Group communication toolsin Higher Education and Research

Real-time communication tools forming a complete group communication solution

Poznan/Utrecht, June 8, 2004 (1.0)

erik.dobbelsteijn@surfnet.nlInnovation Manager

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Our customer base

• Diverse: universities (2 levels), libraries, academic hospitals, research institutions

• Each has distinct infrastructure (firewalls!)• No direct relationship between SURFnet and

750.000 end-users• Co-operating with Kennisnet, educational

service provider for all other forms of education (primary and secondary schools and professional education)

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Our challenge

How can we offer interesting services over our network?

• Be innovative• Economy of scale• Middleware services• Whitelabeling

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Group collaboration suite

Webconferencing

Groupsite

http://groepscommunicatie.surfnet.nl/

Chat & Call

Provide support for online collaboration, both synchronous and a-synchronous

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Group collaboration media

Instant Messaging, chat

Voice over IP

Video conf. Desktop- sharing,Application- sharing

E-mail, forum,Listserv,News

Voice-mail Video-mail,Streaming

PresentationDocumentsProject info

TEXT AUDIO VIDEO

SYNCHRONOUS/

DATA

ASYNCHRONOUSCOLLABORATION

REAL-TIMECOLLABORATION

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Integration!

• ‘Just’ a webcommunity is not enough• Interaction between all means of

communication reached by integrating as many as possible

• Support wide variety of possible use:– Lectures– Project based education– Ad-hoc collaboration– Student associations

Teamsite

Webconferencing

Call & Chat

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Why Rich Media Communications?

• Presence is main starting point for session initiation!

• First tests show: voice is considered valuable addition to chat

• Video has been an niche, will become common by making it easy-to-use

• EASE OF INSTALLATION, CONFIGURATION AND USE

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Webconferencing: Click to Meet

•Real time audio+video•Chat•Presentations•Application sharing•cobrowsing

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Presence/IM: LCS2005+MS Mess.

• Chat & call• Presence roster• 1 on 1 Video

conferencing• Chat

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• Shared documents• Picture gallery• Contacts• Calender• Forums

Teamsite: MS Sharepoint

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General features

• Single Signon using Active Directory• Interaction between the three platforms:

– Start webconference through Messenger or team site

– Go to teamsite from Messenger or webconference

– Invite people in webconference through messaging, mail, SIP or GDS

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Cross platform support

• Presence and IM can only be accessed by MS Messenger. Since penetration grade is about 95% in The Netherlands, this was regarded sufficient. Jabber support is on the roadmap, also aiming at interworking with existing SER SIP platform

• Team site can be accessed with any browser, advanced functions (presence integration) only accessible through IE

• Webconferencing can be accessed by any H.323 or SIP compliant endpoint, advanced functions only accessible through IE

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Deployment & Application

• Pilot intended with 20 groups, 250 usershas grown to 87 groups and 680 users

• October-April• Group-owners at various institutions are our

contact persons• Hosted in our Application Lab• Non-blocking connection to our backbone• Good connectivity at institutions

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After the pilot

• Designing architecture• Contracting maintenance and support

organisations• Selection of webconferencing platform• Ordering and configuring equipment and

software• Promotion

• A-Select, SIP, GDS, Jabber, common document storage