18 June 2010

Today the rest of our group started working on deliverable 3, as Hamzah already started working on it Thursday.

I started analysing some of the sources that we had, in order to determine what tools and technolgies are used by these organisations`s virtual knowledge spaces.

The following tools/technologies are used by The Jameson Cook University in Australia, The eResearch Centre.

They have an information service named Access Grid.

Overview
Access Grid is a way of communication between more than one site all over the world. It allows multiple communications to take place at the same time which is an advantage over the traditional point-to-point conferencing or Skype that support only 1 conversation. Various locations can be connected by using “virtual venues” that act as meeting rooms which transmits video and audio to all the other locations. (eResearch Centre, 2010)

Features
1. Connecting multiple sites
2. Virtual venue that connects many diffused locations
3. Access to grid nodes – Universities and other institutions
4. Booking of venues from a selected University
5. Supporting of audio and video
6. “Shared presentations”
7. “Shared desktop (web browser or other applications)”
8. “Document camera support” (eResearch Centre, 2010)

The Second service used by The Jameson Cook University is EVO.

Background
EVO or Enabling Virtual Organisations is a tool used for online collaborative conferencing. (eResearch Centre, 2010)
EVO is supported by ARCS (Australian Research Collaboration Service) and The Jameson Cook University through active involvement by staff members and it was developed by Caltech to address the needs of the international high-energy physics community. It can be used in any situation where audio and video is shared for collaboration purposes.

EVO supports both one-to-one communication and one-to-many communication even in several different locations, and all that is basically needed is headphones, a microphone and webcam that are connected to a Notebook or Desktop computer. For advanced usage it can be used when there are multiple video feeds, projected displays and echo cancelling systems involved.
One of the advantages EVO has is that it can easily interact with other locations even if they are not running the same software, such as a H.323 Teleconference system. (EVO, 2010)

Functionalities
1. IM with presence information functions
2. Chat during meetings – private and group
3. “Meetings-by-invitation, ad-hoc meetings, booked meetings, and permanent meetings”
4. Recording and playback functions
5. Digital whiteboards and high-resolution screen sharing
6. Support for videoconferencing protocols
7. “TimeZone adjustment and Multi-Language support (English, French, Slovak, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, and Chinese)”
8. Firewall-friendly and support for Network Address Translation (NAT)
9. End-to-End encryption of all the media
10. OpenGL application with embedded live video and other objects
11. Integrated telephone gateway allowing users to join EVO meetings through normal phone system
12. Compatibility with Linux, Mac and Windows based systems.
(EVO, 2010)