Videoconferencing at CSU

Collaboration

Real Time Collaboration Facilities

In over a dozen facilities across campus, rooms are available for Faculty/Staff/Students to use for Internet-based real time collaboration with colleagues at other institutions. The following real time collaboration environments are supported:

  • H.323 room-based videoconferencing
  • Web conferencing
  • Access Grid

ACNS can help with all things technical, and will gladly schedule these facilities for your event. To ensure ample testing time, please schedule your events at least two weeks in advance. Please contact Anthony DeNardo III, 297 37 10, (ad3@colostate.edu) with your event details.

Internet2 Commons

Real Time Collaboration Studio

ACNS Conference Room Video Conferencing Room Video Conferencing Room Video Conferencing Room Video Conferencing Room IS Conference Room

H.323 Videoconference/IP videoconference

H.323 / Internet videoconferncing

Colorado State University supports videoconferencing solutions that follow the International Telecommunications Union H.323 Internet-based multimedia communications systems standard.

An H.323 videoconferencing FAQ is available for people new to H.323 videoconferencing.

Throughout the campus, there are rooms are available for you to use for video conferencing. All room scheduling, and technical needs can be handled by ACNS, Anthony DeNardo III(ad3@colostate.edu), 297-3710

Solutions Overview

Large Room Solutions (up to 20 participants)

  • High definition (720px30fps)
  • Internet2 capable (up to 6Mbps!)
  • Access Grid
  • Multiple video inputs available
  • DVD
  • Computer
  • Document camera
  • Multiple display environment
  • People + Content (H.239)

Lifesize Training Videos

LifeSize Hardware

Small Room Solutions (<3 participants)

  • Not designed for more than 3 people
  • Can view content, or people
  • Typically, a single display

Software-based Solutions

  • Work well only with Linux or MAC OSX
  • Rely on computer monitor for displaying video
  • Use USB or Firewire webcam for capturing video
  • X-Meeting (Mac OSX) and Ekiga (Linux) are both free!
  • Windows-based Polycom PVC is not stable, and not supported by ACNS

Multiple Site (more than two) Videoconferencing

Express Hardware

Web Conferencing

Secure Meetings

Web conferencing is supported using Secure Meeting, a virtual meetingware product that allows moderator-led internet-based elearning and collaboration with options for sharing presentations, instant messaging, application sharing, and more.

Interested users can contact the ACNS Help Desk, help@colostate.edu or 491-HELP.

Secure Meeting allows users to securely schedule and hold online meetings, sharing their desktops and applications with one another over a secure connection, allowing everyone in the meeting to instantaneously share electronic data on-screen. Meeting attendees can also securely collaborate online by remote-controlling one another's desktops and through text chatting using a separate application window that does not interfere with the presentation.

AccessGrid

AccessGrid is an ensemble of resources including multimedia large-format displays, presentation and interactive environments, and interfaces to Grid middleware and to visualization environments. These resources are used to support group-group interactions across the Grid.

AccessGrid can be used with a group in a Smart Conference Room, or the Venue Client can be run on your personal workstation in your office! AccessGrid grid can be used to collaborate with groups larger than is feasible in a videoconferencing environment. The technology was invented at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, IL. There are hundreds of nodes located around the world, and even a few here on campus, that facilitate various forms of creative and academic collaborations.

Tour of the AccessGrid Venue Client
Overview

This is a cursory look at the AccessGrid software. Please consult the documentation portion of the accessgrid.org website for a more thorough explanation. This should be sufficient to get the technicaly savvy up and going.

Venue Client

The venue client is the main control dialog. If this client gets closed, all of the AccessGrid sessions that were previously open will also be closed. This is where you choose your AccessGrid venue, meet with colleagues, text message each other, share data, turn on/off audio video and display options.

RAT Control

The RAT control allows you to adjust sound options. How loud you sound to others as well as how you hear other people in the meeting can be adjusted in this dialog. An important option available in this dialog is the ability to chose which sound device you want to use.

Lobby

Everyone who is in your meeting area will be visible in the Lobby. If someone is talking and you are not interested, you can mute specific people. Conversely, you can click on their screen to see a larger sized image of their display. Once you click on a video window, you can place it anywhere on your desktop that best suits you.

Access Grid

Personal Grid Node