Hello Doug: We are working on a distant relative of iTunes U that might be called "virtual conferencing". This involves podrecording of the audio component of conference talks, and linking with the accompanying slideshows [ppt or pdf]. We experimented with this at the recent American Chemical Society [ACS] meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, and at regional meetings of science educators in the Atlantic Provinces. Here is an account from the ACS: "The Division of Chemical Information (CINF) sponsored a session at the 231st National Meeting of ACS (held in Atlanta) in March titled: "Social Software and Chemical Information." There were eight speakers in the session, presenting on topics of blogs, wikis, podcasts, and more. These talks are now available as audio (MP3) files, with accompanying slides (PDF or PPT format) on the CINF website. To access these files, point your browser to http://www.acscinf.org, then select Meetings button, then click on either "Technical Session" or "Abstracts" for the Atlanta meeting. You will see PDF, PPT, and MP3 links for papers 1-8. Use any MP3 software (e.g., QuickTime or iTunes are both free to download) to listen to the audio files, either on a computer equipped with speakers, or on a portable MP3 player. The audio files are quite large, so may take a few minutes to download.

On behalf of CINF and Erja Kajosalo and myself (co-organizers of the session), I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following folks: Brian Lynch and Lai Im Lancaster, who not only participated in the session as speakers, but who also recorded the audio files and provided technical advice; Rick Williams (CINF Webmaster), who loaded files and designed the web page for delivery of files; and finally, all of the session speakers who so graciously gave permission to be recorded and broadcast via our website. Please feel free to forward this message to other communities who might be interested, and feel free to contact me with questions or comments."

We hope to be able to run another pilot at the meeting of the Canadian Society for Chemistry in Winnipeg next spring. The presentation in the USA received excellent publicity [see attached file] from the ACS and also the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World [see 2nd attachment].

We feel that the concept will enhance the value of typical large science conferences through making material available to those who cannot attend physically, and also solves problems for attendance associated with simultaneous multiple sessions.

As per the ACS quote Please feel free to forward this message to other communities who might be interested, and feel free to contact me with questions or comments.

Sincerely

Brian Lynch

Brian M. Lynch, M. Sc., Ph. D. [Melbourne], FCIC Senior Research Professor Department of Chemistry Room 3067, Physical Sciences Complex St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia B2G 2W5, Canada Tel: 902-867-0450 Fax: 902-867-2414