The Thunder Room, located in 114 King Library, incorporates an electronic flipchart in a collaborative instruction room soon to be open to students, faculty and staff.
The Thunder Room, a $120,000 real-time collaborative instruction room in King Library, opened its doors to students, faculty and staff yesterday-marking the second time Miami University has led the way in library technology in Ohio.
Thunder, by PolyVision Corp., is an electronic flipchart that enables users to brainstorm and instantly share information with anyone, anywhere in the world, according to Lisa Santucci, head of the Center for Information Management (CIM) at Miami.
According to Santucci, Miami is the first university in Ohio to apply Thunder, originally created for the businesses, to a higher education setting.
This milestone comes as the CIM celebrates its 10-year anniversary. When the CIM lab opened in March 1998, it was the first such facility in the state of Ohio that focused on multimedia and cutting-edge software, according to Santucci.
Santucci said that the university's libraries are constantly looking at new hardware and software, particularly how students use them, in order to improve the way students work.
"Dean (of King Library) Judith Sessions is incredibly committed to providing new technologies for students to use," Santucci said.
The Thunder room includes furniture for 15 people, five projectors, a high-resolution scanner, a color laser printer, two DVD/VHS players, one server and an electronic easel. The room, in 114 King, around the corner from the CIM lab, comes equipped for easy laptop connection as well as the ability to send and receive calls.
With eight different virtual pages up on the wall at a time, students can use the easel to take notes that will appear instantly on the wall. Graphics and videos can then simultaneously be running on one of the other "pages." These documents become instant PDF files that can then be e-mailed or printed with the touch of a button.
Thunder also has a remote feature that allows any authorized person with an Internet connection to be able to add to and comment on the presentation without actually being there.
"Wow. Where can you start but wow? It is fabulous," said Miami President David Hodge, referring to Thunder. "(Miami) has this phenomenal capability to be able to use new products to collaborate. These things don't happen by accident; we are tremendously progressive and forward-looking. I'm not at all surprised to see something like this in a Miami library."
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According to Santucci, this semester the Thunder Room will only be open to professors who can then bring in their classes. The hope is that any kinks will be worked out this semester so students will be free to reserve it as early as next fall.
Santucci said the process of obtaining Thunder, from idea to completion, took about a year from November 2006 to November 2007.
First-year Alyssa Ward said she is excited about the Thunder Room.
"Being in the science area, I think it's a great advancement in technology that could positively influence our future and I am very proud that Miami is one of the first to take such a large step towards such innovation," Ward said.
Santucci said that Thunder will help students in the future.
"We also wanted to help prepare students technologically for things they will see in the workplace," Santucci said. "Huge companies like Disney, AT&T and Proctor & Gamble are using Thunder. We want students to be ready."
Also opening at King Library this week are three podcast rooms, featuring cameras and high-quality microphones students can use to create podcasts or other recordings.
These mini-studios were built in response to noise complaints, as well as the recent addition of podcast assignments into certain class curriculums, Santucci said.
According to Santucci, Miami will also be including a 360-degree Thunder Room in the new business school building. Santucci said the room will be set up so students won't even be able to see the projectors since the screens will go all the way around the room, immersing the users in the text.
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