Research
The College houses a state-of-the-art Media Center for the Future Research Facility. This facility is available to faculty and graduate students interested in the production and testing of media-based messages. It has a 20-seat theater, with seats wired to collect heart rate, electromyographic response, and skin-conductance response data. The perception analyzer system provides an interactive tool for gathering feedback by using wireless hand-held dials.
The research facility also has message production, editing, dubbing, and testing equipment and features a cutting-edge nonlinear digital editing suite complete with the latest Intel-based Macs running Final Cut Pro HD. A 32-unit mobile wireless iBook lab allows for portable computer-based presentation of interventions and collection of data.
Unique to the College’s research technology is the “Digital Content Analysis” (DCA) Lab. The DCA Lab consists of 26 Windows-based PC’s with multiple TV-Tuner cards, S-Video Graphics output cards, and Gigabit Network cards. Five coding workstations, equipped with Windows XP Media Center, simulate normal television viewing and enable coders to record their observations into a centralized database; Output from the DCA Lab is also viewable in the Theater. The features of this system include a permanent, searchable, streamable archive of television for all 20 channels being monitored, a 60TB RAID server with 300,000 hours (2 years) of streaming video storage, automatic DVD storage and archiving, a transcript search-engine, captured in real-time, to assist in analysis, and the ability to search, view, and catalog stored television via a custom web-interface.
Teaching
The department’s teaching facilities provide the latest technology for instruction. Each of our five smart-classrooms is equipped with an LCD projector, Windows-based computer, DVD/VCR player, document camera, ceiling-mounted camera and microphone for podcasting, and the Turning Point Response system. Seating in our main classroom in the Grehan Building allows for both a traditional classroom arrangement and small group meetings when modular desks are arranged as tables.