Fernando Neri, a graduate student in agriculture, poses a question, in real time, to global conference participants on a TV monitor in the television studio of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall. The Oct. 7 conference was part of a test of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Global Seminar Distance Learning Project. Denise Weldon/University Photography
The confluence of four different technologies -- working simultaneously -- produced an enhanced conference experience at Cornell on Oct. 7, paving the way for superior global classes and seminars.
Cornell's Media Services department successfully integrated satellite, ISDN (integrated services digital network) for compressed video, the Internet and telephone communication for the university's first fully-integrated global conference. The test, held last week in the television studio at Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, included sites in Brussels, Honduras, Sweden and Costa Rica for a conference on agricultural sustainability.
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences pilot has been dubbed the Global Seminar Distance Learning Project. Undergraduate and graduate students met with agriculture officials and students from other countries by interacting with them in real time on television screens and computer monitors, and through speakers.
"This is one more tool in our educational tool kit," said H. Dean Sutphin, associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, who was beaming after the success of the link-ups. "We now have a new tool and it looks like it will be very beneficial. It brings an electrifying element to the classroom situation."
Electrifying indeed. Robert Sloan, of Cornell's Media Services department, showed that all the technologies can work at once to enhance the conference experience. The sites in Brussels and Sweden were connected by ISDN line, while the sites in Honduras and Costa Rica used satellite and telephone links. There was even a Web site set up for the conference that could be viewed via the Internet.
Kathleen Kelsey, a graduate student majoring in education, gathered the students from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for the Global Seminar Distance Learning Project test. The next in this series of tests will be Nov. 6.
"It is quite a feat technically," said Mark S. Schneider, coordinator of information technology services in the agriculture college who, along with Media Services, organized the technical aspects of the conference. "Individually, the component technologies are not impressive. But, when you combine them, that is truly the feat."
Despite the technologies' best efforts, the conferees were reminded of nature's hand. Halfway through the conference, a solar outage knocked out the satellite link with Costa Rica and Honduras.
Antonio Flores, professor of animal science at the Zamorano College of Agriculture, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, happened to be visiting Cornell on the day of the global transmission and sat in the television studio watching the conference.
"It's is very impressive to have that kind of interaction," said Flores. "It is an amazing tool. A few years from now, we could gather in groups by way of this technology and make decisions. This is an excellent opportunity."