GAZeL-ATIC-AzTEA Labster Project Meeting Teleconference Report
Attendees: Sam Butcher (Labster), Steve Peters (GAZeL & ATIC), Nan Williams (AzTEA & ATIC), Henry Goldberg (ATIC) and Oris Friesen (GAZeL & ATIC).
Summary:
Sam Butcher is Customer Development Manager at Labster, and has a background in biomedical science and healthcare. He has been based in London working on Labster customer relationships in Europe. He is moving to Boston soon to promote Labster’s expansion in the U.S. and Canada.
Steve reviewed the origins of the GAZeL-based Arizona Innovative Learning Collaborative, its association with Pima Community College (who are interested in Labster) and the 2015 conference which Maaroof Fakhri attended where we were first introduced to Labster. He recounted that we met with Angie Odom while she represented Labster and noted that our goal is to bring together a consortium to provide Labster virtual online lab modules to Arizona educational institutions (schools, community colleges, universities) at little or no cost.
Sam said that Labster has a project with ASU and he has had some contact with interested parties in Arizona, such as John Walsh in the library group at Cochise College. He also has a meeting scheduled with Wendy Weeks from Pima Community College later his week. Sam plans to visit Arizona in the near future, probably in late April or May. Steve said we would like to meet with Sam in Arizona. Sam and Maaroof will try to arrange for one of them to spend monthly visits to Arizona.
Steve said we need to draft a document on how to proceed with a consortium including priorities for Labster modules for Arizona educational institutions and a demonstration in rural schools. Sam commented that it is hard to set up a consortium from scratch. A better approach is to focus on a subgroup of schools, community colleges and universities and grow the consortium from that core. He suggested that eCampusOntario (https://www.ecampusontario.ca/), with whom Labster is currently working, may be a good model to emulate. Using shared resources they built a “sandbox” with significantly discounted license fees from Labster. Then eCampusOntario sought members to join this consortium and grow from there.
Sam overviewed the virtual lab simulation modules that are available. Labster has approximately 50 biology and chemistry simulations at the university level, 20 simulations for community colleges, and 10 simulations for high schools. Labster has licensed Pearson to offer their high school lab simulations with Pearson textbooks, but Labster high-school simulations can be licensed to other parties. Sam will check if Pearson has any restrictions on publishing details on the high-school labs being used by Pearson. Labster also has some engineering and physics simulations. Labster simulations require the bandwidth of YouTube videos, but virtual reality features that will be added in the future for some university simulations require additional hardware.
Sam commented on Labster funding possibilities for the proposed Arizona Labster Consortium. Labster’s original grant funding was from European sources, which are no longer available. Labster could potentially provide discounted rates for its modules to the Arizona Consortium taking advantage of efficiencies from economies-of-scale.
Sam stated Labster would typically work with a managing organization for the Arizona consortium, so Arizona will have to determine who would manage its consortium. He mentioned that eCampusOntario is a government-funded organization focused on e-learning. Sam will send us a write-up on how eCampusOntario is working with Labster.
Maaroof will be visiting ASU April 3rd – 6th. We would like to meet with him when he is here. Sam will try to schedule such a meeting. If that doesn't work then we will try to meet with Sam in May sometime.
Next Steps:
At the local level:
Summary:
Sam Butcher is Customer Development Manager at Labster, and has a background in biomedical science and healthcare. He has been based in London working on Labster customer relationships in Europe. He is moving to Boston soon to promote Labster’s expansion in the U.S. and Canada.
Steve reviewed the origins of the GAZeL-based Arizona Innovative Learning Collaborative, its association with Pima Community College (who are interested in Labster) and the 2015 conference which Maaroof Fakhri attended where we were first introduced to Labster. He recounted that we met with Angie Odom while she represented Labster and noted that our goal is to bring together a consortium to provide Labster virtual online lab modules to Arizona educational institutions (schools, community colleges, universities) at little or no cost.
Sam said that Labster has a project with ASU and he has had some contact with interested parties in Arizona, such as John Walsh in the library group at Cochise College. He also has a meeting scheduled with Wendy Weeks from Pima Community College later his week. Sam plans to visit Arizona in the near future, probably in late April or May. Steve said we would like to meet with Sam in Arizona. Sam and Maaroof will try to arrange for one of them to spend monthly visits to Arizona.
Steve said we need to draft a document on how to proceed with a consortium including priorities for Labster modules for Arizona educational institutions and a demonstration in rural schools. Sam commented that it is hard to set up a consortium from scratch. A better approach is to focus on a subgroup of schools, community colleges and universities and grow the consortium from that core. He suggested that eCampusOntario (https://www.ecampusontario.ca/), with whom Labster is currently working, may be a good model to emulate. Using shared resources they built a “sandbox” with significantly discounted license fees from Labster. Then eCampusOntario sought members to join this consortium and grow from there.
Sam overviewed the virtual lab simulation modules that are available. Labster has approximately 50 biology and chemistry simulations at the university level, 20 simulations for community colleges, and 10 simulations for high schools. Labster has licensed Pearson to offer their high school lab simulations with Pearson textbooks, but Labster high-school simulations can be licensed to other parties. Sam will check if Pearson has any restrictions on publishing details on the high-school labs being used by Pearson. Labster also has some engineering and physics simulations. Labster simulations require the bandwidth of YouTube videos, but virtual reality features that will be added in the future for some university simulations require additional hardware.
Sam commented on Labster funding possibilities for the proposed Arizona Labster Consortium. Labster’s original grant funding was from European sources, which are no longer available. Labster could potentially provide discounted rates for its modules to the Arizona Consortium taking advantage of efficiencies from economies-of-scale.
Sam stated Labster would typically work with a managing organization for the Arizona consortium, so Arizona will have to determine who would manage its consortium. He mentioned that eCampusOntario is a government-funded organization focused on e-learning. Sam will send us a write-up on how eCampusOntario is working with Labster.
Maaroof will be visiting ASU April 3rd – 6th. We would like to meet with him when he is here. Sam will try to schedule such a meeting. If that doesn't work then we will try to meet with Sam in May sometime.
Next Steps:
- Sam will provide Nan Williams with a list of the simulations available for high schools.
- Sam will send Steve a list of Labster’s contacts in Arizona.
- Steve will send Sam a similar list of contacts in Arizona that we have been working with (ASU, University of Arizona, Pima Community College).
- Sam will send us a writeup on Labster’s working relationship with the eCampusOntario consortium.
- Sam will try to be here in late April or May and we need to confirm a date to meet with him.
- Steve suggested having a videoconference with Sam when Maaroof meets with Arizona working group members in early April.
At the local level:
- Oris and Henry will write up a summary of this meeting.
- Nan suggested we set up a Google docs to track project activities. Steve said we would create a draft project document with Google docs and also track project activities.