Ross uses desktop (Microsoft Live Meeting), high-definition business class, and large-scale classroom conferencing to significantly increase personal productivity, complement action based learning, and improve organizational efficiency. Productivity gains and organizational efficiency are achieved when remote team members are able to meet and collaborate using voice, video, and data, all in real-time. Key to this form of communication and collaboration is the ability for all participants to see, as well as share and edit, presentations, sketches, and documents, providing instantaneous feedback.
Our solutions rely on Internet Protocol video conferencing (IP VC), which is video conferencing over a high-speed, high quality of service Ethernet network, like the one we have at Ross. Often referred to as H.323 conferencing, IP conferencing has quickly become the standard for video conferencing.
Microsoft Live Meeting (Desktop Conferencing)
All faculty, staff and students have access to the Microsoft Live Meeting desktop audio/video conferencing solution that supports integrated audio, video, presentation display, participant display, desktop and application sharing, white board, annotation, mark-up tools, and chat. Live Meeting supports many communication options, such as, live sessions, recorded sessions, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and regular analog telephones. You use Live Meeting with the built in microphones, speakers and camera on your laptop, or use a simple, cheap external web camera. The VoIP audio quality in Live Meeting is excellent.
The benefit of Live Meeting is that you and your attendees can deliver a presentation, kick off a project, brainstorm ideas, edit files, collaborate on whiteboards, and co-create documents from your computer, where ever you and your attendees are within the Ross facilities and anywhere in the world. This is especially beneficial when some of the attendees cannot all be in the same physical location, for reasons such as, conflicting class schedules, work related travel or illness. As the availability of conference rooms is limited at peak times during a semester, consider using Live Meeting to host your meeting anywhere.
Microsoft Outlook makes scheduling a videoconference a snap. A toolbar integrated in Outlook (available through a separate plug-in) lets you create a meeting request to send to your colleagues, which contains a direct link to your conference and login information. If these invitees do not have Live Meeting, there is a link directing them to the Microsoft website to download the free application.
When some of your meeting attendees are not affiliated with the University, or when attendees do not have access to a computer, Live Meeting lets these attendees dial into your conference using a regular phone. When scheduling a Live Meeting conference, the organizer can add a conference call number to the conference. Invitees can use any phone to dial into the conference and participate in the audio portion of the conference.
Live Meeting is fully integrated into the University of Michigan technology infrastructure. Contacts are easily identified through a UM uniqname (in the form uniqname@umich.edu). Don't know someone's uniqname to invite to a meeting or add as a contact? Look them up in the
UM Online Directory.
Microsoft Office Communicator (Instant Message and Web Conferencing)
Office Communicator (Messenger on the Mac) offers a web-based conferencing and desktop sharing solution. Think of this as a traditional Instant Messaging client with lots of bonus features. You can initiate a spontaneous collaboration session in which participants are invited to a meeting through an instant message. By accepting the meeting invitation, participants immediately join in a text-based conference. Participants can share desktops, exchange files and URLs, view the presenter's screen and send email. Just like with Live Meeting, participants can dial into an audio conference with Office Communicator when not affiliated with UM or near a computer. Office Communicator is best used as a productivity tool that is always opened on your computer to provide instant, spontaneous communication with your colleagues and team members. When you need the full rich meeting capabilities of desktop conferencing, consider Live Meeting.
Working with people at different locations and, potentially, different time zones can be a challenge to know when that person is available. A core feature of Office Communicator is "presence", detailed information about a person's real-time availability and status displayed right on your client. You can instantly know if someone is at the computer, away from the office, in a meeting, or logged off, all by a color code. Your "presence" is also linked with other Microsoft products, like Exchange email, so your contacts can know, for example, that you in a meeting and will be back at 3pm, based on your Exchange Calendar. You can also adjust your "presence" status manually.
When you are away from Ross, or use a smart phone as your primary communications device, you can keep in touch with Office Communicator Mobile. It has similar functionality and a similar feel to the computer version, but is tailored for easy portable use. Remember to stay connected with iMpact Mobile too.
Meeting Room Audio/Video Conferencing
Desktop and Web conferencing solutions are perfect for many situations. Sometimes you need a life-like image, highest quality sound and a suitable location. Examples include a formal interview through the Office of Career Services, a meeting with a corporate dignitary and research being conducted between faculty at different Universities.
In these cases, Ross provides two high quality solutions: a portable cart that can be moved to your specific location and a permanently integrated solution built into the 6th floor Board Room. The portable unit is equipped with two 42" flat-panel monitors; 22kHz audio that delivers crisp, natural voice quality; and a high resolution camera that has a powerful 12x optical zoom with a sharp and clear focus. Built-in hardware provides for a quality experience under most network conditions. The portable and Board Room solutions are dual-screens, showing the remote location (person) on one screen and documents and other forms of media on the other screen.
For informational purposes, the portable cart uses a Polycom HDX 5000 system.
Classroom Audio/Video Conferencing
Have you wanted to bring in a guest speaker who specializes in a topic of interest to your students, but the scholar you have in mind doesn't plan to be in Ann Arbor during the semester? Or similarly, have you wanted to invite a prominent guest or corporate leader to speak at your event, but scheduling or travel conflicts didn't allow that to happen? Consider a live videoconference for your class or event, right in your regular classroom. The technology today is very high quality, the experience is outstanding, and the technical logistics are handled for you.
Video conference is available in each of our classrooms in the Ross building. Use does require that you pre-schedule with Computing Services. Your conference can be initiated and controlled from the Ross Lectern in your assigned room or you can request that staff manage your videoconference and control the camera(s) for you, from our high-tech Audio/Video Control Booth located on the 2nd floor. Each room is already equipped with a fixed pan/tilt/zoom camera mounted on the rear wall. You can host a videoconference with that single camera, giving the remote site a view of the white boards and lectern at the front, or you can choose to have three additional cameras temporarily mounted to show various angles. If you choose to use additional cameras, your videoconference must be controlled in the A/V Booth.
Like the Meeting Room conference system described above, classroom videoconference uses a high quality, high performance hardware solution (called a Codec, which is short for "compress" and "decompress" of the electrical signals for transmission) to deliver a consistent, high quality audio and video experience for your class or event. Built-in ceiling mounted speakers and a portable lavaliere microphone complete the requirements.
For informational purposes, the classroom solution is a Polycom VSX 7000 system.