The Academic Technologies (AT) team in the University of Notre Dame’s Office of Information Technologies was recognized with a second-place award in a poster contest at the AcademiX 2009 conference sponsored by Apple.
The poster, titled “Building Your Own Low-Cost Lecture Capture System,” illustrated an innovative lecture capture system that allows users to capture a lecture or live event and automatically load it into iTunes University, where audiences can easily download content to their computer, iPod or other mobile device.
The system was created by the AT team to simplify and streamline live event recording; Notre Dame currently uses the technology to capture Sunday Mass in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart for broadcast on iTunes.
The AT team also has been working with Notre Dame’s Office of Public Affairs and Communications to create a Notre Dame channel on iTunes U, a special section of Apple’s iTunes store designated solely for colleges and universities.
“Our goal is to make our software available with an open source license,” said Paul Turner, academic technology services manager. “This way, it can be shared with other universities that may make further improvements to the system, and everyone benefits from the improved version.”
The poster was designed by Vu Nguyen, a Notre Dame graphics design student. For its second-place finish out of a total of 12 entries by regional universities attending the May AcademiX conference, the team received an Apple MacBook laptop that will be used to field test AT capture anywhere on campus.