National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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May 18, 2010 8:42:25 AM

One Northeastern baseball student-athlete's concern that the baseball season would force him to miss too much of a required course led the school to adopt a new technology to help its student-athletes continue to learn even when they are on the road for competition.

The athletics department teamed with the university's deans and professors to offer lecture capture technology, which allows student-athletes to watch lectures they miss.

The initiative uses technology that can record chalkboard, audio and computer screen activity in a specific class, including text, slide presentations, Web sites and live demonstrations. The recordings are made accessible online for all students in the class, including student-athletes.

Northeastern officials stress that the technology is not a replacement for missing class, but it does provide a way for student-athletes to have as close an experience to the real thing as possible when athletics commitments make class attendance impossible.

Former baseball student-athlete James Donaldson was the impetus for the program. When he compared his team's spring schedule to his class schedule, which included a required course that met on Tuesdays and Fridays, he knew that his baseball responsibilities would require him to miss too many classes to do well in the course. He contacted Northeastern Faculty Athletics Representative Fred Wiseman, who worked with the institution's Office of Student-Athlete Support Services to find a solution.

Student-Athlete Support Services Director Lauren DeSantis helped decide on the lecture capture initiative, which began as a pilot program in fall 2009. About 25 faculty members participated in the pilot, and 95 classes were captured. The program expanded to 50 faculty members with 445 class recordings in the spring semester. DeSantis said she expects the program will continue to expand, with student-athletes and professors working together.

"We are all excited about this new technology, and we believe it will be a tremendous asset for our student-athlete population, and the start of something great for Northeastern as a whole," she said.

Several NCAA committees, including the Division I Academics Cabinet, are studying the impact and amount of missed class time due to athletics participation. An NCAA-sponsored research project, the Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in college, surveyed more than 20,000 student-athletes about their academic engagement, athletics experiences, time commitments and other topics to provide the cabinet and other groups with information about possible trade-offs student-athletes make to participate in athletics.

While the NCAA study found that most student-athletes are engaged in their academic work, many reported that they viewed themselves more as athletes than as students and miss between one and two classes a week. The study also found that athletes in baseball, softball, golf, skiing, women's volleyball, Division I women's basketball and Division I women's soccer spent the most time away from campus during the season relative to other sports.