Using Technology to Enhance Distance (and Other) Learning

Overview: January, 2002

The Remote Collaboration Tool (RCT) is a multidisciplinary effort to enhance collaboration - between students working together, between students and instructional staff, and between researchers who are not co-located in time and space. RCT is a platform-independent, multimedia tool that supports synchronous and/or asynchronous communication. RCT operates in three modes:

1. Synchronous interaction: Users can engage in live two-way or group discussions involving multilingual text dialogues in any language; attachment of replayable sound messages or other files; "whiteboarding" using shared images (or a blank screen "whiteboard") brought up by any participant and annotated in different colors by each; using a collaborative writing tool called textpad for creating and editing text documents; or invoking a Web browser URL session on all screens with content appropriate to the dialogue.

2. Enhanced messaging: A user can send a request for assistance, attach a snapshot of his/her computer screen or relevant window, and attach a file containing word, image or voice material pertinent to the interaction. The recipient can annotate and return the message, including annotation of images, and screen snapshots.

3. A link to "Content:" course materials of any type, stored anywhere on the Web and accessible directly through RCT.

The current version (3.0) has been in use for approximately three years for teaching language courses, for virtual office hours, and for some collaborative research. It is available for download (both server and clients), and can be tested remotely. To obtain a copy of a current client, go to the RCT home page, click on "Download", complete requested information, and you will get a compressed file that should either be unzipped (PC) or expanded (Mac). In a demo version you can connect to a server in the Distance Learning Laboratory at UC Davis. The clients are set up to connect to the above mentioned server by default. To test the program, highlight the class called RCTV3DEMO, and log in with the name s1, s2, s3, .., up to s10. Password is the same as name (lower case for both).

Beginning in 2001, our efforts have been focused on developing a completely new package based on Open Source Software. The rewrite is nearing completion at this time, based on Linux/UNIX server and clients running on Linux/UNIX, and soon PC Windows and Mac OS-X platforms. In addition to implementing a highly stable infrastructure that will eliminate earlier communication and data integrity problems, the new version will have important new features, including the following:

and other features, supplemented by a greatly enhanced administrative support module. We anticipate having the new Open Source version available by mid year, 2002.

Support for this project has been provided by the University of California, the US Dept of Education's Fund for Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), and through equipment donations from Apple Computers. Additional funding is anticipated in the near future from the US Army Defense Language Institute, Monterey, CA.

The principal investigator of RCT is Dick Walters, a professor in the Department of Computer Science. Working with him are Thomas Amsler, staff programmer for the project, Rinu Jain (an MS candidate in Computer Science), several other students in computer science, faculty in several language departments as well as the UC Davis Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, and members of the UC Davis Information Technology Laboratory Management group. For further information, send email to walters@cs.ucdavis.edu.