Enhancing Student Exchange Experiences with High Definition Videoconference wins CENIC Innovation in Networking Award
Monash University in Australia and the University of California, San Diego have added high-definition videoconferencing to their respective exchange programs, enabling transformative experiences for students and faculty that would not otherwise have been possible. HD video allows mentors at UCSD to attend final student seminars that are presented both to audiences at Monash and their mentors at UCSD concurrently. Thus, they receive feedback from both Monash and UCSD mentors, significantly enhancing the outcomes of their internship. Likewise, Monash students at UCSD present final seminars back to their mentors in Australia whilst presenting to a local audience at UCSD. Monash University's program goes a step further by adding an advanced seminar scheme, in which students attend seminars given by world leading experts before they depart Australia. The seminar scheme is novel, because it makes it feasible to attract some of the world's best researchers "virtually" to Monash.
Monash's Chancellor, Dr Alan Finkel, wrote recently of his experience attending one of these seminars, "I've participated in numerous video conferences to date but nothing like this. The quality was so high that the experience was almost as if we were all in the same room."
For more information on the CENIC Innovations in Networking Awards see CENIC 2010 Awards.
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