Papers in PDF format

Students were required to submit electronic posters for inclusion in the program based on the five major areas
of content: (1) Education, (2) Information Technology, (3) Market Forces, (4) Publishing and Copyright, and
(5) Special Topic: The Informatics of the Human Genome Project. Each poster varies in format and delivery,
but includes links to a HyperNews thread for discussion and to the author's email account for one-on-one
interaction.
Course Library
The Course Library consists of a series of links to relevant WWW resources. Divided by major content area
and session, the course library includes areas for faculty and students to suggest important links.
The Technology
Bell Atlantic Distance Learning Facility
This facility provides a distance learning environment through the use of interactive audio and video between a
home site and one or more remote sites. The discourse is maintained by a bi-directional signal shared by
similarly configured distance learning facilities. Instructors and students in participating classrooms are able to
interact using a system of fixed and moving cameras, video monitors, omni-directional microphones, and highfidelity
speakers. This classroom acted as the initiating point for the instruction.
RealAudio
The composite audio received from the Distance Learning Facility's Audio Patch Panel was fed directly into
the line-level in of the SoundBlaster card installed in a Pentium 120 running Windows 95. Here, the audio was
digitized and encoded using the RealAudio Encoder Version 2.0. The encoded audio was then transported to
the RealAudio Live Transfer Agent, which prepared the audio for distribution in real time, and the RealAudio
Server, which provided the audio stream to students participating in the course online. Both the Live Transfer
Agent and the Server were mounted on a Sparc 20.
Slides
RealAudio provides the ability to synchronize audio with HTML documents using a "Synchronized
Multimedia" technology. However, since the URL's must be timed and their duration predetermined, this
method is not sufficient for any real time dissemination. As noted by Progressive Networks, it is not possible to
use "Synchronized Multimedia" with a live feed. Since the specification for primary instructional delivery
included html accompanying the audio, we needed to pursue alternative methods for delivering the slides to
students. In the end, we decided to send the URLs to the participants by using server push technology.
The 18 presenters over the course of the four day session represented all levels of technical expertise. Early on,
we determined the need for an intuitive interface that provided both linear and hyper navigation tools for the
slides. The presenter's interface was a Netscape 2.0 browser with two frames. The top frame, or navigation
frame, was a simple interface allow the presenter to move forward, backward, reload, and jump to a specific
slide number using labeled buttons. Written in javascript, these simple tools provided even the most novice
presenter with a comfortable interface.
As the presenter moved through the slide show, the program captured, copied, and parsed the URLs, providing
one copy appropriate for the presenter and another appropriate for the participants. The lower frame of the
presenters interface displayed this parsed slide. This interface provided two additional boons: (1) all links
displayed in the lower frame remained active, and (2) if the presenter choose to use these links to connect to
external sites, those URLs would also be pushed to online students. The reload button in the navigation frame
returned the presenter and students to the slide from which they departed. Students attending the online course
saw the HTML content presented in a single frame synchronized with the RealAudio feed.
WWW Forms
Since the audio and slides were single direction, we needed to develop and implement additional tools to
provide mechanisms for interaction. The final two slides from each session included two WWW forms. The