5. News from GLOSAS


GLOSAS has been experimenting again. A successful three-hour Global Lecture Hall (GLH)(TM) teleconference was held on October 25, 1995. The venue was the VIth International Conference on Distance Education: "Technology and Distance Education: Sharing Experiences Around the World", held at the Universidad Estatal a Distancia, San Jose, Costa Rica.

A detailed report is not yet available. Briefly, a number of telecommunications interlinks were tested in a complicated network architecture. Wireless was represented by KarlNet's 2 Mbps wireless spread spectrum telecom. Internet was used to demonstrate enhanced MBONE operation and Cornell's CU-SeeMe. PictureTel was one of the participants and satellites were used for worldwide broadcasting of the integrated audio-visual proceedings. Shareview conferencing software was used via Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) in a demo involving a nurse training course exchange on denge fever treatment between Ohio University and Costa Rica.

There were a number of presentations on related subjects of technology and distance learning. Dr. Renato Cortinovis, of ITU, spoke of ITU's Global Telecommunications University (GTU) project. Dr. Tapio Varis addressed the audience from Helsinki via PictureTel, Dr. Federico Mayor, Secretary General of UNESCO, spoke (via videotape) from Paris, while Mr. Charles Fox, Director of WORLDNET Television and Film Service, U.S. Information Agency addressed the audience (video tape) from Washington, D.C.

The event included a demonstration of simulated asynchronous computer-mediated multimedia conferencing (CMMCS) with FORUM software, via Internet, between two geographically separated sites (College Station and Canyon, TX) in a brief academic exercise involving epilepsy. "Student" and "teacher" interacted with instructions on the mechanisms of epilepsy and provided each other with in-context links to World Wide Web sites that contain useful reference material on epilepsy. Their videos were seen in two split screens side by side, sent via satellite.

There were no major glitches. Your editor participated via CU-SeeMe and had very poor audio reception, but the reason was a very slow line (64Kbps). The video of satellite feed, taped in Ottawa, Canada, shows very good quality of reception. Congratulations to Tak Utsumi and thanks to all who participated, or otherwise contributed, to the success of the event.


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URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/news53.htm

November, 1995


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.