New Harbert recording facilities enhance instructional capabilities

Facilities available 24/7 for faculty and staff to record classroom lectures, podcast-style interviews or commentary

Recording Services (RS) in the Harbert College of Business announces the opening of its two newest instructional facilities — a self-recording studio and a podcast studio. Both studios are located on the ground floor of Lowder Hall and are designed to enable faculty to create exceptional course content 24/7 without having to reserve a classroom.

Self-recording studio

The self-recording studio has all the same technology that faculty currently use in the classroom to record their lectures, so it will be very familiar to most faculty, said David Simon, Harbert’s senior AV systems engineer. For those faculty who would like some training, RS staff members are available during normal business hours to show them how the system works.

“When you walk in, the studio feels and looks the same as if you're in a large classroom that you teach in every day, but you’re just in an eight-foot-by-12-foot professional space equipped to create content,” said Simon.

“If they’ve recorded themselves before or even just hosted a Zoom meeting, everything should be pretty intuitive,” said Bo Larkin, RS classroom recording specialist who oversees the in-class recording operations for Harbert classrooms. “They would launch Panopto on their computer just like they would in a classroom and select the cameras and go from there.”

In addition to pre-recording regular classroom lectures, the studio’s around-the-clock accessibility will enable faculty to supplement their instruction in response to real-world events.

For example, Simon said, if a faculty member lectures about stock market volatility in class during the morning and then the Dow rises or drops an unusual amount during the day, the professor could record supplemental classroom material explaining how the situation relates to what the students learned earlier in the day.

Professional-level podcasting

Available to Harbert faculty and staff, the podcast studio is a small professionally equipped room designed for two people to produce an audio-only or audio-and-video podcast. Harbert students can use the facility provided they are sponsored by a faculty or staff member, so student organizations can produce content relevant to Harbert College.

Harbert personnel interested in using the podcast studio are recommended to undergo brief training. Once completed, they can reserve the podcast booth to create instructional or promotional content. RS staff recommend that users record content using Adobe Podcast which is available to anyone with an auburn.edu login credential for cloud storage and easy editing. RS is also able to provide a micro-SD card to store the file, but they do not offer any post-recording editing.

With so many distinguished alumni and industry executives guest lecturing in Harbert faculty’s classes, Simon envisions some of them using the podcast to record supplemental course material before they depart campus.

“After class, they could come down here, pop into the studio and continue their conversation that they were sharing with the class, before time ran out,” he said.

“Recording Services is grateful to the college for investing in these facilities, which will elevate our faculty teaching, and more importantly, our students’ education,” said Simon. “Special thanks to Dean Jennifer Mueller-Phillips and Associate Dean Michael Wesson for their roles in helping this space come to life.”

RS staff offer training on how to use both facilities and equipment, as well as how to reserve the spaces through Mazévo. Bookings must be made one hour in advance. A single user can only reserve studio time for a maximum of four hours per session or eight hours in a single day.

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Contact RS if it is your first time using the space and you would like a walk through, tutorial, or just have a question.

• Reserve the self-recording studio (room 008C Lowder)
• Reserve the podcast studio (room 008D Lowder)