Students walking past Durham Center or Parks Library lately may have the feeling they are being watched.

They are.

Through a coordinated effort between Iowa State’s Office of University Relations, the Computation Center and the Media Resources Center, a video camera is keeping a watchful eye on campus.

The camera is called the Iowa State Cam and it’s adding a new twist to the university’s World Wide Web page.

The camera, perched on the roof of Durham Center, takes pictures of campus activity in the walkways below.

The camera takes a new picture every 10 minutes and displays the photograph on the university’s Web site.

Web surfers can reference different times to see what’s happening on campus at various times throughout the day.

Diana Pounds, assistant director of university relations, said the Iowa State Cam is “just so Web surfers — people familiar with Iowa State — can stop, go in and check in on what campus looks like today.”

She said university officials chose the spot because they felt there was a lot of campus activity there.

The ISU Homepage can be accessed at http://www.iastate.edu/, To view the lawn in front of Parks Library, click on the ISU Cam icon.

The use of campus cameras for Web sites has been a popular trend at universities across the country. Many, like ISU, have added them to their Web pages. The ISU Cam has been up and running for about a week.

Pounds said university officials haven’t yet been able to determine the community’s reaction to the camera.

Statistics will be available in about a month.

Pounds added that university officials eventually hope to have the camera become more mobile. For now, the camera is stationary. “It’s just a nice way for people outside the campus to check in and see what kind of day we’re having,” Pounds said.