University of Massachusetts-Lowell Improves Student Success Rates with Anystream’s Apreso Classroom; Students Use On-Demand Lecture Review to Improve Comprehension

Monday, May 15, 2006

Sterling, Va. - Anystream announced today that the University of Massachusetts-Lowell (UMASS) has selected its Apreso Classroom rich media lecture capture and Web publishing system to produce online versions of the classroom experience for on-demand student review.

Apreso Classroom allows leading universities to easily offer rich media lectures as a Web-based learning complement to traditional education by automating the many complex tasks required to capture, encode, manage and distribute online versions of lectures.

At UMASS-Lowell, the Apreso system is currently being offered in large lecture halls with classes that typically have high failure rates, such as calculus, chemistry and introductory engineering courses. Results from Calculus 1 showed that the percentage of students receiving D’s, F’s and W’s (withdrawals) was reduced by nearly 10% in classes offering Apreso lecture review.

“Calculus 1 students surveyed overwhelmingly credited the ability to review Apreso lectures as playing a role in improving their understanding of calculus concepts,” said Professor Ron Brent, department of mathematical sciences, UMASS-Lowell. “Early data indicates that Apreso lectures have played a part in better preparing students for Calculus 2, a prerequisite for succeeding in advanced engineering and other hard science majors.”

“Apreso has a transformational effect on my students who’ve historically been in the bottom half of the Green Chemistry grading curve of 40% or less,” said John Warner, director UMASS-Lowell Center for Green Chemistry. “They use Apreso to increase their understanding of the concepts and once they do, they achieve better grades and begin to believe in themselves. I can literally see it in their eyes; it lights a passion in them for the subject matter.”

Anystream’s Apreso Classroom can be scheduled to start and stop automatically, removing the need for professors to learn to operate the system or change the way they teach. Apreso Classroom works by automatically capturing and synchronizing the professor’s voice with visual aids being projected in the classroom, and posting an interactive, indexed Web-based version of the lecture to university websites or course management systems for students to playback online or on iPods. Designed specifically for higher education, Apreso Classroom’s enterprise architecture integrates easily with campus-wide information systems and is affordable enough to be incorporated into the curriculum of institutions with limited budgets.

Apreso’s easy-to-use, automated lecture capture and Web publishing capabilities increase its versatility well beyond routine lecture capture. A leader in distance learning, the university also will use the technology to enrich text lectures offered on UMASS Online with dynamic Apreso lectures each week.

“With such promising results, we plan to enhance a wide range of our offerings with rich media Apreso lectures – including our continuing education and distance learning programs,” said Mike Lucas, UMASS-Lowell coordinator of distance learning. “Since these can all be scheduled, captured and managed centrally, we can literally create a vast library of online learning assets and pursue new publishing opportunities within the greater higher education community without adding staff or making significant technology investments.”

Shrinking enrollment, lifestyle pressures and limited classroom space have increased the necessity for higher education institutions to offer students online access to learning and classroom presentations. Apreso Classroom’s automation, scheduling component, and affordability have made it the solution chosen by top universities to revolutionize the student learning experience. For more information please contact Anystream or visit www.apreso.com.

About Anystream
Anystream is an essential element of the new media broadcast strategies of some of the world’s largest media companies, including Time Warner, Viacom and News Corp. Anystream is the leader in providing easy-to-use, cost-effective solutions that maximize the value of video content. The company’s automated, mission-critical solutions tightly integrate with legacy production systems to extract video and enhance it with metadata for indexing, searching, deploying, advertising and distributing it through any system, to any device. Anystream has received numerous honors including the Frost and Sullivan Market Leadership Award, Presentations Magazine’s Standing Ovation Award, PC Magazine’s Technical Excellence Awards finalist, COMDEX Best of Show awards finalist, Entrepreneur Magazine’s “Hot 100” list and Deloitte and Touche’s “Fast 50.” www.anystream.com

Contact Information

Darian Germain

Anystream

Contact via E-mail