Tuesday, October 23, 2007

(Seattle, WA October 22, 2007) - Echo³⁶⁰ (echo360.tv), the leading provider of enterprise lecture capture solutions for higher education, announced today that the recently unveiled Echo³⁶⁰System has been selected to upgrade and expand Purdue University’s innovative podcasting service, BoilerCast.

Purdue University introduced BoilerCast in 2005. “BoilerCast recordings are currently captured in 70 classrooms throughout campus,” said David Eisert, educational technologist at Purdue University. “We needed a single platform to expand availability of BoilerCast and provide a foundation for capturing and distributing broader varieties of content as Purdue supports learning anytime, anyplace for our 38,000 students.”

As technologies—and students—have become increasingly sophisticated, Purdue also wanted to further enrich lecture podcasts with course visuals. The Echo³⁶⁰System will upgrade the BoilerCast audio-only service to include rich media course visuals in the form of enhanced podcasts and vodcasts. The system’s automated publishing interface will enable lecture podcasts to be delivered to Purdue students through a wider variety of channels, including iTunesU and The Blackboard Learning System™ – Vista Enterprise License.

“BoilerCast podcasts reinforce what’s learned through lectures by allowing easy access to digital course content for convenient review,” commented Edward J. Evans, interim executive director of teaching and learning technologies at Purdue University. “Increasingly, we find students expect constant access to learning resources – regardless of the time and their location.”

Purdue University is known for embracing technology for substantive learning. “The BoilerCast service at Purdue is perhaps the best example of how institutions can use podcasting to put education directly into the hands of students via their iPods or other mobile devices,” noted Fred Singer, Echo³⁶⁰ CEO. “We look forward to working with the Purdue University BoilerCast team to power the largest rich media lecture capture deployment in higher education.”

About Echo³⁶⁰

Full-time, part-time, distance, continuing, and online all describe today’s student, living in a 24/7 world. On-demand media and education converge at Echo³⁶⁰, helping colleges and universities engage students on their terms with full and unbounded access to their classroom-based content through multiplatform replay. Developed in partnership with the University of Western Australia, Echo³⁶⁰ offers scalable and affordable lecture capture solutions that empower institutions of any size to provide universal availability of lecture content to their students. From New York to Newcastle, Melbourne to Mexico City, Echo³⁶⁰ touches the lives of more students in more than 1,000 higher education classrooms around the globe.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a coeducational, state-assisted system in Indiana. Founded in 1869 and named after benefactor John Purdue, the University is one of the nation's leading research institutions with a reputation for excellent and affordable education. Building upon historical strengths in engineering and agriculture, the West Lafayette campus currently offers 7,400 courses in more than 500 undergraduate majors and specializations in the schools/colleges of Agriculture, Consumer and Family Sciences, Education, Engineering, Health Sciences, Liberal Arts, Management, Nursing, Pharmacy and Pharmacal Sciences, Science, Technology, and Veterinary Medicine.