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Great Western Research Promotes Distant Research & Learning using Access Grid for Collaboration
Author: Ian Dennell – August 1, 2008
The Great Western Research (GWR) initiative is a 5-year, £14m investment which aims to provide cutting-edge research collaboration and training in the South West of England.
GWR has invested in seven dedicated AG nodes - three at Bristol University, two at Bath University and two at Exeter University. Nodes are also planned at UWE and Plymouth. In addition, each academic institution in the South West has received a license for some desktop nodes- an extra 32 desktop nodes in 13 locations.
The project manager of GWR, Paul Hudson, said:
“The fundamental concept of GWR is to promote collaborations between high quality research groups in the South West.”
GWR are using the Access Grid:
- To enable students and academics to view and interact with research seminars and formal lectures.
- As a tool which the researchers can use to collaborate with each other.
- They are also planning to do a series of Seminars in the 2009-10 academic year where anybody is welcome to attend over the Access Grid.
For more information about GWR please see: http://www.greatwesternresearch.ac.uk/
An interactive view of one of the GWR Exeter nodes:
http://www.ex.ac.uk/virtualtours/streathambroadband/38.htm
AG Check
Author: Ian Dennell – July 25, 2008
The AGSC has launched a new online tool for video and audio assessment - AG Check.
AG Check provides a quick and easy way of self testing your node. It takes approx 10 minutes to run.
The service can be accessed on http://agcheck.ag.manchester.ac.uk. (Note: you will need to authenticate yourselves using your booking service username/password combination.)
If you're an Access Grid toolkit user then you need the latest version (4.4.01) of RAT installed which can be found here http://mediatools.cs.ucl.ac.uk/nets/mmedia/wiki/RatDownload.
Please see http://www.ja.net/services/video/agsc/services/agcheckpage.html for more information.
A help file is also available at http://agcheck.ag.manchester.ac.uk/help/
Access Grid (AG) Retreat 2008
By Ian Dennell - July 15, 2008
The 2008 Access Grid (AG) Retreat was held from May 28th to 30th in the IRMACS Centre at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. Pierre Boulanger, Director of the Advanced Man-Machine Interface Laboratory at the University of Alberta, gave the keynote address. This Retreat is an annual event attended by users, developers, and researchers who use Access Grid software and its collaborative tools.
The Program includes presentations suitable for people at all levels of AG technical expertise, from first time AG users to developers in collaborative technology and streaming media. Ian Dennell from the Access Grid Support Centre attended and gave a talk on AG Check, the AGSC’s new automated audio/video quality checking tool.
There was a variety of topics including talks on:
- High Definition developments using AG
- Using AG in the arts
- AG in visualisation
Some topics which may be of particular interest include:
AG Check – automatic testing for AG
Portal Access Grid - the portal AG which runs off a Java enabled browser and doesn’t need firewall settings changed
The AVATS and SUMOVER projects: The media tools continue - which are an improved VIC and RAT so the Access Grid Toolkit could use H.264 CODECs which can be viewed with IOCOM.
A copy of the Retreat program is available here: http://www.accessgrid.org/retreat/2008/Program_080527.pdf
Abstracts and slides from the speakers are available here: http://www.accessgrid.org/retreat/2008/program
Once the talks were finished there were a couple of AG Hands on sessions, one for users and one for developers, which covered a range of topics related to Access Grid developments. These sessions gave users and developers a chance to learn from each other and share ideas.
Ian found the retreat an invaluable experience and would recommend anyone using Access Grid should try to attend future retreats.
Winner of the AGSC Survey 2008
By Paul Kuchar - July 1, 2008
At the beginning of 2008, the AGSC conducted a survey of Access Grid users which focused on the usability and manageability of Access Grid. In this survey, we also tried to explore user concept of session quality and their opinion of AGSC initiatives.
As part of our survey, we entered the names of those who participated into a prize draw for £100 that would be decided by randomly drawing a name.
Out of 49 participants, the winner of the random draw is Prof. Roy Kalawsky of Loughborough University.
Professor Kalawsky says “I have been using Access Grid technology for over five years now and when the AGSC asked the community to complete their survey I jumped at the chance. They have helped me greatly in the past and I wanted to do my bit to contribute to their service improvement; I never really expected to win anything – I’m obviously delighted.”
We would like to thank everyone who participated in the survey.”
Access Grid for an eOutreach Schools Project
By Lara van de Langeryt - April 11, 2008
In December 2007, Robert Cullis at Bedford School contacted the AGSC regarding the possibilityof utilising Access Grid for their eOutreach project. This project, which is funded by the Sutton Trust,aims to provide an accessible online virtual interface between schools and universities with the specific objective of widening participation in Higher Education.
Collaborating with Sheffield University and later with Bristol, the project was established in December 2004 using videoconferencing technology and so far has delivered 38 lectures involving ten UK schools. In a quest to widen accessibility to schools without videoconferencing equipment, the project began using licensed web-based software. The platform, however, was non-standards compliant and some of the sessions suffered from poor audio quality and technical support. The lectures were typically run from desktops, unable to take advantage of the well organised AV studios at both universities.
With this in mind, Robert decided a more suitableand reliable platform for the project, whose ethos was more in keepingthan that of thecurrent web-basedprovider, should be sought. By finding and using a standards compliant piece of software, lecturers can return to their existing videoconferencing or Access Grid studios, use the high quality facilities already in place and vastly improve the lecture experience provided to the students. At the same time total accessibility is achievable using a school’s existing pc and internet facilities.
The focus is now on getting a selection of schools from the eOutreach project set up on the free version of Access Grid, AG Toolkit 3, with the vision to use this in the future for their communication needs between schools and the universities. The first online lecture is planned for the end of April with Sheffield University. In the meantime, students at Bedford School are currently designing a website to manage the project as more schools and universities get involved. Robert has complimented the AGSC team saying they have been extremely helpful in participating to get this trial up and running.
Robert is the eOutreach Project Manager and can be contacted at rcullis@bedfordschool.org.uk if there are any questions about his AG trial experiences to date or interest from schools or universities who would like to be involved.