Skype not supported at AUBG
Over my dead body will we have Skype at AUBG - Sullivan
April 20, 2009
(Photo from appleiphoneapps.com)
Journalism professor Phelps Hawkins suggested the use of Skype as a teaching tool at AUBG during an Information Resources committee (IRC) meeting on March 19.
"I brought up the Skype issue I think for the first time in that meeting and it was broadly dismissed by almost everybody on the committee," Hawkins said. "[Dean of Faculty Steven Sullivan] said [...] ‘over my dead body will we have Skype at AUBG' and I thought that was remarkably clear," Hawkins added.
"People like CNN and others are now using [Skype] as a newsgathering technique [...] that cuts around all or some efforts to restrict news and information," Hawkins said. Having Skype on computers at AUBG would be "enormously useful. [...] I think you could use it in TV classes," he added.
Hawkins said he changed the framework of his Advanced International Reporting class last year and decided to call it Introduction to International Reporting because "there's no way you can call anybody." "I can't have anybody doing advanced international reporting [...] [because] nobody could make a phone call to another country unless we expected them to do it on their own dime."
Sullivan said Skype is not supported at AUBG because it uses a lot of bandwidth. "I have no objection to it, but it's not part of the package of supported services. [...] If we don't have the capacity [to assure] that it would work all the time, then we should not promise people," he added.
"I can argue I think that I need more bandwidth and that I need Skype because I'd like to be able to use it actually in my classroom," Hawkins said.
"I think [having Skype in computer labs is] going to help in group project for people to have better communication between each other [...] and some people who do not have computers in their rooms probably it's useful for them to communicate with their parents and friends in their home country," student Lilyana Boneva said. "It would help people not to install it every time they sit on a computer," she added.
According to the meeting minutes, the committee plans to give priority to increasing AUBG's bandwidth speed.
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Comments
Wow. Tech.
Sounds like JMC should do some targeted fund raising -- raise the money for a "media lab," and then pay AUBG for the necessary bandwidth.
install portable skype on
Tacky!
Ok. First, the article was written very good, nobody doubts Nicola skills, in fact I would say he is one of the best writers in the student media right now. But thats not my point - after all those courses he ought to be. Whats up with Verve damn it?! I feel like a bunch of 4 graders write that stuff. Anyways...
Quoting somebody from something somebody else told you!? And then use it in the title!? At least I understand it that way from the way it was written. If Sullivan acctually told that to the author (which I doubt) than its my bad. But do you even have the right to do that?
Second as the guys before me said, there are so many different ways to instant message available already so I don't see whats the angle of the story. Ive seen people even make phone calls through skype (chat all the time) from the labs. Not to mention all the inbrowser stuff - even facebook has chat. True that other universities use software like IM, but your contacts are only limited within the campus so its still the same s*#t. There is no way you can make the administration/OCC to learn the ways of the skype and the ways students can abuse with it. Look how long did it take them to fix the bloody mail.
There is not a single news in this besides Sullivan saying a bad word.
p.s. love the new site, but since when do you need to know html to make a proper post in here?