OUTLINE OF GLH PROGRAM (tentative)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Thursday, July 7, 1994
~~~~~
Time: 9:00 to 12:00 (Eastern Daylight Time/U.S.A.)
~~~~~
Range: (a) Via satellites: North, Central and South America;
~~~~~~ Western, Central and Eastern Europe; Scandinavia; Baltic;
Ukraine, Western Russia, Mediterranean, etc. (Some
depend on the availability of satellites we are now
confirming.)
(b) Via Internet: Globally via Internet nodes.
Demonstration of "Friends and Partners" World Wide Web (WWW) server by Mr. Greg Cole, The University of Tennessee, which enables mixed media (text, graphics, image, audio, and video) information exchange via Internet, integrating information from such Internet-based tools and utilities as Listservers, Gophers, WAIS databases, FTP archives, etc.
A black and white video (10 to 15 frames per second [fps]) and audio by Mr. Richard Cogger of Cornell University, Apple/Moscow and others.
Text, graphics, image, white board, audio, and video (5 to 10 fps) -- with scientific visualizations of a global circulation model for ocean currents by Messrs Mike McCann and Donald Paul Brutzman of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and others.
Text, graphics, image, white board, audio, and video (30 fps) by Messrs Ren Moore and Rob Hall of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in California and Moscow.
Text, graphics, image, white board, audio, and video (10 to 15 fps) by Mr. Jim Miller of SYNECTICS.
This is a one-to-many receive-only ShareView system via inexpensive narrow-band channel of satellite, for those students in rural and remote areas where there is no Internet node. Video of an instructor, handwriting in color on an electronic white board, image/graphics with annotation, dynamic graphic presentation by real-time execution of an application program/simulation model, etc., can be seen in windows on computer screen. These experiences can include high levels of interaction and feedback (via email, fax, etc.) amongst students and instructors. Demonstrators are Dr. Mel Muchnik of Governors State University, Mr. Timothy Cook of Nebraska Educational TV, and Dr. Gerald Knezek of University of North Texas.
Objectives:
Participation:
The computer screen will be uplinked for worldwide broadcast. If you have a satellite downlink facility and our satellite foot-prints cover your area, you can receive our satellite signal. You can also participate with your personal computer and/or workstation which are directly connected to TCP/IP oriented Internet without use of satellite nor dish antenna.
Other than participation fee (*), all participants have to be responsible for the costs of (1) down/uplinking from/to satellites; (2) telephone call to a videoconference center at the University of Tennessee for Q&A; and (3) sending fax to the center for backstage coordination.
Should you be interested in participating in this event, please contact Takeshi Utsumi to obtain a registration form. Registrants will then receive instructions for participation.
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D.
utsumi@columbia.edu
President, Global University in the U.S.A. (GU/USA)
A Divisional Activity of GLOSAS/USA
(GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)
43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A.
Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email)
SprintMail: tutsumi@associates.tnet.sprint.com
Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
I. INTRODUCTION
Improving and expanding education are essential ingredients of any national development policy. Countries look to the future's well educated generations as the best way to improve their overall social and economic standing. Because of its economic advantages, electronic distance education has been perceived as a powerful means to utilize telecommunication technology for the dissemination of teaching experiences and ideas; for access to and sharing of information; for the production of two-way exchanges between the emitter and the receiver; and for bridging time and space limitations.
This project proposes that an integrated systems approach to development of an electronic distance education system for remote areas be economically undertaken in phases to provide effective, affordable, and timely delivery. It further proposes that state of the industry equipment and resources be utilized to minimize exposure to failure, to maximize utilization of existing resources, and to allow new developments to add to the whole rather than render it obsolete. It requires minimum invention yet promotes innovation within time and economic constraints.
Distance education involves a variety of systems -- teaching techniques; infrastructures for sending, receiving, transporting, connecting, and manipulating information; applications software to control and process; training; and general principles for overall structuring of the curriculum and assessments. There are various techniques currently used for presenting distance education, including travel by the instructor or students, videoconferencing, digital transmission systems, and other compressed data systems using telecommunications services. While these are increasingly less expensive, down to as low as US$5,000 per end and US$1 per minute, this is still prohibitively expensive in societies where less than US$1,000 per student per year is available. The one-to-many broadcasting system will be designed to allow remote reception of electronic learning information at an affordable cost.
The project will collect data, provide a test platform, report on development, produce working systems, and deploy a reasonable solution for ubiquitous access to necessary resources. The project is designed to be implemented in three phases to allow gradual costs to be developed, to allow time for support funding to be raised, and to reduce the complexity of study and planning by using small working systems that can be scaled up to global deployment. Phase one will use emerging systems to test, study, and develop initial teaching techniques. Phase two will deploy working sites for testing and development of training systems and to keep up with emerging technology. Design for the one-to-many system will begin in this phase. Phase three will implement and provide operational systems using the defined and perfected systems from phases one and two, including the one-to-many system.
By utilizing a variety of electronically-enabled techniques, all participants can communicate, albeit at different bandwidth or speeds. By studying what works now and defining the parameters to build access to the global community that is affordable for all, this project strives for integration and equality of electronic exchange beyond broadcast television, circuit connected telephony or inter-networked computers. Global contact can be achieved at an affordable price. Whether by outrigger or space shuttle, the information explorers of the 21st century can be anyone - anywhere.
Global (electronic) University (GU) (a divisional activity of GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the USA (GLOSAS/USA)) is now soliciting participants under the footprints of various satellites in the Third World countries, who may be interested in a joint project of developing a one-to-many receive-only multimedia system which could be deployed at an affordable price, and which would be simple to operate and maintain, and work on standard communications and computer systems. The system will allow transmission of voice, color video, and data over an inexpensive voice grade channel. Video of an instructor, handwriting in color on an electronic whiteboard, image/graphics with annotation, dynamic graphic presentation by real-time execution of an application program/simulation model, etc., can be seen in windows on the receiver's computer screen.
The resulting system will be a "Multimedia of America, (MMOA)" (TM) -- analogous to the shortwave receiver for "Voice of America." Students at participating schools can receive American education with the one-to-many broadcasting system with high levels of interaction and feedback (via electronic conferencing) amongst students and instructors. In the not so distant future, students in any remote location can receive courses from America (later from any other countries), and they can earn degrees from the Global University. On the other hand, teachers and professors (active or retired) can also transmit their courses from their offices or homes through ordinary telephone lines for worldwide broadcasting, including via packet-satellites. This system will be developed in the Third World countries utilizing land lines, existing satellites and earth stations.
Working examples of multi-media (data, sound, and images) are already available. A commercial version of such a multimedia system, ShareView (priced at about $4,000), currently allows a one-to-one connection over a standard analog telephone line (capable of data transmission speeds of 7.2 Kbps to 14.4 Kbps). The video speed is typically 5-10 frames per second (fps). The University of Guam has decided to use it to connect with a college in Palau via GOES-3 duplex channel for interactive use in the medical field and the World Bank is going to test it among their field offices, particularly between their Moscow office, Eastern European locations, and their headquarters in Washington, D.C. The system has already been tested between California State University -- Sacramento and the Distance Delivery Consortium in Bethel, Alaska (with two hops of AURORA-II) and, in a different test, with INMARSAT from an oceangoing vessel and on links from Los Angeles to Japan. The functionality of this collaborative work platform includes its ease of use, compressed video, data transfer, mutual screen sharing, and application sharing all within the same telephone call and work session. It will be a working platform to develop techniques and working projects.
As the distance learning and instruction techniques are developed and tested with systems like ShareView, the one-to-many system will be developed for locations and applications which cannot afford or do not need one-to-one connectivity. As proposed, it would consist of a digital bit stream transmitted to work-stations in areas without ubiquitous wire-based communications via packet circuits or packet-radio, including satellite, and other wireless connectivity.
The one-to-many system will include the functionality of the collaborative work platform, but at a lower unit cost for delivery and reception. Since much instruction is based on an asymmetric communications mode; i.e., most of the information flows to the student, the packet-based broadcast system transports most of the information while feedback can be via mail, email, Internet, or even voice callback since it requires lower bandwidth and is less time-critical.
Current major players in this project are SYNECTICS, Ltd. in Seattle, WA, USA (the vendor of ShareView and developer of collaborative work platforms and applications), the University of Guam and the University of North Texas (developers of packet-satellite systems), and GLOSAS/USA (as coordinator).
[Editor's note: Related information is found in item 8, Part 3: ITU discusses and proposes a global tele-university, cites GLOSAS' Global (Electronic) University as example.]
Return to GLOSAS News Contents for this issue.
URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/news41.htm
April 1994
GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.