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Ustream is Duke's Latest Venture in Online Communication

The new 'Office Hours' series uses the live video streaming platform

Professor Dan Ariely answers questions during a live "Office Hours" session on Duke's Ustream channel.

An "online office hours" series that enables the public to interact with leading Duke  University professors is the school's latest initiative to use new media to share its research and knowledge with a broad audience.

 The new partnership between Duke and the live video streaming company Ustream will feature Bill Chameides, dean of Duke's Nicholas  School of the Environment, taking questions about global warming and other issues at noon EDT Friday, Sept. 4.

Duke's Office Hours series launched last month and has already featured behavioral economist Dan Ariely, geneticist David Goldstein and Mark Anthony Neal, professor of African and African-American Studies, discussing topics that ranged from the stock market to the legacy of pop star Michael Jackson.

"Duke has a strong commitment to sharing its knowledge and expertise to serve society," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations at Duke. "We're using a growing number of new media platforms to invite the public to participate in the debates that animate our campus, on issues ranging from health care to foreign policy. These new services and programs make it possible for our faculty to connect with audiences around the world."

The Ustream partnership is the latest in a series of alliances that Duke has made with online media ventures. Others include:

-- Big Think, which features short video interviews with leading thinkers, politicians and entertainers. Seven Duke experts now appear on the site, ranging from physicist Arlie Petters discussing mysterious dimensions in the cosmos to philosopher Ruth Grant considering the drawbacks of altruism.

-- Fora.tv, which presents video recordings of major speeches, lectures and debates from around the world. The site has featured Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski discussing team-building and choreographer Shen Wei, who was recently in residence at Duke, describing his work for settings such as the Beijing Olympics.

-- Duke's sites on YouTube and iTunes U, which have each received more than one million views and are among the most-visited university sites.

-- A newly formed Duke fan page on Facebook, which has attracted more than 9,000 fans. A number of Duke campus units have feeds on Twitter, including the news office. In addition, Duke has been working with researchers to place their data on Swivel, where members of the public can access the information.

The new partnership with Ustream provides Duke with a live interactive platform to highlight its faculty or others through streaming video, which Duke alumni, parents or anyone else can watch online. Duke is the first university to use the free site.

"By making its inaugural higher education partnership with Duke, Ustream aims to help empower educational experiences across physical and financial boundaries," said John Ham, Ustream's chief executive officer. "We look forward to enabling Duke professors to reach students across the globe."

Viewers can watch the upcoming conversation with Chameides, as well as other live events, on Duke's Ustream channel. They can send their questions and comments by e-mail to live@duke.edu, by Twitter with the tag #dukelive or as a post on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook.