University refurbishes classroom dedicated to teleconferenced courses: Ever heard of a very interesting college course you would love to take, only to find out your home university does not offer it? LSU has a new classroom that provides a solution for students who cannot go to a course – the course will come to them. LSU Information Technology Services, or ITS, spent the Spring 2008 semester redesigning Coates Hall Room 202, outfitting it with advanced high-definition video streaming capabilities so faculty can teach from LSU and send the course to other universities, or import courses to students here. Classes began meeting in the new classroom in the Fall 2008 semester. The Coates Distance Education Suite is capable for videoconferencing, high-definition access, video streaming and other necessary procedures to enable both exported and imported education. The LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, was a major funding source for this initiative, with support from LSU Library and Information Sciences and LSU Office of Academic Affairs. “ITS is pleased to work with CCT and our other partners around campus in delivering cutting-edge distance learning opportunities to the student population and supporting faculty members' innovative ideas for teaching and learning,” said Pam Nicolle, User Support and Student IT Enablement director. Traditional videoconferencing has taken place in Coates Hall and other facilities on campus for a decade, and the new classroom establishes a dedicated site for these educational methods. Recently, CCT and the LSU Department of Computer Science have used this setup in the CCT’s Johnston and Frey space to offer two courses via high-definition streaming, one sent out and one brought in. In the Spring 2007 semester, LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Thomas Sterling created CSC 7600 -- High-Performance Computing: Models, Methods and Means at LSU and broadcast it in real time to sites in Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and the Czech Republic. Sterling taught the course a second time in the Spring 2008 semester, with four additional universities – Louisiana Tech University, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and Little Rock campuses and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic -- participating. The students at those schools take the course through LSU, and receive credit through their home universities. Beginning in the Fall 2007 semester, LSU offered a course with the reverse setup, to give students more options in their curricula. Students were able to take the University of Illinois – Chicago’s video game design class, offered at LSU as both a computer science course (CS 4700) and an arts course (ART 4020.) Through video streaming access, the students attend class in real time each week. LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Gabrielle Allen and CCT Interim Director and School of Music Professor Stephen David Beck monitor the students’ work and progress. The video game design course will be among the first to take place in the newly refurbished Coates classroom this semester. “Since we began offering this course, it has been so successful, we have offered it each semester since,” Allen said. “The students are excited about using this technology because it widens their options and gives them a chance to learn from people at other universities they otherwise would not come into contact with. In addition to the gaming course for the current Fall 2008 semester, additional courses from Library and Information Sciences, social work, oceanography and physics and astronomy are taking place via teleconferencing. Several of these courses use the newly renovated Coates 202 room, while others use Coates 203 and 204, which have previously been used for this kind of course setup. With the classroom in place, more University faculty will have the option to offer a new kind of college course for 21st century education. Faculty interested in using and accessing courses via this resource should contact the University Registrar's office. For more information on videoconferencing educational opportunities, please visit its Web site. To see pictures of the newly refurbished classroom, please visit the CCT photo gallery at www.cct.lsu.edu.