Objective
This proposal is the first of a two-stage development. The ultimate aim is to establish in 1990 a private voice and date network satellite to link up European institutions wishing to work together to produce jointly distance teaching and training materials for delivery on a European-wide basis, and wishing to transfer credits between institutions. However, in order to do this, a number of technical, regulatory, educational and organisational issues have to be resolved. The aim of this proposals is to carry out the work that will enable the full project to be successfully implemented, in the form of a feasibility study. However, it should be noted that the feasibility study on its own will result in improved communications facilities between European educational industrial establishments.
A feasibility study is suggested:
i) to determine the cost and design specifications for an appropriate earth station for a voice and data network to link up European distance teaching institutions that can operate on the next generation of European satellites, ii) to develop appropriate software to improve the user-friendliness of terminals or work-stations for European-wide communications, and to facilitate the interface with satellite earth stations, iii) to develop improved operating procedures for computer conferencing, text transfer and editing at a distance, iv) to identify and if possible resolve the regulatory and cost issues resulting from the European-wide use of two-way voice and data via satellite for educational and training purposes.
The ultimate aim is to develop and install relatively low-cost, narrow-band, two-way earth stations at each site (13 initially, in 10 countries in the second stage project), which will allow two-way voice communication between any two sites, audio conferencing across all sites for course team meetings and administrative meetings on credit transfer, electronic mail and computer conferencing facilities for transfer of draft teaching texts, minutes of meetings, etc., and an experimental video-conferencing facility at 64kbs. The network will be used to support the design and development of course materials for courses in four areas: European Law, European Business Studies, European Culture, and European Languages. These courses will be offered in all the 10 participating countries.
In order thought for this project to be implemented successfully, it is necessary to develop a European- designed earth station capable of working with the new range of European satellites (OLYMPUS, Eutelsat II, Astra). The feasibility study aims to draw up a detailed design specification and to estimate accurately the likely costs of development of such an earth station. Secondly, currently operating procedures for electronic mail, computer conferencing, remote editing, and access to remote data-bases on wide area networks are not user friendly. Each of the institutions has varying levels of computer network and telephone exchange capability. The feasibility study aims to draw up a detailed design specification and to estimate accurately the likely costs of development of such an earth station. Secondly, current operating procedure for electronic mail, computer conferencing, remote editing, and access to remote data-bases on wide area networks are not user friendly. Each of the institutions has varying levels of computer network and telephone exchange capability. The feasibility study aims to work towards common communications standards across the 13 main institutions, and to ensure that the earth station interface smoothly with the ground facilities at each site. Lastly, the currently regulatory framework inhibits such a proposed network on a commercial basis. The feasibility study allows negotiations to take place between the partners and the relevant government agencies and PTTs.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdatabases
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringaerospace engineeringsatellite technology
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationstelecommunications networksdata networks
- social scienceslaw
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Topic(s)
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CM1 1PL Chelmsford
United Kingdom