University Business - September 2008 - (Page 28)

Virtual Tours to Take continued Full Sail University (Fla.) www.fullsail.com View the three-sectioned virtual tour via map, menu, or slide mode, and see nearly every room on the high-tech campus, including various software labs, studios, boardrooms, and sound stages. Skateboard through campus in the map mode and stop at each landmark for additional information, or navigate through the buildings’ interiors in menu and slide mode, traveling into different rooms through clickable photo trails, much like a computer game. A Virtual Visit WELCOME For Ohio State University, showing more meant interviewing the school’s “biggest fan” inside a full football stadium on game day. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the tour’s “more” is a virtual visit to a clean room holding the world’s largest laser. And for Western State College of Colorado, it’s showing the local ﬂyﬁshing scene. Alicia Dawson, lead photographer for eCampusTours, which has created 360-degree image tours for about 500 campuses, has shot a few cadavers in medical school labs. But in general, she says, students are hungry for views of where they would be eating, living, and taking classes. “A great online tour is your chance to sell what is unique about your location, your architecture, your facilities, your campus, your student culture,” adds Adam Schroeder, co-founder of CampusVT. Creating an Experience Online tours with video and other multimedia experiences can bring a campus to life. But success or failure is all in the execution. In focus groups, says Carson, campus video footage got low marks. “Students complained about length, that they feel canned, that they’re too long, and that they’re really boring.” While students would get through nearly seven minutes of video when it was broken into chapters, colleges tend to post longer videos. Even a few extra minutes can be too much. On the University of Dayton (Ohio) virtual tour, launched in 2007, visitors can watch up to an hour of footage, but it’s broken into manageable one- to ﬁve-minute chunks. And heading east to Bryant University (R.I.), which launched its tour this summer, visitors can ﬁnd 25 diﬀerent vignettes in 30 minutes of video. Content is key. Administrators at Western State College of Colorado have put a lot of thought into video lately. Early this year, they worked with YOUniversity on a video featuring satisﬁed students and alumni, explains Brandon Boyd, former director of marketing and communication. When selecting people to interview, the project team looked beyond just ﬁnding “beautiful people,” he says. “You want authenticity. Can the viewer relate to this person?” Another aim was to capture the college’s scenic Gunnison Valley location, with nearby hiking, mountain biking, rafting, and ﬂy-ﬁshing. The YOUniversity ﬁlm crew was asked to shoot extra footage of the surrounding area so the institution could use it in future video eﬀorts, says Boyd, who is now CEO of Boyd Creative Marketing, an Illinois-based ﬁrm that helps higher ed clients develop direct marketing campaigns. In the near future, Boyd adds, the college will launch a YouTubestyle website, for which the school purchased handheld digital cameras to loan out to people on campus to encourage content creation. “The aim is to make video a staple for helping prospective students and their parents experience WSC.” Reis is an advocate of showing campus traditions in tour videos. One example is the University of Central Florida’s universitybusiness.com George Mason University (Va.) www.gmu.edu Get the Mason Experience inside ”Mason Metro” (now in beta form) by walking along a re-creation of a campus sidewalk, stopping to click on buildings and launch video footage of real student-guided tours. Linger at various stops, each of which has a handful of videos featuring a wealth of information on campus facilities and unique traditions—including rubbing the left foot of George Mason’s statue for good luck on exams. Mount Holyoke College (Mass.) www.mtholyoke.edu* “Jump in!” to this virtual tour, divided into three sections covering academics, student life, and the college’s location. Browse an extensive gallery of “talking” photos, which provide audio relating to the image in the picture. Mount St. Mary’s College (Calif.) www.msmc.la.edu* Watch a spunky video by YOUniversity that highlights the attractions of the Chalon campus and curriculum while appealing to a youthful crowd, and scroll through 10, 360-degree “bubble” shots of various spots on campus. Paul Smith’s College (N.Y.) www.paulsmiths.edu* Take a student-narrated general tour of the scenic campus, with a separate video for each building or landmark. Follow one of ﬁve students through a similar tour customized to each academic ﬁeld, with an overview of the facilities and opportunities available in each area. 28 | September 2008 http://www.fullsail.com http://www.gmu.edu http://www.mtholyoke.edu http://www.msmc.la.edu http://www.paulsmiths.edu http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - September 2008

University Business - September 2008
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Behind the News
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Human Resources
A Virtual Visit Welcome
Development Directors Speak Out
NACUBO in the Windy City
Facilities Focus
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Endowment Management
Marketing
What's New
End Note

University Business - September 2008