February 2003
News

Starring role for University

The University's innovative use of its video conferencing system has attracted interest from electronics manufacturer giant Sony with an invitation to join the media company at an international exhibition in London.

Sony promoted the University as a good example in the use of its products in the four-day BETT 2003 exhibition, which was held at Olympia London at the beginning of January.

A video crew from SONY spent a day in Bradford filming the University's video conferencing equioment being used. The tape was later played at an international conference in London.

The event provided an opportunity for the University to demonstrate its technical advances within the higher education sector with a live videolink to the show, enabling the University to show how video conferencing is helping to meet its goals. Prior to the exhibition, a video crew from Sony spent a day at the University filming the equipment being used at Bradford. This tape was then played at the stand at BETT.

Simon Higgins, of Marketing Communications for Sony Business Europe, said: "Technical products and services alone have no value if they are not, or cannot be, applied to reach their educational goals. We wanted our audience to understand how the University of Bradford is meeting its educational goals with the adoption of the videoconferencing equipment."

• The video can be viewed by logging onto www.sonybiz.net/education

Tim Bentley is a Senior Computer Officer within the University of Bradford's Learning Support Services. Here he explains the concept of the University's new video-conferencing system.

"When the words 'video-conferencing' are mentioned, expensive office suites with high cost high-technology hardware only used by Captains of Industry spring to mind. Well, in our experience at the University, that is far from the truth.

Eighteen months ago, within the University, video-conferencing was a concept that had been examined and all but written off as a 'nice idea - but what are we going to do with this toy?' until suddenly a use appeared. Our School of Health Studies has close links with its primary stakeholder, the NHS, and as part of the placement side of the courses offered through the University, a need arose to communicate with the NHS Trusts where our students were undertaking professional training.

The video conferencing system was successfully used during Clearing 2002 to contact students receiving their A-level grades in Halifax.

It was this specific requirement to communicate in an educational context that started us embracing this 'not-so-new' technology (most readers will have seen video links on broadcast media over the past twenty years - remember the Oscars? "Well he's not here tonight to receive this award, but speaking to us via satellite..."). We bought a solution based on the needs of our University, but used the opportunity to add desirable features that could possibly be of use at a later date. Many possible uses came to mind, such as reducing foreign travel and the ability to expand the delivery of a lecture beyond the boundaries of the traditional classroom.

Learning Support Services run regular technical education sessions for staff and during one such gathering, the Sony rig was demonstrated. The usage increased immediately. Subsequently, the word spread. It seemed as if many Schools and Departments had wanted the facility but couldn't justify the purchase in isolation.

To date we've had students attend (virtual) interviews in locations such as Paris, the high-quality link accurately carrying across the candidates' appearance, language skills, and confidence. We've had interviews for students for potential placements with a museum in Scotland. The School of Lifelong Education and Development has used the technology to communicate with HEFCE regularly. For staff development purposes, we participated in the multi-institutional Scottish Electronic Staff Development Library (SESDL) sessions, something we hope to repeat in 2002/3.

In the international arena, Dr Phil Thomas, of the School of Health Studies, has delivered a paper to a conference in New Zealand, and our School of Management have strengthened their already close ties with our partner institution the Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS).

And in August we made an admissions officer available for A-Level students to talk to on the morning that they received their results. For the future, we're developing partnerships with local schools to augment their teaching and display the innovation of the University. The idea is to deliver a taste of the high-end learning available here.

The investment in VC technology seemed at first to be an expensive white elephant, yet a little promotion and the application of imagination has given rise to the start of something new within the culture of teaching and learning. We look forward to an exciting and accessible visually interconnected future."

11 February 2002

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