Jason Koski/University Photography

Live from Bailey Hall, Dec. 2, Professor James Maas delivers a lecture on sleep research to students at Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar. The audience in the lecture hall in Qatar is projected on a screen behind Maas.

Martin Marion/WCMC-Q

About 40 medical students (and some faculty) in Qatar watch Maas live.

Three years ago, one of Cornell's most popular classes -- Psych 101, taught by James Maas, professor of psychology and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow -- became even more popular, as students in the Weill Cornell Medical College at Qatar joined the student body, enjoying Maas' Bailey Hall lectures via video recordings.

At 9 a.m., Sunday, Dec. 2, Qatar students moved a little closer, as Maas delivered his first lecture to Qatar over a live videoconference hookup. For the first time, Maas was able to see the remote audience and interact with them during a Q&A session following the lecture. With an 8-hour time difference, Qatar students saw the lecture at 5 p.m. their time.

The lecture, "Everything You Should Know About Sleep But Are Afraid to Ask," drew on Maas' extensive research on sleep. He is the author of The New York Times best-seller "Power Sleep: The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance," in which he coined the term "power nap." His most recent book, "Remmy and the Brain Train," is an award-winning children's bedtime story about the need for sleep.

The lecture was an "extra" for Psych 101 students on both campuses. At the last class of the semester on Nov. 30, Maas invited Ithaca students to attend; about 850 attended.

The audience in Qatar saw both Maas and the slides he displayed. The Ithaca audience saw the same on a large projection screen, along with an image of the Qatar audience, while Maas saw the Qatar students on a small monitor in front of him.

Andrew Page, audio/video technical adviser for Bailey Hall, used three remote-controlled cameras to cover the event. This was like any other lecture in the course, Page said, except that with live transmission, "There's more that can go wrong." However, everything went flawlessly, he said, and Maas plans to use the technology for next year's class.

The lecture was scheduled for Sunday because the Qatar campus observes the Sabbath on Saturdays and runs classes from Sunday through Thursday.