videoDISC

Project proposal for CS/IS student project work over the summer

Initial proposal
To have a web-camera network set up over the department (DISC), covering some social areas (reception, corridors) as well as the offices of willing staff members.

This would have potential benefits for pedagogy - to support distance learning, and as a platform against which third year project students could develop a better understanding of the issues involved in generating and using mediaspaces.

In detail
The project would have three main benefits:

1. support distance learning by providing a resource for videoconferencing with distant students (e.g. using MS NetMeeting). This would allow us to experiment with the idea of doing overseas courses, as well as opening up our courses to disabled students.
2. provide a hardware test platform against which project students could develop a better understanding of the issues involved in generating and using mediaspaces - to look at issues of privacy, media co-ordination, selection of communication channels, etc.
3. a third benefit would be to provide a novel view of the department on the web, increasing our visibility to prospective under- and postgraduate students, and showing an example of the active research interests we have in investigating computer technology. I think it is also a means of enthusing these browsers about our work to visibly show that we are doing exciting research at DISC.

Hardware costs (for preliminary study of 10 cameras)
These may be less - I have not included possible bulk purchase or educational discounts

• 1 computer to act as a video-server (may not need a dedicated machine)
• 10 cameras - £59 each (£590 total)
• cabling (£50 - guess?)
• variety of switches (£50 - guess?)
  TOTAL: £690 (approx.)

Time plan
I envisage the project taking around 2 months:

Initial planning (lit. review, interviews, selecting appropriate technology) - 3 weeks
Implementation (installing cameras, network cabling) - 2 weeks
Evaluation (qualitative and technical) - 1 week
Fine tuning - 1 week
Report writing/manual for hand over to support staff - 1 week

Some useful links on setting up and using a webcam

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