Wimba Web Conferencing Update

Ashland University has had the web conferencing tools from Wimba available for the past two years (http://www.wimba.com/products/wimba_classroom/). We were surprised with a considerable increase in the licensing fees for renewal this year and did not receive the invoice until the week before classes. After considerable discussion with Wimba we were able to lower the renewal cost to what was within our budget but we had to abandon Wimba Voice Tools (used very little) and just keep the Wimba Classroom tool that is used by several faculty. Wimba will be doing a more extensive engagement with us later this fall to increase awareness of their system and increase use by faculty. The plan for this fall is to proceed with the Wimba engagement but also assess other web conferencing systems that will meet our instructional and budget needs. Several faculty will be involved in the assessment process and if there is a move away from Wimba we will announce that to the University community in early spring and begin training and content migration then. Our current contract with Wimba is in effect until August 2011.