A list of all the LSVNP sites, along with descriptions and contact information for each project.

Project Index

Project: The Center on Deafness
Using PEPNET to Provide Technical Assistance
Knoxville, TN

Description: The Center on Deafness focuses on disseminating knowledge and practices related to deafness, establishing and maintaining professional networks, and collaborating with academic and service programs in the southern United States and the Virgin Islands. The center's video conference project is PEPNET, a coordinated effort to create effective and efficient technical assistance to post-secondary educational institutions, thereby providing access and accommodation to individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. The project demonstrates that desktop video conferencing provides more equitable access for meetings involving both hearing and deaf participants. The center also anticipates that the existence of such a service will promote more frequent collaboration among the directors and greater communication with the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 5

Host Site: University of Tennessee

Project Index

Description: The Mid-America Earthquake Center does research to reduce potential losses in future earthquakes in the Mid-America region. Using a team approach, researchers in seismology, engineering, social sciences and economics solve problems to mitigate the effects of earthquakes. The center is using multipoint video conferencing to enhance the communication of researchers at several institutions in the United States.

Project Website: http://mae.ce.uiuc.edu

Number of Accounts: 10

Host Site: Georgia Tech

Project Index

Project: UNC-CH National Center for Early Development and Learning
Investigators from Four Institutions Meet Via Video Conferencing Chapel Hill, NC

Description: The National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL) conducts research and development activities on issues of national significance related to young children (ages 0 to 8) and their families. NCEDL currently conducts monthly and quarterly audio conferences for the purposes of planning activities and sharing information. The investigators work from four sites (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and University of California at Los Angeles) and meet in groups of 2 to 15. Video conferences lasting from 1 to 2 hours will replace the audio conferences, improving communication and making smaller group conferences more accessible and cost effective.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 10

Host Site: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Index

Description: Virtual design studios have been the subject of great enthusiasm in some architecture schools around the country. This project involves the foundation of a virtual design studio at Georgia Tech and relies extensively on video conference technology. It consists of two phases, both of them aspiring to a closer relationship between the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech and the School of Architecture at MIT. The first phase aims at a joint graduate class in the field of computational design between Tech and MIT and is structured like a typical graduate class. The second phase aims at a joint virtual design studio between graduate architectural design students at Tech and MIT. Ten to 12 students from each institution will take the virtual design studio.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 4

Host Site: Georgia Tech

Project Index

Project: Louisiana Board Of Regents
Building a Network to Promote Systemic Reform in Research Baton Rouge, LA

Description: The Louisiana Board of Regents is building a statewide H.323 video conferencing network to promote systemic reform in research. The proposed network will connect the faculty and staff of 20 institutions of higher education and the Board of Regents. The proposed sites will: 1) provide Louisiana's researchers with tools for participating in inter-institutional scientific sharing and strategic planning sessions; 2) showcase strategies in developing the state's research competitiveness; and 3) participate in testing cutting-edge technologies.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 15

Host Site: University of Tennessee

Project Index

Project: University of Tennessee Does Virtual Rounds
Sharing Information in Veterinary Medicine
Knoxville, TN

Description: Virtual Rounds is a project under development at The University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine that proposes the sharing of clinical caseloads with the colleges of veterinary medicine at Auburn University, the University of Georgia at Athens, and North Carolina State University by means of high-quality video conferencing across the Southern Crossroads network. Geographical obstacles have previously restricted veterinary teaching hospitals from sharing caseloads. By taking turns at presenting live cases via video conference, the participating colleges can not only increase the number and variety of live animal cases their students are exposed to, but can also benefit from interaction with their peers, and access to expertise and resources outside their home institution. The Virtual Rounds project represents the first instance of veterinary telemedicine over high-speed networks in the United States.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 4

Host Site: University of Tennessee

Project Index

Project: SCUPSONet
Taking Collaboration to the Next Level
Chapel Hill, NC

Description: University-based public service institutes are at the forefront in providing the training and technical assistance needed by state and local officials in order to address the increasingly complex challenges of governance. In the South, these institutes have banded together as the Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (SCUPSO) to undertake collaborative activities and offer mutual support. It is the only organization of its kind in the nation. Collectively, the 30 organizations in this consortium provide training and assistance to more than 20,000 officials each and every year. Video conferencing enables SCUPSO institutes to move to the "next level" with respect to sharing faculty resources and developing collaborative training and technical assistance materials. The consortium plans to begin by using this network to collaborate on a project aimed at producing a joint video, satellite broadcast, and training/technical assistance materials on the topic of "smart growth" for states and communities grappling with issues such as sprawl.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 14

Host Site: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Index

Project: University of Alabama Medical School Makes Conferences More Convenient
Video Conferencing on a High Performance Statewide Network
Birmingham, AL

Description: As experienced "video conferencers," faculty and staff at the University of Alabama have access to a well-established H.320 video conferencing system of more than 35 sites. It seems, however, that the reliability of the H.320 system is, in the user's eyes, not enough motivation to overcome the inconvenience of going to a different building in order to use it. H.323 systems, accessible from a desktop computer, open the possibility of high-quality video conferencing that is convenient. The university has specific applications of multipoint video conferencing for "real business" within the School of Medicine. The objective is to evaluate whether H.323 systems provide acceptable means of communication. A second objective is to explore the deployment of video multicast for multipoint conferences. The projects rely on video conferencing to succeed, since the small group meetings involve dialog, simultaneous review of images and printed materials, whiteboard communications, and visual cues for successful discussion and communication. Two-thirds of the meetings' participants currently travel a significant distance.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 6

Host Site: Georgia Tech

Project Index

Project: UNC-CH Marine Sciences
Increasing Collaboration Between the University and Off-Campus Sites
Chapel Hill, NC

Description: The Marine Sciences Program at UNC-CH has two components; the Department, in Chapel Hill, and the Institute, in Morehead City on the coast. In order to teach and conduct research, faculty members and graduate students must split their time between the two locations. Making Department courses available to students at the Institute, and vice versa, has been a longstanding problem. Additionally, students have supervisory committee members resident in both locations and at marine sciences labs in other states (e.g., the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Georgia). The distance presents logistical problems for scheduling committee meetings, taking oral examinations, etc. Video conferencing will be a valuable tool for teaching small graduate classes, holding virtual office hours, and supervisory committee meetings. Video conferencing will also be used for the Carolina Environmental Program (CEP), a new program at UNC-CH designed to promote cohesiveness in environmental teaching and research. One component of the CEP is an undergraduate degree program requiring senior research and study experience at a remote site. The Institute will serve as one of the first CEP remote sites. Undergraduate students will be resident there for a semester and will use video conferencing to collaborate on projects with other students and faculty in both Morehead City and Chapel Hill.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 3

Host Site: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Index

Project: University of North Carolina School of Public Health Rural Utilities Service Grant
Chapel Hill, NC

Description: The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Grant project provides distance-based educational programs, instruction, and technical assistance from the UNC School of Public Health to public health professionals located in the end user communities. The project will expand communications, collaborative computing, and video conferencing capacity to public health professionals in six local health departments located in rural, under-served North Carolina communities as shown by the population and participation in the national school lunch program. The end user sites selected for the project are health clinics in the following North Carolina Counties: Alleghany, Anson, Beaufort, Halifax, Robeson, Perquimans, Wilson, Pasquotank. The RUS project enables the public health staff at the end users sites in the rural qualifying areas to have access to telecommunications technologies that can link them with a state and national networks and that will provide a system for distance-based training and education.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 10

Host Site: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Index

Project: UNC School of Social Work
Teaching and Training Over the Internet
Chaple Hill, NC

Description: This project is a continuation of previous work by the faculty of the School of Social Work to make college courses and professional training available to students and practitioners across the state of North Carolina and the South. In the past, this has been done through the NCREN video network and/or extensive travel by the faculty and staff of the School. More recently the School of Social Work has considered and experimented with Internet technologies, including video conferencing via H.323, to reach more students and trainers in distant locations. Trainers are located at 5 sites (with two more to be added this year) around the state, all of which are model demonstration sites for the development of systems of care to serve children with serious emotional disturbance and their families. Service providers and family members at these sites need considerable training to implement the model programs.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 10

Host Site: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Project Index

Project: VETA Educational Technology Inservice Program for K-12 Teachers
Richmond, VA

Description: Lead by Virginia Tech, VETA (Virginia Educational Alliance) is designed to assist K-12 teachers with the integration of technology in their teaching. This project involves seven institutions of higher education in Virginia: Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, Old Dominion University, William & Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, James Madison University, and George Mason University. All seven programs are scheduled to support teachers for a sustained period of time. Video conferencing will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their collaborative efforts on this project. Some programs have been developing materials and will implement training in the spring and support teachers through the summer and the first semester of the 1999-2000 school year. Three programs will be offering ongoing support in the form of website resources and continued partnerships established through the VETA program. Additionally, VETA will continue to support these teachers through best practice dissemination on the VETA website and at technology, leadership, and curricular conferences.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 12

Host Site: NYSERNet

Project Index

Project: Vanderbilt University Engineering Applications
Improved Synchronous Group Conferencing
Nashville, TN

Description: The National Science Foundation is supporting an Engineering Research Center for the study of pedagogy in BioEngineering, broadly construed. Harvard/MIT Health Science and Technology, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and the University of Texas will be engaged in this Center for the next five to eight years, commencing in September 1999. Lead by Vanderbilt, the purpose of the communications project is to provide synchronous group conferencing using Internet II in a manner that far exceeds the currently used system.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 13

Host Site: Georgia Tech

Project Index

Project: New York Emergency Telemedicine and Education Network
Expanding the Reach of Information about Emergency Medicine
Buffalo, N.Y.

Description: Using H.323 video conferencing, the University Departments of Emergency Medicine and Emergency Departments in hospitals across New York State will share noted speakers and educational activities. The first goal of this project is to expand the collaboration for "grand rounds" speakers to more New York State emergency medicine programs including the University of Rochester, Albany Medical College, and the State Universities of New York at Stoney Brook, and Downstate. In addition, this project will expand grand rounds programming and collaboration to the teaching hospitals, the regional urban and suburban facilities, and rural hospitals across the state. Many of these particularly rural facilities are in great need of state-of-the-art educational activities in emergency medicine for staffs practicing in relative professional isolation. The second major goal is to provide high-quality video conferencing for telemedicine evaluations between university teaching hospitals/trauma centers and primary emergency departments taking care of acutely sick or injured critical care and trauma patients. These telemedicine consultations will form the basis of a regional emergency telemedicine network.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 15

Host Site: NYSERNet

Project Index

Project: New York University Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology
Investigating the Possibility of Diagnosis through Video Conferencing
New York, NY

Description: The Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology at New York University is investigating the use of video conferencing tools in the diagnostic processes used in speech-language pathology and audiology. While current use of videotape and closed circuit television for diagnosis and teaching is a proven model in this field, the department is interested in the power of the Internet to extend access to diagnosis, consultation, and teaching. High-quality video and audio resolution is critical to this investigation.

Project Website: N/A

Number of Accounts: 5

Host Site: NYSERNet

Project Index

Host Site Assignments

UNC - 47

National Center for Early Development and Learning 10
Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations (SCUPSO) 14
UNC-CH Marine Sciences 3
Public Health Rural Utilities Service Grant 10
UNC School of Social Work Teaching and Training Over the Internet 10

UT - 24

PEPNET 5
Louisiana Board Of Regents 15
Virtual Rounds Veterinary Medicine Application 4

GT - 33

Mid-America Earthquake Center 10
Foundations of a Virtual Design Studio 4
University of Alabama Medical School Planning 6
Vanderbilt Engineering 13

NYSERNet - 32

VETA Educational Technology Inservice Program for K-12 Teachers 12
New York Emergency Telemedicine and Education Network Project 15
Network-Based Video Diagnosis in the Field of Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology 5

Project Index