Fortify Your Institutional H1N1 Plan with Lecture Capture: Mediasite at Washington State University

Washington State University's main campus is currently experiencing what the New York Times called perhaps the largest college outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus. More than 2,000 students report symptoms of swine flu, which has led the entire Washington State system to take measures to avoid the spread of the disease between and beyond campuses. 

And for WSU Spokane, which specializes in health science programs, lecture capture has become central to their pandemic and academic continuity planning. The campus began using the Mediasite webcasting platform just a year ago when its new nursing building came online. 

Since that time, capturing courses – both on-campus and from faculty home offices – is a key element to span the time, distance and space constraints that are dramatic factors when flu preparedness is introduced on today's scale. 

Saleh Elgiadi, Director of IT Services for WSU Spokane, has agreed to share his fundamental principles and practices included in the campus' comprehensive H1N1 and disaster recovery plans, including how to: 

• Minimize the impact of absences and closures through a combination of room-based course capture, videoconferencing, archived and pre-recorded lectures plus faculty recording remotely from home offices, all via Mediasite 
• Use a centralized approach to recorder management that provides more flexibility to capture multiple rooms as schedules change in response to flu management 
• Build a repository of online, on-demand educational materials to deliver to ill students in their homes as well as in case of mandated social distancing