9th Wonder and professors James Braxton Peterson and Mark Anthony Neal lead a class discussion online Tuesday night.

On Tuesday evening heads were nodding in a lecture hall on East Campus. But this time, people around the world could tune in and share the class's energy.

A special webcast of the popular spring course, "Sampling Soul," set a record Tuesday for live streaming video at Duke with an audience of more than 10,000 viewers.

The class is co-taught by Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African American Studies, and Grammy-winning music producer, 9th Wonder. Bucknell English professor James Braxton Peterson, Duke '93, joined them Tuesday for a discussion of rapper Nas' 1994 album, Illmatic.

While Neal's students filtered into Richard White Lecture Hall, students of hip hop gathered online to take in the lecture and offer real-time commentary on Twitter. Minutes before the event started, hundreds of online viewers had announced their anticipation on Twitter.

By the end of the night, the number of Twitter postings for the session almost reached 500. Others emailed dozens of questions ranging from the academic to the absurd. (See accompanying story)

Neal said the webcast showed the reach university intellectual discussions can have.

"I have always envisioned the study of popular culture and music as the study of public cultures, so it just seemed a natural fit to make a course like ‘Sampling Soul' available to a broader public," said Neal, who moderated the discussion.

"Additionally, I take the concept of being a public intellectual seriously, and the work that Professor Peterson, 9th Wonder and myself did during the webcast is the kind of work that public intellectuals should be doing," he said.

Many viewers wanted to know if Nas himself was watching. Others were drawn by the celebrity of 9th Wonder. The most passionate online audience members debated the merits of "Illmatic" and Nas' lyricism on Twitter among themselves.

Using Ustream as an online host, Duke's Office of News & Communications (ONC) has produced webcasts for the past year in the form of online "Office Hours." The program is usually held on Friday afternoons and encourages viewers to informally submit questions on a particular topic to a featured faculty member. History professor Laurent Dubois' Office Hours on politics and the World Cup held the previous record for viewership, with 7,900 unique visits.

Duke Media Services, led by Scott Wells, provided the technical facilities and set up lights and cameras in the lecture hall for several hours before the class started.

"Working on location is always a challenge," Wells said. "Coordinating the scheduling of the classroom space and the necessary network connectivity to support live streaming is an ever-changing landscape, depending on which campus venue is chosen for a live event like this one. We take it in stride and look forward to the next opportunity to highlight innovations in teaching and learning at Duke."

Tuesday's class was perhaps the first time a classroom discussion at Duke has been publicly webcast with interaction from viewers through social media. The event demonstrates Duke's commitment to sharing faculty expertise with a broad audience, an idea that Duke alum Neil Williams, Duke ‘06 appreciates.

"I think these live lectures are awesome and a great way to spread knowledge and the Duke brand to the global community," said Williams who watched the webcast and tweeted comments. "I think alums would love to see more lectures broadcast on the net, as long as the subject matter is interesting."

Williams found out about the webcast through 9th Wonder's Twitter page, which has 30,000 followers.

"He's a trusted name in hip-hop so it would make sense for people to tune in based on his recommendation alone," Williams said. Both ‘Sampling Soul' instructors have large followings on the Internet. Neal has a blog, New Black Man, and is also an active Facebook user. He uses these platforms to "help break down some of the boundaries between the so-called Ivory Tower and the rest of the world."

Adds Neal, "I'm thankful that there are folk at Duke who see the immense possibilities of these kind of experiences."