The college recently launched a for several courses where professors deliver lectures in short 60-second bursts that are available online.
The college's occupational safety online degree program uses microlectures exclusively. The feature has also been introduced in online reading, tribal governance and veterinary studies courses at the college.
"Overall, the response has been favorable," David Penrose, the online-services manager for San Juan College told The Industry Standard. "Students report liking the focused content and clear identification of important details for each learning unit."
He added that some students also requested longer presentations and more information.
Jeff Seaman, CEO of Sloan Consortium, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving online education, said microlectures were best suited to well-defined, solitary concepts.
"The short length makes these impractical for anything but very focused topics," he told The Standard. "They are not a good mechanism to convey several subtle points in a particular argument, for example."
Seaman also pointed to the role of mobile technologies in disseminating the microlectures. "Having them short means that they can be very portable - a student might have several dozen of these on their iPod, for example, that you go to at any time if a specific issue arises when they are doing an assignment," he said.
SunGard Higher Education, the company that designed the microlecture program for San Juan College hopes to expand the program to other institutions, a company spokesperson told The Standard.