Nov. 3, 2009 (PR Newswire) -- DENVER, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- (booth #443) -- Even with campus travel bans and budget cuts, the higher education community can still attend the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. Sonic Foundry, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFO), an EDUCAUSE Gold Partner and the recognized market leader for rich media webcasting and knowledge management, today announced that its Mediasite platform will be used to create a blended event by recording and streaming online presentations from EDUCAUSE 2009, taking place November 3 - 6 in Denver, Colorado.

The EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, "The Best Thinking in Higher Ed IT," delivers thought leadership, community interaction and educational insights to all professionals in higher education. This year, EDUCAUSE is offering a virtual conference pass. The online event includes 13 featured sessions plus concurrent presentations, a campus facilitator kit with tools and tips for hosting events and a pass to EDUCAUSE Central Online, a community hub provided for virtual collaboration.

While the conference has streamed sessions on-demand via Mediasite for several years, last year marked the first time the conference streamed live webcasts to a virtual audience. Due to the positive response, the organization created EDUCAUSE 2009 Online, where online attendees can learn and network with colleagues without leaving campus.

Live and on-demand presentation recordings are included with the online package. Key sessions include:

--  Sean Brown, vice president of education, Sonic Foundry to present The
Past, Present, and Future of Academic Webcasting, Wednesday at 3:50
p.m., Korbel Ballroom 3B.

--  Jim Jorstad, director of educational technologies, University of
Wisconsin-La Crosse to present Lost in Space: Finding Your Way Around
Effective Learning Space Creation, Wednesday 10:30 a.m., meeting room
603, and Houston, We Have a Problem: Leading Through Failure, Thursday
at 3:45 p.m., meeting room 605.

EDUCAUSE 2009 is being webcasted by Sonic Foundry's Event Services group, a leading provider of webcasting for blended conferences and high-profile training events. The group and its strategic partners use the patented Mediasite webcasting platform to complement conferences or events with viewing over the web.