VRG Meeting Minutes - October 9,2002

John O'Brien VRG Assistant Chair
and George Carroll NJEDge.Net

Agenda:

1. Opening Remarks: Tony Selimo, Chair

2. Network Infrastructure update -
Connecting your system to NJEDge.Net: Charlie McMickle

3. IDLS and the NJEDge.Net network: Charlie McMickle

4. Planning for codec and network demo tentatively October 28, 2002:
George Carroll and Charlie McMickle

5. Getting Faculty Involved: Tony Selimo

6. Lunch and Virage, Inc. Presentation: Kristian Shevis, Reginal Sales Manager
Introduction
Rich Media Initiatives
Virage Applications in Higher Education
Virage Overview
Smart Encoding
Virage Applications: VS Webcasting & VS Publishing
Demonstrations
Q&A

The meeting was held Face to Face at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ

Tony Selimo opened the meeting at 10:20 am. Tony reported the VRG and DLABB meetings have been planned in advance and are posted on NJEDge.Net web page. The VRG may have additional meetings as needed.

Sheri Prupis recommended and reminded everyone to check NJEDge.Net web site www.njedge.net on a regular basis for new activities and events. Sheri reviewed the VRG agenda and talked about Virage Inc.'s lunch demostration. Sheri reminded everyone that all documents in today's packets were draft documents and to tell others who missed the meeting that these are draft documents.

Sheri also recommended the DLAAB/Faculty Colloquims that are really interesting. Sheri reported on NJ Virtual University web page. She is working on creating the "Faculty Center" part of this web resource with more valuable materials.
She also reported that this Friday, October 11, 2002 there will be an eLearning Day: Key Issues In Building Successful Online Programs at the Rutgers University Inn and Conference Center in New Brunswick. The focus is on course development, teaching and building community and administrative issues. The feature keynote will be given by Ray Caprio, RU Vice President for Continuing Education and Outreach. Breakout sessions will cover accessibility issues and complying with Section 508; a case study of an eLearning program by Karen Novick, RU School of Communication, Information and Library Studies; and budgeting for eLearning.

With respect to the ViDe handout, Sheri reported that ViDe is a valuable organization and web page for the members to know about and perhaps join. See www.vide.net

Sheri also announced that Ken Ronkowitz from NJIT was hosting the PBS downlink on ADA Issues and Requirements on October 17. If anyone wants to attend, contact Ken.

Report by Charlie McMickle/Technical Services NJEDge.net

Charlie gave an update on the network. Verizon has verified that the trial period for the Extranet extends until December 31, 2002. Circuits to member colleges and universities are being installed. The Video Portal has been designed and will be part of the Extranet. Rutgers', Ramapo's, and Montcla's circuits are installed and operating. Brookdale, Passaic and others will be operational within a few days.

Charlie reported that Verizon is working with the local data manager to make the connection at each institution's site. Every college is different with unique issues that need to be customized. Once the connection is made the Private Virtual Circuit for the Extranet is provisioned.

He also reported on recent Verizon network problems. Some colleges have experienced Internet slow downs. Some institutions are connected to routers in Madison NJ. The recent problems are related to these routers. Some Verizon techs did not realize that these connections were related to our network and technical problems were not fixed quickly. This is temporary. It is transitional. Verizon is now aware of the problem and the tech support people know what we are talking about when we call. Hopefully this problem will go away soon. All of the institutions will be moved off of these routers and put on the permanent Internet routers shortly.

Charlie heard from John O'Brien and John Diglio that Montclair State's College of Ed and OIT did a two hour IP video call to Canada regarding Canada's partnership with their K-12 schools. It was a big success. Quality was stellar with no technical problems. Montclair is connected to the new permanent routers.

Tony Selimo asked what is next. The IDLS plug will be pulled in about two years. Verizon has three H.323 MCUs in Newark, Camden and the Atlantic City area. NJEDge.Net will be gatewaying into this system. Verizon is behind schedule with deployment of H.323 for Access New Jersey. The main reason is that the State of NJ has held up the funding for months and months. We are waiting for Verizon, the Dept of Education and the Governor's Office. Verizon has frozen any new P-12 schools going forward with H.323

Video Portal Installation
Charlie reported that Verizon must test the configuration at their lab in Frazer Pennsylvania. They have certain standards to insure that everything works together before they will release it. The testing should be finished in November. Then the equipment will be moved to Newark. Charlie hopes to be up and running by January

The Newark Portal facility at 540 Broad Street Newark, which will serve Access New Jersey and NJEDge.Net, is being renovated and re-wired. It is being done right and it will be beautiful. The electric service is in. Everything is waiting for the portal equipment to be delivered from the Fraiser Lab.

IDLS
With respect to replacing IDLS w/ H.323 or MPEG2: This will happen in Phases:

Phase 1:
NJEDge.Net/IDLS Coexistence
The VS 4000 multi-point codec with built in MCU or the Miranda is free whether you keep IDLS or drop it. If you drop IDLS you will be able to keep the service for the last six months at no charge. The V-Tel and PictureTel can not do Multipoint (except through the Newark Portals.

Charlie then reported and demonstrated via Power Point how one can use the DVT as switches for your Polycom Codec. These slides will be on the NJEDge.Net web page in a week or so with directions. Carl Ceragno, a vendor, could come to college campuses to provide technical assistance with this installation. Charlie will give him specific information about our network. NJEDge.Net may subsidize this service.

Members will need the DVT remote control to program the DVTs. Again the directions will be on the web

Phase 2:
NJEGge.net Exclusive (see Charlie's PPT presentation on the web)

Click to Meet(CTM) 3.0 from First Virtual
NJEDge.Net staff and Verizon are working hard on the pricing structure. The First Virtual representative, Tom Vorrius, recently visited NJEDge.Net and demonstrated CTM. Verizon people participated. Charlie and Sheri have cameras set up working and testing with Click to Meet. This is a paradigm shift. In addition to Click to Meet being a video conferencing scheduling tool, it a full-blown web conferencing application. The opportunity to access web based application and collaboration both synchronous and asynchronous is and will be very useful. Click to Meet includes rich media applications that can compliment WebCt/Blackboard, etc.

Click to Meet has an Integrated Collaboration Environment: Dials in ISDN and meets at the MCU or dialing directing through the gateway to your IP Video Codec. You can also join in with a simple telephone call (cell and desk phone). (See Charlie's slides). It includes:
Audio Conf
Instant Messaging
Multipoint Bridging
Browser-based Conf
PSTN Gateway
Streaming
Desktop or Group Video Conferencing
Meetings
More (see Charlie's slides).

NJEdge.Net will provide training on First Virtual Features including, templates, chats, application (T.120) sharing, web pushing, video conferencing. Call Tom Vorrius for more documentation in addition to First Virtual's web page.

Click To Meet works with the NJEDGE Stream Server (can down load driver to your own server) PC with encoder card (Real/Windows or QuickTime) (See Charlie's flier mapping Verizon ANJ/Verizon NIPs Core/NJEDge.Net/Genuity, Quest Internet).

Charlie reported on an issue with P-K schools: ANJ does not allow schools to call out because there is no billing agent for using ISDN. NJEDge members will and can call (ISDN) into the Newark Portal and manage the billing issues.

See Charlie's slide/flier on the Global Dialing Scheme (adopted Sept 25th), describing hops, gatekeeper, gatekeeper Hierarchy.

He also reported that H.235 is the security standard that has not been implemented yet. 2nd method is with black boxes that fit between routers and gatekeepers that does encryption. The real danger is from inside your network, not from the outside. Raw H.323 is NOT secure!!!! NJEDge.Net will provide guidelines shortly.

Meeting/Demonstration of Codec Equipment

Tony Selimo and George Carroll will provide more information on the meeting to demonstrate codec equipment over the network.

Network Profiles
George Carroll noted that some colleges have not yet completed their Network Profiles i.e. Burlington, Hudson, Essex, Seton Hall, Middlesex, Raritan, Gloucester, St. Peters and Drew. Circuits cannot be turned on without this information.
Tony Selimo recommends that we talk to faculty who are familiar with IDLS quality regarding moving to H.323. We need to manage their expectations from the IDLS quality to compressed video and all the latency, jitter and possible audio issues.

Welcome to Brookdale Community College
Ellen Spaldo introduced Dr. Joanna Kobran, Executive Vice President for Educational/Student and Outreach Service who welcomed everyone to Brookdale and commented on some of the developments taking place on campus.

Virage, Inc Presentation
Kristin Shevis of Virage, Inc led a presentation and demonstration of their products for rich media web conferencing, video smart encoding for fast searching of video for research and streaming; webcasting, and on demand lectures and archiving. Total package cost $140,000. Pieces can be broken out and purchased separately.