Utvecklingscentrum

UC
Leonardo project E2-VET
www.e2-vet.org

                ICT support in
         distance-bridging education
( Sweden )
ICT – Information and Communication Technologies

Torleif Bakke
Project Manager
2005-02-12

Background
Sweden being far-stretched has to bridge long distances between people and learning centres as well as the many university locations around the country. Many students are depending on that various educations are “distributed” through means of ICT–support (Information & Communication Technologies), so that they can study independent of time and location. There is no need to move to the locations providing education or to commute for the students to be able to study, almost whatever they like.
The various actors providing distance bridging educations have been mentioned earlier like NITUS – The National Network for Local Learning Centres
Sweden has good, to excellent Internet capacities all over the country, due to the focus the last few years on developing a national broadband coverage. This is of course one important cornerstone for ICT in Sweden , opening up several possibilities like e.g. the provision of on-line lectures. 

Here a few of the major ICT technologies used in Sweden are described:

1. Learning Platforms

Most, if not all universities and other providers of distance bridging education have “learning platforms, like US based “Black Board” (www.blackboard.com) or “First Class” ( www.firstclass.com). There are used in the academic world as well as tools for co-operation in corporations.

Learning Platforms can be viewed as “virtual classrooms”, working through the Internet were teachers and students mainly can exchange material – like schedules, specifications for essays, messages, on-line chat, news, up- and download of all the course documentations. Thus they are Internet-based file management systems enabling users to manage, share and reuse content. The whitepaper for Blackboard capabilities gives an excellent overview of all the features of such systems:

http://www.blackboard.com/docs/AS/Bb_Academic_Suite_Whitepaper_Capabilities.pdf

Learning platforms are core to the distance bridging education technologies used, and require students to have a reasonable, to good Internet connection, at home or at a nearby Learning Centre like UC. Although these learning platforms contain on-line capabilities designed for live, synchronous interaction, through e.g. a text-based Chat environment, as well as full Virtual Classrooms, they are mainly used “file management” tools.Being basically an Internet tool hosted by each major learning centre, i.e. Universities no technical skills are required locally nor with the student, besides understanding and being able to use the system.

2. Telepicture

“Telepicture”, freely translated from the Swedish term Telebild, is a full duplex video conferencing system used by most local learning centres, like Utvecklingscentrum.
 

During Telepicture sessions live lectures can be distributed nationally, and many learning centres can hook up to any one lecture. Questions and answers can be dealt with freely in real time mode and the lecturer can see all students from the various participating locations, as well as student groups can see each other, if needed.

Telepicture sessions are very cost effective, as many students can be covered nationally by one lecture. Telepicture capabilities in the local learning centres are usually set up in larger “studios” with 20-100 seats, as well as in smaller group rooms where even only one student can participate. Multiple cameras can be connected and they can be switched between the lecturer and e.g. documents at both ends. Whiteboard capabilities as possible as well.

Telepicture connections require at least 128kbit/sec connections, but quality will of course improve as connection speeds increase (384 kbits/sec, or IP-based 784 kbits/sec). Dedicated or hired data connections are required.

The technical skills required by the staff handling the Telepicture equipment is moderate, and mostly concerned about setting up the connection to the appropriate lecture provider.

3. “Marratech”

Marratech AB is a global company based in Sweden that develops and markets software solutions which enable remote groups and individuals to collaborate and interact over the internet. Marratech represents one individual brand, and serves as an example of an array of similar products that provide ease-of-use, secure, cross-platform, effective - web conferencing capabilities on the Internet.

The Marratech type of distance-bridging ICT support is similar to the Telepicture system described above, the major differences being that it doesn’t require and expensive Telepicture video conferencing equipment and students having to go to a local Learning Centre to participate. Instead a good PC (>PIII, 256 Mb RAM) and a good Internet connection is required by students, and a Marratech “Office Manager” loaded onto the provider server.

The Marratech-type of systems mostly contain all the capabilities of the Telepicture system (like whiteboards, etc.) but can be even further integrated with e.g. other software on the provider computer. Thus lectures aren’t limited to live pictures and sound of the lecturer, documents and a whiteboard, but other things in the PC-environment can be integrated and demonstrated as well.

The technical skills required at the user end are limited to the understanding of the client software, whereas the “centre-skills” needed are moderate to high. However a Marratech set- up does of course require that each client (student) has the appropriate equipment available, including head-sets and video hardware. 

4. Internet-based lectures

“Internet-based lectures” is a moderately expensive or even cheap intermediate to the systems described above. Although there is not collectively adopted terminology in use in this case, there are simple, free-of-charge tools available on the Internet to produce “simplex” lectures, i.e. with only one-way communication of pre-recorded lectures (i.e. not in real-time).

Here a recorded video of a lecture and the corresponding Power-Point presentation can be combined in a “live” lecture on the Internet, using Microsoft Producer, a free Power-Point plug-in. The file package produced by the software is then published on an Internet provider (web hotel) and can be viewed with reasonable quality down to a 56 k-modem connection.

The draw-back is that the file-package can only be distributed through a common Internet provider (Web hotel), when the number of simultaneous viewers is small (e.g. 3-5 the most). If more students try to latch on, things will not work ok. Then a full video streaming server is needed, and the associated costs will increase significantly. But when students are distributed geographically and it is likely that they will view a lecture at different times, this is an attractive alternative.

An example can be viewed at http://rkb.stugan.net/ISA3a/ISA3_files/Default.htm. Please note that an Office animation plug-in may have to be installed and please also allow a few minutes for loading, as this lecture is not placed on a highly capable streaming video server. Rather it is placed on a very “normal” Internet server.  Also, choose the appropriate bit rate from the initial menu, when the content is fully loaded.

The IT skills required to produce a lecture like this is “normal MS office” skill sets and some experience of handling ftp-servers for publication of the file package produces by the Microsoft Producer software.