From: "Bob Dixon" To: "The Megaconference" ; ; "Video Development Initiative" Subject: "Megaconference 2.5" Results Date: Monday, August 13, 2001 2:43 PM No, you didn't miss this event; it was a special closed event. But you may find it quite interesting to hear about anyway. Last week was the Distance Learning 2001 Conference. This is an annual event that attracts people from all over the world, and is held at Madison, Wis, sponsored by the University of Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin State Dept of Public Instruction. We semi-seriously called it "Megaconference 2.5" among the planners. Mary Fran Yafchak and I organized the final plenary session, and an all-day track about Internet2 and new video technology. My colleagues Gabe Moulton and Megan Crabb here at OSU did a great job with all the behind-the-scenes logistics needed to pull this off. All the presentations involved the use of Internet video, specifically H.323, to bring in remote presenters. A high-speed ADSL line was brought into the conference hotel, arranged by David Deveroux-Weber of Univ of Wis, and it worked marvelously well. Its other end went to the Univ of Wisconsin, and then to Internet2. SKC Communications loaned a Polycom 128 Viewstation, and we used the Accord MCU at Ohio State, as we needed its abilities to switch window configurations. The Polycom was fully interconnected with the room audio and video systems. A PC at Ohio State acted as a NetMeeting application sharing server, and speakers shared their slides with that PC, and I shared them also from the stage of the conference, and they appeared on a separate screen. We used an "on-deck circle" approach to getting the remote presenters ready to speak. They first dialed into a separate conference and were prepped by Gabe and Megan. Then at their speaking time they were transferred to the conference seen by the audience. We had several rehearsals in the weeks preceeding the event, none of which went perfectly. I steered the Polycom and selected its video input with the remote control from the stage, so the remote presenters could see the audience reactions, and I adjusted the volume control as needed. Mary Fran introduced all the speakers. All the conference video events went extremely well. There were zero equipment or technical problems or network problems after we got the initial connection issues sorted out. Everything just ran continuously all by itself. Not even a single lightning bolt on the Polycom. No PC or MCU crashes. No audio blasts or inadvertant "Hello??" s. This is almost scary. Does this imply we are approaching maturity with this technology? During the opening plenary session (about 1100 people), I described Internet video conferencing, and invited in Victor Reijs of Ireland to speak via the Internet. The audience was very impressed, and gave him a nice ovation. Mary Fran then spoke on Extending the Learning Environment through Virtual Comminication. Kathleen McMonigal spoke about Research TV and showed a very entertaining video. Nosh Contractor spoke about his multi-university classes. Then we ran seven additional presentations as a parallel track during the rest of the day, all involving remote speakers. Arctic Research Station, Hans Pfeiffenberger, Germany State of Washington K-12 video network, Candace Johns, Washington Islamic Studies, Charles Kurzman, North Carolina (presenting from Georgetown) Extending Classroom Walls, Sandy Sprafka, North Dakota and and Rick Walker, Minnesota Bridging the Gap Between Deaf and Hearing Participants, New York Surgical Education, Jerry Johnson, Ohio State Multi-University College Courses, Wisconsin (Nosh), Illinois (2 students), Purdue (Cynthia Stohl) All sessions were fully interactive, with many questions being asked. We also had a new innovation. The video conference was left running between sessions and at lunch, to allow for private conversations among presenters and audience members, to further increase the realism that they were actually at the conference. This was very popular, and used for more extensive discussions than could be handled at the end of the papers, and for people who were shy about standing up in front of a big audience to ask their questions. This event is particularly rewarding, since it verifies the prediction we made for Megaconference II. That event was the first totally remote conference session, with none of the speakers being physically present. We predicted then that other conferences on all subjects would soon be using this technology. And it is already happening. The DL2001 conference is the first one, and we are already planning for the Internet2 conference in October, when ALL of the parallel sessions will be made available to worldwide speakers and audiences. The Chair of the DL001 Conference congratulated us all and said "I cannot think of how it could have gone better!". He has already asked us to plan on a bigger role in next year's DL2002 conference. He later sent us all this message (excerpt): Dear virtual presenters, I want to thank you for contributing to DL2001's great success. This year's conference attendance represented every region of the US well as 23 foreign countries. Your presentations on Friday were a great addition to the conference. As you probably saw, they were taking place in a very large room so you may not have seen many of the people watching. From what I heard around hallways, people were very excited about the possibilities of Internet 2. I think your presentations helped stimulate their thinking and were a great reference base for their planning. Please pass along a recommendation about presenting at next year's conference to a colleague or associate. We will be sending out calls for proposals in November 2001. We hope to expand the programing of broadband delivered presentations. If you know of someone that we should include on our presenter mailing list, please let us know and we will contact them individually. And, as always, we welcome any recommendation for keynote and spotlight speakers that you might have heard. Thanks again your contribution to making this year's conference a great success. We look forward to seeing you at or from The Monona Terrace Conference Center next August 14-16. Bill William Winfield Director 17th Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning University of Wisconsin -Madison 608-265-9753 winfield@facstaff.wisc.edu Robert S. Dixon, Ph D, PE Chief Research Engineer | Voice 614-292-1638 Office of the CIO | Fax 614-292-7081 Ohio State University | Lab 614-292-7425 1971 Neil Ave, room 451 | Email dixon.8@osu.edu Columbus, OH 43210 | Video 128.146.199.98 and Senior Systems Developer/Engineer | Voice 614-728-8100 X232 Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet) | Fax 614-486-4594 | Email rdixon@oar.net