--- Forwarded Message from Deanne Cobb <[log in to unmask]> ---
>From: Deanne Cobb <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Wed, 17 Sep 2003 15:18:45 -0600
>To: Language Learning and Technology International Information Forum <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: #7249 Audio CD Duplication
>In-Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
>References: <[log in to unmask]>
>Disposition-Notification-To: Deanne Cobb <[log in to unmask]>
>Return-Receipt-To: Deanne Cobb <[log in to unmask]>
>Priority: NORMAL
------------------
For us, at the University of Regina, we are still in a period of transition. For many of our
courses, we are still offering home study cassettes (with permission of course); however, as new
textbooks are being implemented, departments are electing to choose more "technologically rich"
textbooks. Therefore, students are purchasing CDs and even CD-Roms packaged with the textbooks.
Requests for homestudy cassettes were never frequent with some notable exceptions (less commonly
taught languages often see more requests), and often students would borrow the first tape of the
series, but never return for further chapters because they found they never used the first one.
And now, with the advent of textbook CDs and CD-Roms, the homestudy cassettes for the lab programs
are even less frequently in demand because students feel they already have so much material to go
through.
There are, of course, the exceptions. There are always students who, for one reason or another,
are anxious to make use of all materials possible and who really do want to borrow tapes and to use
them as they were intended. However, at this time, we are still only offering cassette tapes for
the older textbooks, and for the newer textbooks, only the audio that is offered over the
publisher's website. Instead, we are choosing to encourage instructors to make use of WebCT for
web-access to these lab audio materials, and for those students who do not have web-access, we
offer specially reserved extra practice times and the opportunity to come to do extra practice
during another scheduled lab time when machines allow. Though inconvenient for some students, we
have found that this is generally satisfactory for those students who legitimately are going to
take the time to review these materials outside of their scheduled lab times.
At this time we haven't ruled out the idea of offering copied CDs to students in the future.
However, when we look at the investment that is required for the necessary equipment and for
the staff time, we have yet to decide that it is a sound investment given the expected lack of
requests for the materials. Perhaps, instead it would be a wiser investment to purchase a handful
of copies of the lab CDs from publishers and offer these through a library than to go to the
expense of purchasing equipment and then the trouble of copying them.
These are my two (or perhaps 40) cents on the matter.
Deanne Cobb
University of Regina
On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 15:55:57 EDT LLTI-Editor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> --- Forwarded Message from "Schlau, Georgia T." <[log in to unmask]> ---
>
> >Subject: Audio CD Duplication
> >Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2003 10:35:55 -0400
> >Thread-Topic: Audio CD Duplication
> >Thread-Index: AcN8YB5rLBa6SXuKEcOa8oZ686JKqA==
> >From: "Schlau, Georgia T." <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: <[log in to unmask]>
>
> ------------------
> Now that many publishers are producing audio CDs instead of cassettes for their textbooks, are Language Resource Centers duplicating the CDs for students to check out? All of a sudden we seem to be behind the times and our high speed cassette tape duplicators and cassette playing language lab are becoming obsolete.
>
> Any information about this turn in events will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Georgia Schlau
> Director of the Language Resource Center
> College of Charleston
> Charleston, S.C.
Deanne Cobb
Language Lab Manager
Language Resource Centre
University of Regina
|