The Live Video College Fair (LVCF) was developed as a method for Destination Indiana member institutions to interact with students around the world through the EducationUSA advising center network. Conducting LVCFs was a common sense decision.  Typically, the centers we connect with span multiple time zones and thousands of miles.  To conduct a similar five city tour to meet these students in their home countries would have cost several thousand dollars and taken at least a week to complete.  In the course of five hours the university representatives can have real-time interactive connections with students in five countries.  The nominal cost of the event per university was less than $500 per institution.

 Organized by Destination Indiana, the second annual Live Video College Fair held on Feb. 6, 2007 utilized audio and video conferencing (through Polycom camera units) to virtually promote programs to Middle Eastern students.  Using audio and video conferencing, Ball State and five other higher education institutions, Indiana University, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, DePauw University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Valparaiso University, were able to “virtually” reach these geographically distant students.

 Cultural interaction and diversity is one of the program goals that video conferencing technology helped facilitate.  The interaction the Indiana university representatives have with students and educational advisers at these remote sites by definition allowed prospective students to see the diversity of the campuses and what they could bring to the institutions.

 The video connections help to break down stereotypes and correct false impressions of reality that students have of the US.  The video college fair helps to assuage some of their fears and dispel many of their pre-conceived notions of life in the US.