Distributing virtual worlds in a teleteaching environment

This paper discusses the future trends on teleteaching applications. These include remote access to distributed virtual reality resources, information on demand teleservices and multimedia telecommunication environments across high speed multicast networks for teleteaching scenarios. A teleteaching session held by a lecturer in Berlin is multicasted across the regional metropolitan area network. The lecturer has on-line access to some virtual studio and a CM5 supercomputer in Bonn. He can interactively create virtual environments in real-time and the results are multicasted during the lecture. The students may interact with the lecturer via some Multimedia Collaboration Teleservice. They have access to Information on Demand Teleservice (IoD) which provides them with additional background material. The session is broadcasted via satellite link giving more than hundred million people the opportunity to listen and to view lectures. The IoD teleservice is accessible via satellite links. Additional services can be accessed by students via ISDN and Internet. These comprise of the following important elements which are to be integrated in such a scenario: a teleteaching environment and classrooms at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB); CSCW Multimedia Teleservices called MMC and JVTOS and their integrations into distributed telelectures which have been developed in parts by GMD and TUB within its TUBKOM activities; Virtual Studio technology which is installed at the German National Research Center for Information Technologie (GMD); GMD's information on demand teleservice; ATM-based network infrastructure with installations at GMD in Bonn and TUB in Berlin with access to the German National ATM trial and the European ATM pilot; Satellite infrastructure at GMD, covering a footprint from Portugal to Moscow. We start by giving an introduction which is the followed by discussing the above elements.