Video-conferencing, which is one of the primary research initiatives of the Open System Center at the CUNY Computer and Information Services on West 57th Street, has already found valuable administrative and educational applications, both within CUNY itself and in connections between CUNY and other educational facilities internationally.

Here are a few of the recent uses to which this technology has been put.

The Vienna Conferences

Using video-conferencing, CUNY has over the past academic year engaged in a remarkable series of live professional exchanges between the New York City Board of Education officials, City College faculty and their counterparts in Vienna Austria. The series was initiated by Alfred S. Posamentier, Associate Dean of the School of Education at City College, and Mr. Stuart Simpson of the Vienna Ministry of Education, and focused on primary and secondary education.

On the CUNY side, the meetings have taken place at the the Computer and Information Services facility on West 57th Street, with technical support provided by the CIS staff.

Each meeting centers around a particular topic, including school administration, teacher training, and vocational education. The most recent meeting took place on March 17 and was devoted to the topic of bilingual education. Members of both groups offered short presentations, accompanied by video clips from classroom sessions, on methods used in their schools with question-and-answer periods reserved for the end of each group of presentations.

Fascinating philosophical differences emerged from the approach of two countries, both of which have large and growing non-native-speaking immigrant populations. For example, whereas in the United States ESL (English as a Second Language) instruction tends to maintain a bilingual environment in the classroom, in Austria students are encouraged to use German as their primary language in the classroom.

Long-Distance Executive Searches

Last year, CUNY interviewed job applicants for executive positions via video conferencing in both Australia and Hawaii. Using CUNYNet (the University's proprietary T1 network) as its transmission medium and PictureTel video-conferencing equipment installed at the Central Office at 80th Street, the entire interview process in both cases took place electronically via dialup telephone connections between New York and the applicants' home sites.

Before this time, the expenses of travelling from point to point would probably have been prohibitive, ruling out the possibility of considering such a candidate. As it was, the Australian-based candidate was appointed to the CUNY position.

CU-SeeMe

A Macintosh video-conferencing program called CU-SeeMe, now also developed for PC, is available as freeware by its developer, Cornell University. CU-SeeMe supports real-time, multi-party video-conferencing on the Internet. It provides a one-to-one connection, or by use of a reflector, a one-to-many, a several-to-several, or a several-to-many conference depending on user needs and hardware capabilities.

At the moment, CU-SeeMe is the least expensive video-conferencing facility available because the software is free through ftp.gated.cornell.edu. The user wishing to see other users signed onto a single session needs, in addition to the software, only a Macintosh or PC that has an Internet address. Participating in the session - that is, sending out one's own image - requires a camera (with some additional hardware and software for a PC).

In its original form, CU-SeeMe had no audio component: users signed onto a single session could see each other, though communication was by means of typed exchanges which appeared in text boxes at the bottom of the screen. Since then, audio has been developed for Macintosh, though as Cornell itself cautions, the program is still "under construction."

Even in its still-immature phase, however, CU-SeeMe is an amazing way to communicate, one-on-one, or as a group, with colleagues throughout the world. At any given time, the several small video windows on one's screen may carry the images of users in Germany, Ireland or Japan as well as across the United States working at their terminals and perhaps having a take-out lunch as they answer questions and sustain lengthy exchanges. You can drop in on sessions to see who's there, remain in receive-only mode (called "lurking"), or join in. It's all video-conferencing, though it has the relaxed atmosphere of a living room conversation at home.

Sharing Scarce Resources

The applications mentioned are just three of the ways in which video-conferencing is being used at CUNY, in each case as a communicative tool permitting creative and expansive possibilities beyond the normal performance of pedagogical and administrative tasks.

Perhaps video-conferencing's most significant potential, however, lies in the sharing of scarce and valuable resources. One need only think of special one-time-only, possibly historic events, such as the appearance of a distinguished guest speaker at a CUNY campus or at a distant non-CUNY site. For reasons of room space or travelling time only a limited audience would normally be able to attend, and in the past one could only hope - often in vain - that the event might be taped for video playback. Video-conferencing, however, would permit an audience to be present off-site, with each member able not only to participate interactively, asking questions and getting answers, but able in large measure to experience the special excitement of being there, live.

Bridging Distances

Because video-conferencing, called distance learning in its pedagological application, is, by definition, unrestricted by geography, it offers a learning environment ideally suited to disabled students who cannot be present on the campus itself. In fact, experiments are currently underway on refining video-to-desktop conferencing, to permit a disabled user to "attend" classes, seminars, or meetings on a home computer via a modem.

Video-conferencing/distance learning can also mean reaching outside the traditional academic environment, as in the case of health care students attending hospital rounds remotely, or long-distance CUNY projects like that at John Jay College of Criminal Justice which permits its faculty to remotely deliver classroom instruction to the penitentiary at Rikers Island.

Finally, it can facilitate the sharing of CUNY resources outside of CUNY. The Borough of Manhattan Community College Classnet project, which provides calculus instruction originating from BMCC to four New York City public high schools as remote sites, is a prime example.

In a sense, like so much multimedia technology, video-conferencing is still in its infancy. But by getting in at the ground level of development, CUNY is both bringing the university itself together in terms of communication and opening up technological connections to the larger world for its faculty, students and administrators alike.