Full Paper

Stephen Giles and Chris Avram

sgiles@monash.edu.au, chris.avram@monash.edu.au

Computer Technology Department

Monash University

An important issue for Monash University (as well as all other educational institutions) is to find new ways of providing student access to lectures and to lecturers. The traditional on-campus lecture to a number of students requires the students to be in attendance on that campus and seated in a lecture theatre. In order to increase the efficiency of teaching, and access to subject areas on many campus sites, the University has implemented Teleteaching systems between most campuses. Lectures are now presented at one or more locations using videoconferencing systems via ISDN-based communications links to provide the remote presence for the lecturer. Video-on-demand trials are under way for student access to video materials at the PC desktop. Additionally, many subjects make use of web-based resources for teaching-support or as a replacement for face-to-face teaching.

The general computing community, as well as the educational community, has seen the rapid adoption of the World Wide Web over the past few years. In the Higher Education area there have been the many web-based developments targeted at what has been termed the Virtual University. Many subjects have part, or all, of their support materials provided via WWW pages. These web-based initiatives may be providing just another way of presenting the material, i.e. an electronic form of the printed matter; or they may be presenting the learning material in a form that moves far beyond just a representation of the content, e.g. simulation, etc.

A limitation of many of these WWW systems is that access is to relatively static resources that, although providing teaching material in an easily accessed form, have limited real-time interaction capabilities.

The recent development of conferencing technologies - audio, video and application/data - has now provided an important adjunct to these systems. Applications supported by these new technologies would provide the support necessary for this remote education to succeed.

By using a combination of these web and conferencing technologies, the common view of a future virtual university, consisting of a small campus site housing the administrative services necessary to support the teaching and the teaching staff, could be a reality. Students would work from home, attending lectures via the Internet. They would be able to meet with their lecturers for informal discussion, and more formal tutorials, via the same medium.

In early May 1997, the Computer Technology Department began trials of a project where two lecturers were in contact with their students and other staff members via a home-based cable modem service. The cable modem service used for the trial is similar to the types of service planned for implementation by many communications service providers around the world. Due to its availability, the cable modem supplied by Telstra was chosen for the trial.

At the beginning of semester two in July, students from the two lecturer's subjects were invited to participate in trials where they could contact staff for consultation using NetMeeting (or any H.323 and T.120 compliant application). They were be able to conference with the lecturer's office and home machines from either their home Windows95- or WindowsNT-based machines, or from the Windows95-based laboratory machines of the University.

The staff members used the systems as if their home offices were an extension of the normal workplace, carrying out their everyday management and academic tasks.

At the end of a suitable time-period (end of the summer semester 1997/98), assessment of the suitability of both the conferencing products as well as the cable modem service will be conducted via the staff and students being surveyed as to their perception of the effectiveness of systems similar to the trial systems. There will also be some analysis of the cable modem system's technical capabilities and costs to investigate its suitability for supporting the application of conferencing to an educational usage.

Many staff members and students are currently accessing their University-based resources from home. Most access the University network and the Internet via the dial-in services provided by the University. A growing number are choosing to access the University networks and the Internet via Internet Service Providers (ISP). In the future Virtual University it is likely that most staff and students will be accessing the University from sites that are off the campus and many will be using the services of an ISP.

The primary needs considered in this technology review are for interactive consultations between students and teachers. Clearly, such consultations are best conducted in person, thus maximizing the communications channel bandwidth. If some particular presentation device can improve face to face communications, then surely such a device used by the two communicants in the same location is the best way to maximize communications.

So why interpose technology into the communication? The most common reason is cost. The cost of time spent travelling, the cost of travel itself and the cost of teachers themselves. Another common reason is the lack of time for travel.

The second best solution is to use communications technology to enable the nearest thing to a face to face consultation. Such a communication should be immediate (not store and forward, not a system such as email), should be human contact rich (not text based, not a system such as IRC, MUD), should facilitate joint consideration of collaboratively produced materials (not just a telephone or video conference but one that allows computer screens to be shared). Let us call this teleconsulting.

The typical student home computer is an Intel Pentium based personal computer operating under the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system. There is a variety of PC Internet based software facilitating live interaction with a teacher or course adviser. In this section, we describe the options for connecting such a PC to the Internet and in turn to a computer at a teacher's home or office. These options are 1) plain old telephone service (POTS), 2) Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), 3) Cellular telephone service (cellphone) and 4) Cable TV modem (cable).

Each of these services will be described in terms of cost, availability, data transfer rate, other features and futures. Many of these attributes will vary from time to time and place to place. The data presented will be based on late 1997 Australian conditions.

Data transfer rate

The cellular telephone system can be used for Internet access. The data rate of the GSM network is limited to 9,600 bit/sec. This is inadequate for teleconsulting.

Other features and futures

The cellular network is good for mobile operation but not yet adequate for full collaboration or videoconferencing.

Source http://www.ascend.com/images/products/pipeline/p75netac.gif

The initial student population of approximately 300 students was encouraged to use this facility. Resources were made available (e.g. an Internet Locator Server was run on a Windows NT server for NetMeeting use, a local FTP site was setup for the necessary software) and all technical information needed was also accessible. Of this group a number (approximately 50) tested the system. A smaller number (around 20) used NetMeeting for one-to-one audio sessions over University dial-up facilities. Most chose not to participate. This may have been due to this being seen as a non-mainstream function for the students and therefore of less importance. It may have also been too involved for the students given other pressures for their time. It is expected that during the next phase of the process the students will be interviewed to ascertain the reasons for their lack of involvement. Activity was logged of a more casual nature via the Internet Locator Server, which indicates that there was some less-formal use of this medium that was not reported by the students.

The staff members found a number of positive outcomes. Firstly, the performance of the home workstation was now at least equal to the work environment, if not better in some sessions. The convenience of carrying out all normal day-to-day tasks at either the home or office was seen as a significant improvement to their work-life. After the initial technical difficulties (of which there where few), an almost seam-less home and workplace environment was available.

The current investigation has tended to focus on the communications technologies and to a lesser extent upon the conferencing technologies. As the networks both within, and external to, the University improve in speed and quality of service, the focus should turn to the conferencing products, as it will be here that advances such as multipoint conferencing make the most impact.

Of the many techniques for bringing remote students into closer contact with their educational institutions, the newly emerging cable networks are likely to become important features of the communications landscape. However, the limitations of availability and cost will be obvious barriers to the expansion of the University beyond its physical boundaries.

(c) Stephen Giles and Chris Avram

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