Computing Services since Summer term 2007. The initiative is a pilot program intended, through the distribution of iPods to professors not currently recording their classes, to address effects of audio recording on classroom dynamics.
The Academic Computing Service's Venture Fund also finances the Lecture Capture Initiative. The cost of the initiative totals $3,050 so far, Kandler said.
Two professors participated in the program during Fall term 2007, and more have been invited to do so in the upcoming winter term. The initiative will continue to explore other methods of lecture capture.
At least three professors should receive iPods this winter, Tribie told the Dartmouth following Student Assembly's meeting.
In other Assembly business, Cory Cunningham '10 announced that two new Green Print stations, earmarked for the Hopkins Center and the Russell Sage Hyphen, should be installed as soon as Friday, and no later than Monday. Cunningham is the Co-Chair of Student Assembly's Student Services Committee and a member of The Dartmouth Staff..
Corey Chu '08 and David Nachman '09, co-vice presidents of the Academic Affairs Committee, announced their selection of studio art professor Karol Kawiaka for the term's Profiles in Excellence Teaching Award.
Nachman also told the Assembly that they had met with Academic Computing administrators about professors' ability to monitor students' use of the Blackboard course website. According to Student Body President Travis Green, such a change would require Academic Computing to purchase new software, which would be extremely expensive. According to Nachman, Academic Computing has agreed to post a privacy notice on Blackboard pages warning students that their activity could be monitored.
