Due to a surplus of students, POLS111 is using a video link to deliver lectures to two lecture theatres at once.

Enrolments for the course have exceeded a capacity of 500 students, and so images and sound are broadcast live from the lecture to the second classroom.

POLS111 lecturer Professor Margaret Clark says the video link option is used as it is impossible to have two streams for the class due to the numerous guest speakers who visit the class.

Clark says that while some students arrive early to get a seat in the ‘real’ class, others head straight for the video-linked class.

The lecture videos are also available on Blackboard, so students who miss the lecture the first time around can watch the lecture at a time the suits them.

Clark believes the added interest in the course comes from students now being able to study both Political Science and International Relations as separate majors.

She says that a fourth first-year POLS paper will be added next year in the hope of balancing enrolments between the courses.

Although this is not the first time Vic has used video link technology for teaching, POLS111 is currently the only course using the technology, according to ITS Teaching Services.

Several lecture theatres have been fitted out with the hardware for a pilot run, and the technology may be used in the future if required.