Date: May 31, 2000
Author: Ronald Wolak

Subject: DISS 780 Multimedia Discussion Topic 6 – Reply 1 to Andrew Gordon

Discussion Topic 6 – Reply 1 to Andrew Gordon

While Internet applications and bandwidth are in many cases too slow to support Web-based multimedia activities, the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID) is planning to overcome these obstacles (Gaston, 1998). Universities, private companies, and the U.S. government have recognized the need to upgrade the existing Internet to support the high-bandwidth applications required to support multimedia distance learning in the future. Their response was the creation of UCAID and the Internet2 project.

Internet2 has three primary goals. First is to provide leading edge network capability for the national research community. Currently the research community relies upon the network services of the National Science Foundation's NFSNET. The NFSNET backbone was created in 1985 to carry research and education traffic (Gillespie, 1997, February). However, privatization of the network and the inability of its commercial replacement to handle network congestion are depriving faculty of the network capability required to do innovative research.

The second goal is to focus on network development research that will allow next generation applications to take advantage of media integration, interactivity, real time collaboration, and tele-immersion (Stevens, Woodward, DeFanti, & Catlett, 1997). This work is essential to meeting educational goals set forth in distance education and national research. The third goal is to transfer the technology developed and lessons learned quickly over to the Internet for educational use at all levels worldwide.

In addition, Internet2 will create application development tools that take advantage of Internet2 high-speed network services and distributed storage infrastructure (Dempsey, Beck, & Moore, 1999, August 11-14). These tools will be developed in the process of creating certain advanced applications. Examples of Internet2 applications are Learningware and the Instructional Management System, Digital Libraries, Tele‑immersion, and Virtual Laboratory. Component technologies are the key building blocks that will allow networked learning materials to be more easily developed. These technologies include Distributed System Object Model (DSOM), Java, Active-X, and OpenDoc. Internet2 will provide an environment for these technologies to fully develop.

Reference

Dempsey, B., Beck, M., & Moore, T. (1999, August 11-14). Internet2 distributed storage infrastructure project: Improving global access to digital collections. International Conference on Digital Libraries, ACM, Berkeley, California, pp. 221-222.

Gaston, B. (1998). NSF and the Internet: An overview [Online]. Available: http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/media/backgr1.htm [2000, May 26].

Gillespie, G. (1997, February). Internets: One is not enough [Online]. Available: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/INST/feb97/internet.html [2000, May 28].

Stevens, R., Woodward, P., DeFanti, T., & Catlett, C. (1997). From the I-way to the national technology grid. Communications of the ACM, 40(11), 51-60.