IPv6style
The earthquake off Sumatra on December 26, 2004 left huge scars on the affected regions. The damage included educational institutions. Not only did the educational facilities inflict damage, but many members of school faculty lost their lives, making it impossible to continue lectures.
For relief from the disaster, it is important to secure human resources, as well as to rebuild infrastructure including buildings. But with educational institutions unable to be rebuilt, mid- and long-term social development is severely restrained. Therefore, a project was began to help assist disaster relief in education, utilizing SOI Asia Project, which shares lectures among universities internationally over the Internet.
The project built an environment for remote lectures at the Universitas Syiah Kuala, the largest university in Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia, for receiving lectures from Japan and other Asian countries, in addition to lectures in the mother language from universities in Indonesia. This enabled more students to hear lectures.
SOI Asia Project has been operated by Keio University and WIDE Project of Japan since 2001, to enable international educational assistance among universities. The project shares lectures using satellites to send video lectures to universities in Asia.
Partners of the project include 24 universities as of December 2005, in 12 countries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Mongol, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan.
SOI enables building of high-speed Internet connection in a short period of time on Asian islands, many of which are physically difficult to lay high-speed cables, by using satellite for video distribution. The relay site for data transmission to communication satellite is situated in Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC).
Universities that receive transmissions of English lectures conducted in universities in Japan or U.S. can include these lectures in their curriculums. In particular, they can hear the lectures of Japanese universities real time because of small time differences. This offers the advantage of making remote lectures more effective.
Future challenges include the fact that SOI Asia is structured as a research project, although it has grown large. Therefore, a very few organizations are forced to bear the financial burden for operations as well as the burden to provide necessary human resources. The project intends to establish an NPO, so that the project will be managed as a highly independent organization.
Press Release
Universitas Syiah Kuala (Banda Aceh, Indonesia) Disaster Recovery Project
- Distance learning to assist in university recovery -
http://www.wide.ad.jp/news/press/20051122-tsunami-e.html
;)
SOI network diagram. Lecture Video data is transmitted via satellite, and other traffic uses terrestrial circuits.
;)
One satellite can cover many Asian countries. By using satellite, the project enables low cost and broadband connection, enabling effective remote lectures.
;)
Actual lecture. Small time differences enables real time remote lecturing. Video is sent from student room as well as from the lecturer.
