CIT unveils in CCC a new videoconference and presentation room

From left, Jim Avery, CIT consultant adviser for classroom technologies; Teresa Sawester, CIT communications specialist; and Tom Every (also on the video screen), CIT's assistant director of Distributed Learning Services, help demonstrate the new high-tech meeting room in B08 Computing and Conference Center. Nicola Kountoupes/University Photography

By Leslie Intemann

Sometimes it just doesn't pay to travel to a one-hour meeting. Especially when that meeting is halfway around the world in the Middle East.

Last May, Cornell Information Technologies started working on a solution to this conundrum. Polley Ann McClure, Cornell vice president for information technologies, saw the need across campus for a high-tech meeting room that could offer the best presentation capabilities with videoconferencing -- a live, real-time audio-video-data interaction between two or more sites. Four months later, McClure's vision became reality.

Open to the campus since September 2003, the high-tech conference room in B08 Computing and Communications Center (CCC) gave Mike Dickinson, director of the University Audit Office, the option not to travel to a one-hour meeting in Doha, Qatar, last December. Instead, he booked B08 CCC and held a bridged videoconference with colleagues in New York City and Qatar. One plus for Dickinson: He was able to put names with faces for the people he hadn't met before his meeting.

Tom Every, assistant director of CIT's distributed learning services, and his staff turned a white room with a low ceiling, multiple windows and poor lighting into McClure's high-tech vision. "The challenge was to turn that room into a videoconference room," said Every. "We chose earth tones for the tables and chairs to reduce glare, and we painted the walls light blue, which works best for video backgrounds."

Configuration is also important. The conference table that seats 15 people is made up of seven smaller, foldable tables that can be moved to create the best presentation for each videoconference. Sliding tack boards help the acoustics of the room and give presenters the option of moving around the room. White boards that aren't in use can be moved away from the camera to prevent excess glare. A portable presentation system works as a laptop podium so presenters don't have to take valuable table space for their equipment. Conferences can be large or small in B08 -- it will comfortably accommodate one person or 20.

It's the Zenith 60-inch plasma screen that's most impressive in this room. "This screen offers the best display solution and the most advanced technology to date," said Jim Avery, CIT's classroom technologies consultant. "During a videoconference, you can switch between sending the image that's displayed on your laptop and the picture of the people in the room. In other words, people plus content."

The videoconferencing system is Polycom's iPower 9800, which features a camera controlled by a wireless keyboard; and the document camera system by Elmo enables presenters to send paper documents, transparencies and 3-D images to the far site. The DVD/VCR combination player, sound system and both wired and wireless Internet access round out the technology in B08. All of this is controlled by a simple remote-controlled hand device that's self-explanatory, said Avery. Operational support for each videoconference is provided by Every's staff.

To book B08 for a videoconference or presentation, call John Pfleiderer, videoconferencing coordinator, at 255-4958 or send e-mail to jap85@cornell.edu. The cost for a simple point-to-point videoconference is $125 for the first 1.5 hours and $75 for each additional hour. An additional cost is charged to bridge multiple sites.