The virtual lecture room-practice and experiences

The University of Erlangen-Nuremberg is one of the oldest universities in Germany. In the course of time, faculties and institutes were founded at different sites in the municipalities of Erlangen as well as in Nuremberg. Although they are neighbouring cities Erlangen is about 25 kilometers away from Nuremberg. Due to this evolution there is no university campus. Teachers, students, lecture theatres etc. are spread over an area of about 250 km². In 1994 a project, sponsored by the German Ministry of Research, was started to deal with this problem by making use of an advanced multimedia teleteaching environment. The virtual lecture room concept has been realized at the faculty of economics, business administration and social sciences in Nuremberg. The target group consists of students studying business information systems. Courses are being held at the faculty of business administration in Nuremberg as well as at the faculty of engineering (information systems, computer science) in Erlangen. The teleteaching environment had to meet the following conceptual requirements: remote students shall be able to attend lectures virtually, i.e. to observe and listen to the teacher by receiving video and audio signals on their workstation from the lecture theatre; remote students shall be able to interact synchronously; remote students shall be able to cooperate virtually with other students, i.e. to join programming teams or exercise groups by video and audio communication, screen sharing, document and software exchange etc