Telelearning in the virtual lecture theatre

The concept of a virtual lecture theatre has been realised at the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Social Sciences in Nuremberg since 1995. Interdisciplinary courses are being held for local students at one faculty and are interactively broadcast for students joining in from remote locations. Various demands concerning the teleteaching environment have to be met in order to enable remote students to attend lectures virtually and interact synchronously by sending contributions via conferencing tools to the central lecture theatre. In addition, recorded lectures are digitised and stored on a multimedia server to provide asynchronous access for all students, constituting a ''lecture on demand'' system. Furthermore, remote students are able to co-operate virtually with other students, i.e. join exercise groups by means of video and audio communication, share screens and applications, exchange documents and software, etc. To fulfil the corresponding multimedia communication needs, a broadband ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) network connects the lecture theatre in Nuremberg with remote lecture theatres, remote conferencing rooms and separate workplaces at the university or at home. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.