Research labs are working on a number of projects that will provide transformative tools for learning and research in networked environments. Among the most significant emerging technologies are visualization, advanced collaboration tools, virtual reality, telemedicine, and teleimmersion. Some of the research into these technologies has been provoked by initiatives such as Internet 2 and the Next Generation Internet Initiative, which are facilitating fast, high-performance computing.

Founded by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development in 1996, Internet 2 (http://www.internet2.edu/) aims to develop high-speed networks along with innovative teaching and research applications that will take advantage of this greater speed. Over 170 universities are participating in Internet 2.

The Clinton administration's Next Generation Internet Initiative has similar goals to the Internet 2 program, but is an explicitly governmental effort that is more focused upon developing network technology and providing high-speed connections to particular organizations. See http://www.ngi.gov/.

Articles on Internet 2

• Roger Smith, INTERNET2: High-speed Networking Sees the Light. Software Developer, August 2000.

  Smith describes the history and intent of Internet 2, then profiles three compelling Internet 2 applications: the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, the remote payload operations aboard the International Space Station, and the New World Symphony’s use of distance training.

  http://www.sdmagazine.com/features/2000/08/f1.shtml

• Katie Hafner, As Net Turns 30, the Sequel Is Still in Previews, New York Times, October 7, 1999.

  Hafner discusses criticisms of Internet 2, noting that some charge that little of its capacity is being used up and few innovative applications are being developed. But she does point to some exciting work being in done in tele-immersion and other technologies.

  http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/circuits/articles/07net.html

• Larry Lange, Internet2: Up, Running, And Real. Planet IT, May 10, 2000.

  Lange highlights the promise of Internet 2 for multimedia applications.

  http://www.planetit.com/techcenters/docs/advanced_ip_services/news/PIT20000510S0043

Ongoing Research

Internet 2's applications page profiles some major research themes, including the Research Channel, virtual laboratories, and distance learning.

• For a more extensive listing of specific projects developed for Internet 2, see The Advanced Applications Database.

  http://dast.nlanr.net/Clearinghouse/Query.htm

• EMORY's Internet 2 site features detailed pages explaining Internet 2 and Emory's involvement in the initiative. Relevant projects include:

  • "Collaborative Molecular Visualization, Design, and Analysis. Dr. Luigi G. Marzilli's research group at Emory and two research groups at Virginia Tech will collaborate in the molecular visualization, design, and analysis of chemical agents thought to be involved in anticancer activity.... Working remotely from their own offices and labs, the scientists will jointly run computer programs to display molecular designs and the results of analyzing their creations, use 'clearboard' software to mark on these displays, and use audio and video conferencing to discuss the results and next steps. Jointly running these programs and making adjustments in real time will enable the collaborators to more rapidly create, design, and analyze new molecules, thereby gaining a deeper understanding that comes from allowing more variations to be tried."

  • Distance Education: Graduate Certificate Program in Public Health "Emory's Kathy Miner will use the high bandwidth and responsiveness of Internet2 to collaborate via video conferencing with Johns Hopkins and the University of Washington at Seattle in the creation of enhancements to distance-learning technologies refined by Emory's School of Public Health that can deliver effective, high-quality, easily accessible educational opportunities using a combination of text, graphics, and interactive multimedia. The performance and responsiveness of Internet2 will allow them to use more and longer audio and video clips to "humanize" the instruction, show charts and graphs changing with different populations and data sets, deliver timed tests, and give real time feedback to make the learning experience more meaningful."

• STANFORD (http://internet2.stanford.edu/): As a member of Internet 2, Stanford is developing cutting-edge research and teaching applications, including:

  • "Distributed Surgical Planning/Collaboration: Researchers at the National Biocomputation Center, headed by Dr. Kevin Montgomery of the School of Medicine, are leading this project to allow groups of geographically dispersed surgeons to collaborate on a surgical plan. The project's team members have developed a system that constructs a virtual workspace in which surgeons can visualize, interact with, and understand their patient's data and collaborate and consult with surgeons in other locations over the Internet2 backbone. Together with collaborators at the NASA Ames Center for BioInformatics, the system's developers demonstrated the first wide-area multicast stream over Internet2 (including CalREN and Abilene) last March. Now, this work will be fully deployed and useful for collaborating on real patients and to include new client sites."

  • "Course: Bodyworks: Bodyworks is a multidisciplinary course organized by Professor Tim Lenoir of the History Department involving participation from faculty from History of Science, Comparative Literature, and from the Department of Surgery at the Stanford Medical Center. Using Internet2 connectivity and the Zydacron OnWAN 350 videoconferencing system, the course is being taught simultaneously in Winter Quarter 2000 on the Stanford campus, at Stanford's Paris Overseas Studies Program, and at SUNY Buffalo. At each site, incoming and outgoing video are projected on one screen, allowing the class to see themselves and the remote class at the same time. Another screen projects PowerPoint slides. Session are output to videotape so that teachers and students can then capture clips for future presentations, demonstrations or review of material via MPEG and RealVideo."

• For its Internet 2 projects, Georgia Tech is emphasizing video projects and visualizations; see http://www.hpc.gatech.edu/Internet2/.

The Internet 2 program includes an initiative to develop tele-immersion, which will enable users in different locations to work together as if they are sitting in the same room. Tele-immersion will make use of cutting-edge technologies such as 3-D simulations, display technologies, audio technologies, and robotics and haptics.

Background Information on Tele-immersion

• The Internet 2's overview of teleimmersion:
  http://www.internet2.edu/html/tele-immersion.html

• The official website on tele-immersion
  http://www.advanced.org/teleimmersion.html

Model Projects

• Brown, Telecollaboration

  "At Brown, we are developing Jot, an offspring of Sketch. The goal of Jot is to provide an end to end solution for the rapid production of mechanical parts in a collaborative environment. Using Jot... an idea can be rapidly sketched on the Active Desk at Brown, and using the Center's high speed televideo network, multiple people at other sites can suggest ideas for the improvement of the design. These ideas can then be incorporated into the design, and everyone's displays are updated to reflect the changes."

  http://www.cs.brown.edu/research/graphics/research/telecollab/

• UNC's Office of the Future

  "is based on a unified application of computer vision and computer graphics in a system that combines and builds upon the notions of the CAVE(tm), tiled display systems, and image-based modeling. The basic idea is to use real-time computer vision techniques to dynamically extract per-pixel depth and reflectance information for the visible surfaces in the office including walls, furniture, objects, and people, and then to either project images on the surfaces, render images of the surfaces, or interpret changes in the surfaces. In the first case, one could designate every-day (potentially irregular) real surfaces in the office to be used as spatially immersive display surfaces, and then project high-resolution graphics and text onto those surfaces. In the second case, one could transmit the dynamic image-based models over a network for display at a remote site. Finally, one could interpret dynamic changes in the surfaces for the purposes of tracking, interaction, or augmented reality applications."

  http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/stc/teleimmersion/index.html

• University of Pennsylvania, GRASP Lab

  GRASP is working on 3-D view independent tele-conferencing.

  http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~sequence/teleim1.html

• University of Illinois, Old Dominion, Cave6D

  With the development of high-performance computing and visualization tools, environmental scientists can perform sophisticated research about the dynamic processes taking place in the environment. The description of Cave6D provides extensive technical information about how such a system works.

• Numerical Aerospace Simulation Systems Division of NASA, Scientific Visualization Sites

  A listing of a number of scientific visualization activities at universities, the private sector, the military, and governmental labs.

  http://www.geom.unimelb.edu.au/envis/viz.sites.NAS.html

• Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB)

  "The Research Collaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics (RCSB) is a non-profit consortium dedicated to improving our understanding of the function of biological systems through the study of the 3-D structure of biological macromolecules. RCSB members work cooperatively and equally through joint grants and subsequently provide free public resources and publications to assist others and further the fields of bioinformatics and biology."

  http://www.rcsb.org/index.html

• The San Diego Supercomputer Center is developing the Molecular Interactive Collaborative Environment (MICE) to faciltate interactive, dynamic, 3-D visualization of complex data-sets. A group of servers and protocols known as ICE (Interactive Collaborative Environment) makes possible the collaborative capabilities of MICE.

  http://mice.sdsc.edu/introduction.html

• Florida Atlantic University, High Bandwidth Applications, July 1998.

  In its proposal to the NSF, Florida Atlantic University describes why it should be included in the Internet 2 initiative, pointing to several innovative, high-bandwidth projects underway. Among the most significant are the Digital Mammography Collabotion with the University of Bremen and the Boca Raton Community Hospital, High Definition Television, and Realistic Computer Simulations of Microscopic Properties of Materials.

  http://www.fau.edu/irm/nsf0798.htm#C.4.a

• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Electronic Visualization Laboratory

  "EVL is a graduate research laboratory specializing in virtual reality and real-time interactive computer graphics; it is a joint effort of UIC's College of Engineering and School of Art and Design, and represents the oldest formal collaboration between engineering and art in the country offering graduate degrees to those specializing in visualization.... EVL is widely recognized for developing the CAVE and ImmersaDesk virtual reality display systems in 1992 and 1995 respectively. EVL's current research focus is "tele-immersion" - enabling users in different locations around the world to collaborate over high-speed networks in shared, virtual environments as if they were together in the same room." For a description of projects particularly relevant to education, see Tele-Immersive Learning Environments.

  http://www.evl.uic.edu/EVL/index.html

• Argonne Futures Lab

  "The Argonne Futures Lab performs basic and applied research in advanced communications, collaboration, and visualization technologies (e.g., teleimmersion) to enable the development of wide-area collaborative computational science. Our focus is on the development and evaluation of high-end technologies and systems that extend and complement commercially available tools and resources." Part of the Argonne National Laboratory, the Future Lab's projects include display environments, advanced tools that can be used for sophiscated, collaborative visualizations, and virtual reality media tools.

  http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/fl/

• Santa Cruz Laboratory for Visualization and Graphics

  This lab, part of the School of Engineering at UC Santa Cruz, is researching Nomadic Collaborative Visualization, Virtual Reality in Scientific Visualization, and Environmental Visualization.

  http://www.cse.ucsc.edu/research/slvg/

• Virtual Lightbox: An Image-Based Whiteboard for the Web

  A tool under development at the University of Kentucky that will enable multiple users to collaborate in analyzing and manipulating digital images in a networked environment.

  http://grendl.rch.uky.edu/~mgk/lightbox/

• Data Visualization in Science and Engineering (COMP 210)

  This is a perfect example of the use of visualization technology collaboration: pairing Computer Science students with domain-expert students to develop 3-D content. A collaboration with an IUB science course and this Rice CS course would allow development of 3D software by Rice, with verification of its performance by the students in the IUB course. Teams could be formed with multiple applications produced. (gh)

  http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~comp260/

• The University of Houston and NASA's Virtual Environment Technology Laboratory features Silicon Graphics Onyx Reality Engine graphics supercomputers and a CAVE (a cube, ten feet on a side, with four display surfaces for total immersion).

  http://www.vetl.uh.edu/

• The Baylor College of Medicine's Biomedical Computation and Visualization Laboratory is conducting research into electron image reconstruction of macromolecular assemblies, x-ray crystallography, computational neurobiology and molecular biology informatics. It looks like they have some high-end graphic stations and advanced networking capabilities.

  http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/bcvl/

• The Keck Center for Computational Biology, a joint effort among local universities that is based at Rice, has an ImmersaDesk and other high-end visualization equipment.

Through telemedicine, medical professionals use advanced computing and communications technologies to diagnose patients and conduct research despite geographical distances. In 1998, High-Technology Medical Awards were given to a number of ambitious telemedicine projects, including:

• University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Networked 3D Virtual Human Anatomy.
  "The goal is to build a virtual human cadaver based on the Visible Human dataset. An online virtual cadaver would be available to a wide range of students who can explore the virtual cadaver with a variety of tools. High-end applications will have a haptic interface."

• Georgia Tech and the Medical College of Georgia, Patient-centric Healthcare Management over NGI
  "This project will demonstrate a patient-centric approach for health care management over the NGI. The demonstration will build upon the Electronic House Call system developed by Georgia Tech and the Medical College of Georgia to allow patients to videoconference with their health care providers and to monitor medical measurements over a secure network. A simple graphical user interface enables patients to control the system themselves. The system combines videoconferencing, vital signs measurements, patient education resources, and medical records, and enables patients to participate in their own health care."

• Remote, Real-Time Simulation for Teaching Human Anatomy and Surgery
  "Stanford University proposes to develop two teaching applications and a local NGI testbed network for evaluating their effectiveness. The first application will support instruction in human anatomy and the second the performance of surgical manipulations. Both applications will support synchronous collaboration through a shared virtual workspace and use haptic feedback to augment the visual sense. This technology will allow the definition of new curricular elements including the repeated dissection of anatomical structures, the visual segmentation of raw data sets, the creation of three-dimensional organ models, and the practice of fundamental surgical skills. The investigators anticipate that a wide community of teachers and users will, through a distributed client-server system, share online, image-rich data and professional experiences."

• CAVNER (Center for Advanced Video Network Engineering & Research)

  "CAVNER (Center for Advanced Video Network Engineering & Research) is a collaborative research initiative dedicated to the promotion and application of advanced networked video technologies. CAVNER coordinates and promotes relationships between the research and education community, private industry and technology users to bring to life new applications in the developing media-rich global network. CAVNER acts as a forum and intellectual space for engineers, researchers and users interested in furthering the development of networked video."

  http://www.cavner.org/

• Graphics and Visualization Center

  The Graphics and Visualization Center, a collaborative and interdisciplinary NSF-funded center sponsored by Brown, Caltech, Cornell, UNC, and Utah, aims "to develop a distributed collaborative design and prototyping environment in which researchers at geographically distributed sites can work together in real time on common projects."

  http://www.cs.brown.edu/stc/resea/telecollaboration/overview_telecollaboration.html

• Video Conferencing in Higher Education

  This report by Dr. Lynne Coventry of the Institute for Computer Based Learning at Heriot Watt University explains both the technology involved in videoconferencing and the ways that videoconferencing can be used to promote learning. It describes technical considerations such as bandwidth and video compression as well as pedagogical concerns such as open learning and courseware.

  http://www.man.ac.uk/MVC//SIMA/video3/contents.html

• Cisco Press, Designing Internetworks for Multimedia , 1999.

  Designing Internetworks for Multimedia offers extensive information about the technical specifications for broadband multimedia applications and networks, including multicasting, quality of service, and bandwidth requirements for various applications (from less than 100 kbps for speech to 100 Mbps for virtual reality).

  http://www.ieng.com/cpress/cc/td/cpress/ccie/ndcs798/nd2013.htm

• John Seely Brown, Growing Up Digital: How the Web Changes Work, Education, and the Ways that People Learn. Change March/April 2000. (pdf file)

  Brown, Chief Scientist for Xerox and former director of Xerox PARC, predicts how the web will transform learning. Of particular interest is Brown's description of the MadCap system, which marks a video stream according to moments of transition, levels of audience interest and annotation, and so forth.

  http://www.aahe.org/change/digital.pdf

• Clifford Lynch, Why Broadband Really Matters. EDUCAUSE Quarterly 23.2 (2000). (pdf file)

  Lynch, executive director of the Coalition for Networked Information, presents a cogent overview of some of the key issues in broadband.

  http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eq/a002/eqm0027.pdf

• Greg Johnson, Collaborative Visualization 101, ACM SIGGRAPH - Computer Graphics, pages 8-11, volume 32 number 2 May 1998.

  Summarizes the different approaches to collaborative visualization and the technical challenges inherent in each.

  http://www.sdsc.edu/~johnson/papers/ACM_1998/cg_1998may.html

• Syrcause, Center for Excellence in Broadband Applications (CEBA)

  A new center jointly founded by Syracuyse's Community Information and Technology Institute and Alcatel. CEBA will assess and provide information about advanced telecommunications technologies and applications relevant to the public sector.

• The Singapore/MIT Alliance

  The National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are using sophisticated distance education technologies to facilitate learning and research in engineering. The program uses both synchronous and asynchronous delivery methods (see http://web.mit.edu/sma/about/technology.htm); synchronous delivery is done over Internet 2, while asynchronous delivery is achieved through a special web platform that MIT has developed.

  http://web.mit.edu/sma/

• MediaLabEurope

  "In May 2000, MIT and the Republic of Ireland signed a 10-year agreement to establish MediaLabEurope in Ireland, as an independent, university-level, research and educational center. Based in Dublin, MediaLabEurope is designed 'to re-invent the future' and replicate the innovative and entrepreneurial environment of the world-renowned MIT Media Lab."

  See a report on MediaLabEurope in The Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/13/00.

• Global Project Coordination

  Stanford is collaborating with Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology on "Global Project Coordination." Engineering and business professors at both schools are leading a project-based course that explores how students collaborate in a distributed environment. This course does not seem as bandwidth intensive as the MIT program; the focus seems to be more on enabling communication than experimenting with new technologies. To see a current syllabus for the course, click here.

  http://www.stanford.edu/class/ie264-kosnik/
  http://sll.stanford.edu/projects/ie264/index.html#overview

• Wallenberg Global Learning Network

  Stanford's Learning Lab and the Swedish Learning Lab belong to the Wallenberg Global Learning Network, which is working to improve education at all levels and across borders. "The partnership aims to build an international community of expertise, co-invest in experiments, share technologies, methods and research results, and promote discussion of ideas and dissemination of results." One of the Network's central aims is to explore how technology can be used to enhance learning in an international environment.

  For instance, the Network's "Meeting Places for Learning" project involves 3 complementary experiments that are constructing and evaluating collaborative learning environments. These environments will support visualizations, simulations, high definition audio and video, and other advanced communication tools.

  http://www.wgln.org/
  http://www.wgln.org/projects/meeting_places/

• The Learning Center for Interactive Technology at the U.S National Library of Medicine

  "The Learning Center for Interactive Technology is a "hands on" laboratory for the exploration of network-based applications of information and education technology in the health professions. Demonstrations available include: distributed learning; telemedicine; Internet/Web-based multimedia applications; CD-ROM; virtual reality; and National Library of Medicine applications such as the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS); GratefulMed/PubMed; and Visible Human Project."

  http://tlc.nlm.nih.gov/

• WhartonDirect

  An executive education program sponsored by Penn's Wharton School and facilitated by Caliber, an educational content delivery company spun off from Sylvan Learning. The program uses "live webcast[s] with intervening lectures on demand. Students prepare for class by accessing and completing lectures and other assignments at their own convenience. They meet for a one-hour class session online each week, making the most of their live time with the faculty to address time-sensitive material (for example, the latest changes in the markets), pose questions and discuss the subject at a higher level of interaction and understanding." The classes take place in lecture rooms (often based in shopping-malls) that have a full suite of equipment. There is some interactivity, since the instructor can check out what's going on at other sites through video screens, and students at remote sites can send typed messages to the instructor.

  http://direct.wharton.upenn.edu/direct/technology.cfm?pg=tch

• The business schools at Virginia, Berkeley, and Michigan are teaming up to offer e-commerce courses using videoconferencing and chat rooms.

  http://www.darden.virginia.edu/news/news_press_elinked.htm"

In Improving Research Capabilities Through Collaboratories (National Academy Press, 1999), William Wulf defines a collaboratory as a " . . . center without walls in which the nation's researchers can perform research without regard to geographical location--interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, and accessing information from digital libraries." One of the premier collaboratories is the Space Physics and Aeronomy Research Collaboratory (SPARC) , which supports scientific collaboration and provides 24-hour access to real-time and archival data in the upper atmospheric and space sciences. Collaboratories are under study at the University of Michigan's CREW (the Collaboratory for Research on Electronic Work), which is researching the "design of new organizations and the technologies of voice, data, and video communication that make them possible." For a readable overview of collaboratories, see Nancy Ross-Flanigan's "The Virtues (and Vices) of Virtual Colleagues" in a 1998 issue of Technology Review.

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Last updated December 14, 2000 by Lisa Spiro for CODE (Committee on the Digital Environment at Rice University).