[gu-l] Formation of GUS/Italy-Milano Group
Tak Utsumi
utsumi@columbia.edu
Wed, 11 Apr 2001 16:58:13 +0000 (GMT)
<<April 11, 2001>>
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Prof. Fabrizio C. Celentano <fabrizio.celentano@uninsubria.it>
Dr. Paul Lefrere <p.lefrere@open.ac.uk>
P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor <tapio.varis@uta.fi>
Marco Antonio R. Dias, T.C.D. <mardias@club-internet.fr>
Mr. Komlavi Francisco Seddoh <k.seddoh@unesco.org>
Dear Fabrizio:
==============
(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I).
I thank you very much for your effort of forming a coalition to become
a GUS/Italy-Milano Group with prestigious higher learning institutions
in Milano area.
(2) This is a very exciting news and just in time -- since we are now
preparing our proposal to become a member of UNITWIN program of UNESCO
which is for networking of higher educational institutions -- see
http://www.friends-
partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/UNESCO_NGO/Agreement_files/Agreement.htm
(3) Tapio, Marco and I plan to visit Mr. Seddoh, the UNITWIN officer, on
6/20th to finalize this agreement.
Dear Marco:
===========
Pls confirm this visit with Mr. Seddoh ASAP. Thanks.
Once it is made, your consortium members can join in our GUS formally,
either as individual school or as the consortium.
(4) Paul and Tapio are now preparing a grant application to the European
Commission for their EXCITED project -- see ATTACHMENT V in
Report on trip to European Commission in Luxembourg and Brussels -
January 22, 2001" at
http://www.friends-partners.org/utsumi/gu-l/early-2001/1-22-a.html
This project is to conduct community development in Estonia, Barcelona
(and later in Ukraine).
Dear Paul:
==========
(5) Although the deadline of the grant application is now extended to
4/25th (from 4/15th), if you think that it is favorable and possible
to include GUS/Italy-Milano Group, pls feel free to contact Fabrizio
at your earliest convenience.
Dear Fabrizio:
==============
(6) As today's New York Times tells (ATTACHMENT II), broadband Internet is
becoming urgent need.
This trend would be inevitable to your community, also.
In order to cope with this problem, I would suggest that you would
organize a workshop to brainstorm for feasibility study -- as we are
working with various teams in other countries.
For this preparation, I would be very happy to visit you to discuss
further, if you can kindly find a travel fund to extend my trip to
Paris (to visit Mr. Seddoh at UNESCO on 6/20th -- see above) and
Madrid, Spain (to visit Dr. Federico Mayor, former Director-General of
UNESCO on 6/22nd).
(7) I am leaving for Cebu, the Philippines on 4/15th to give a keynote
speech there on 4/18th, and to conduct a seminar on 4/19th and 4/20th,
and to visit our Manila colleagues for their workshop preparation on
4/21st to 4/23rd, and Cavite, the Philippines on 4/24th and 4/26th to
form a coalition there, and then to Tokyo till 5/19th to work on our
ESL program and GSTF project.
Keep in touch, and I thank you again for your effort in Milano!!
Best, Tak
****************************************
ATTACHMENT I
Subject: joining GUS
Date: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 7:13 PM
From: Celentano Fabrizio Carlo <fabrizio.celentano@uninsubria.it>
To: "'utsumi@friends-partners.org'" <utsumi@friends-partners.org>
Dear Professor Utsumi:
A few months ago I told you that I was trying to establish a consortium
between a few Universities of northern Lombardy, in order to foster
teledidactics and telemedicine, and to join the GUS.
In the maintime a grass-roots committee met several times, debating the
issue. The committeee was composed by representatives of the Information
Sciences Depts of the Universities of Milano http://www.unimi.it, Milano-
Bicocca http://www.unimib.it, and of Insubria http://www.uninsubria.it. The
meetings were sponsored by the pro-Rettore of the University of Milano-Bicocca
Professor Guido Martinotti, a sociologist.
To make a long story short, the committee--which is informally in complete
agreement with the Rectors of the three Universities--is now asking
a) to become a full fledged committee
b) to start a feasibility study for
- a broadband connection
- distribution of web based courseware
c) to join the GUS as soon as possible
At this point we have a problem that you may help solving. The three
universities can join the GUS in a short time, whenever they do this
separately, or in a much longer time as a consortium. The latter solution
takes time because the decision must be proposed and approved separately by
at least one Faculty, the Academic Senate, and the Administrative Board:
three approvals for each one of the three Universities. In Italy, according
to bureaucratic algebra, 3x3>>9.
Joining separately the GUS would be much easier.
Then how to proceed? The MOU proposed by the Ukranian friends and you
apparently remained a preliminary document. Should we start from that,
anyhow?
What are your suggestions on both issues?
Please let me have your opinion as soon as it is possible for you. Now that
things are rolling smoothly I would like to keep them on the move.
Some more information for the sake of completeness.
The above mentioned grass-roots committee has rather strong roots, as it
included Professor Lanzarone (delegated by the Rector uf the University of
Insubria for matters regarding technology), Professor Bisiani (Chair of the
Information Sciences Dept. of Milano-Bicocca), Professor Marini (delegated by
the Chair of the Information Sciences Dept. of the University of Milano, and
very close to Professor Degli Antoni, whom you already know. For what I am
concerned, I am a member of the Administrative Board of the University of
Insubria.
Why only the three mentioned Universities, to begin the enterprise? Just
because the three universities are closely related and have similar
priorities. Bicocca and Insubria stemmed some three years ago from the
Universities of Milano and Pavia. It is quite possible that Pavia will join
the group shortly.
I am well aware of the existence of Consorzio Nettuno
http://nettuno.stm.it, already working in the field. The University of
Milano-Bicocca already belongs to that consortium. We have to work out the
correct relationships between our enterprise and Consorzio Nettuno. The aims
are somewhat different, but there may be a convergence.
When there will be an official beginning, then we will reach all the
relevant contacts, at both the National and European levels. Actually there
will be more than one official beginning. One will be the consortium between
the three universities. The other(s) will be joining the GUS.
Please, feel free to ask me any other information that you need.
Sincerely
Fabrizio Celentano
****************************************
ATTACHMENT II
Excerpt from
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/11/technology/11EDUCATION.html?pagewanted=print
April 11, 2001
Bandwidth Constraints Begin to Worry Schools
By SUSAN STELLIN
or just about anyone who uses the Internet these days, it is fast becoming a
tenet of the digital age that you can never have too much bandwidth.
And although schools have made significant progress in the past few years
merely by getting connected to the Internet, they are certainly among those
who would like to upgrade to faster access.
According to the most recent data available from the National Center for
Education Statistics, 95 percent of public schools in the U.S. were connected
to the Internet by 1999. Of those schools, 63 percent were connected using
dedicated lines (including T1, T3 or 56Kb lines), 14 percent used dial-up
connections and 23 percent used other connection types (including cable
modems, wireless connections and ISDN lines).
Compared to the dial-up connections still used by most individuals, the data
seem to suggest that schools are already benefiting from fast access. But
what these statistics do not indicate are the number of classrooms or schools
sharing each connection, which significantly affects performance.
Those who are responsible for setting up and maintaining schools' Internet
connections say that as more teachers embrace technology in the classroom,
schools are reaching the limits of what their network infrastructure can
handle -- which in turn may limit the types of applications educators can
take advantage of for teaching and administrative tasks.
Bob Nelson, director of technology for Milwaukee public schools, said some
schools in the district, which serves about 100,000 students, are already
starting to push up against bandwidth limits. "As people are starting to use
it more, the demand is increasing," he said. "So now it's time to start
scaling up to meet that demand."
Mr. Nelson attributes the increase in demand to recent efforts to train staff
on ways to use technology in the classroom. As more teachers embrace the
Internet, he said, a strain is placed on the district's technology
infrastructure. In particular, the use of video as part of the learning
process is increasing within the district -- such as interactive video
sessions between high school students and experts from a local college to
discuss different career paths. Another application that requires a lot of
bandwidth, he said, is a Web-based curriculum design assistant, which is a
tool that allows teachers to share lesson plans.
Although the district has so far managed to keep up with the demand, Mr.
Nelson said he is concerned that bandwidth may not be considered a priority
once classrooms have been wired for Internet access. "Do we have enough?" he
said. "Not yet. My worry is that we're going to declare victory too early and
walk away to the next thing."
That is also a concern for Jeff Ogden, associate director at Merit Network
Inc., a nonprofit corporation that provides networking services for many of
the K-12 schools in Michigan. "The vast majority of schools that have
Internet access have relatively small levels of bandwidth," he said.
A T-1 line serving a single school may provide plenty of bandwidth, Mr. Ogden
said. "But a T-1 to an entire school district -- especially if it's a large
school district -- that's likely to be a constraint."
To help overcome bandwidth constraints, Merit Network, which is also known as
MichNet, is helping K-12 schools in Michigan access Internet2, the high-speed
network developed by research universities, industry partners and the
government. Although Internet2 is currently used primarily by universities,
other educational organizations are beginning to access the network. The
primary benefit of access to Internet2 for K-12 schools, Mr. Ogden said, is
the ability to take advantage of high-speed interactive video, which
generally does not work well on the Internet.
But with so many different goals competing for limited technology budgets --
such as more computers, teacher training and technical assistance --
upgrading a school's network infrastructure may take a back seat to other
demands. "For some school districts, higher speed access is a priority," Mr.
Ogden said, "But not the majority. I think we have a ways to go in terms of
showing teachers how it can be used effectively."
One company that is working on that objective is Classroom Connect, an
educational technology company based in Brisbane, Calif. that develops Web-
based curriculum products and professional development programs for K-12
educators. The company's flagship product is the Qwest Channel, which enables
students to virtually participate in explorations to historic regions of the
world and learn related history, geography and science lessons.
Kelly Pope, vice president for Internet technology at Classroom Connect, said
the company takes schools' connection types into account when designing
products for K-12 settings. "In the future," she said, "We definitely see
interactivity as being the key prize of higher bandwidth in the classroom."
As an example, she cited video broadcasts of live events, where students
could interact in real time with other participants.
In the meantime, the company designs products for schools with a range of
Internet connections. Some aspects of a product -- like streaming video --
may only be accessible in schools with increased bandwidth, Ms. Pope said,
but designers make sure "not to have components of the product that are
critical in that higher bandwidth range."
Like most companies in the business of developing software, Classroom Connect
keeps track of statistics like what kind of PC's are in schools and what
types of Internet connections they have, and Ms. Pope said the company's
customer service group polls users to find out what kind of response times
they are getting.
And when schools' network infrastructure improves, she said, the products
that are available to educators will be ready to tap into increased
bandwidth. "We're in the process of planning for when the bandwidth does
increase and we can take advantage of that."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
****************************************
Distribution List
Prof. Fabrizio C. Celentano
Universita' dell'Insurbia
DBSF e CRII
Via J.H. Dunant, 3
I-21100 Varese
Italy
tel +39-02-421 518/523
fax +39-02-421 500
fabrizio.celentano@uninsubria.it
fabriziocelentano@interfree.it
http://web.crii.uninsubria.it
Dr. Paul Lefrere
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Educational Technology
Director, Networking and Partnerships, Joint Information Systems Committee
(JISC)
Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Systems
Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
UNITED KINGDOM
Tel: +44-1-908 65 33 88
Fax: +44-1-908 67 28 02
p.lefrere@open.ac.uk
http://www-iet.open.ac.uk/
P. Tapio Varis, Ph.D, Professor
Acting President, Global University System
Chairman, GLOSAS/Finland
Professor and Chair
Media Culture and Communication Education
Hypermedia laboratory
University of Tampere
P.O.Box 607
FIN-33101 Tampere
FINLAND
Tel: +358-3-215 6110
Tel: +358-3-614-5247--office in Hameenlinna
Tel: +358-3-215 6243--mass media lab in Tampere
GSM: +358-50-567-9833
Fax: +358-3-215 7503
tapio.varis@uta.fi
tapio.varis@helsinki.fi
http://www.uta.fi/~titava
Marco Antonio R. Dias, T.C.D. (Third Cycle Diploma)
Vice President, Global University System
Consultant of United Nations University
Former Director, Division of Higher Education of UNESCO
36, Rue Ernest Renan
92.190 Meudon
FRANCE
Tel: +33-1-45 34 3509
+33-1-45-68-3009 (UNU office in Paris)
Fax: +33-1-45 34 3509
mardias@club-internet.fr
marcoantoniodias@yahoo.com
m.dias@unesco.org
Mr. Komlavi Francisco Seddoh
Director, Division of Higher Education
UNESCO
7, Place de Fontenoy
75352, Paris 07SP
FRANCE
+33-1-45-68-1106
Fax: +33-1-45-68-5626 to 5628
k.seddoh@unesco.org
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder of CAADE *
* (Consortium for Affordable and Accessible Distance Education) *
* President Emeritus and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of *
* Global University System (GUS) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Fax: 718-939-0656 (day time only--prefer email) *
* Email: utsumi@columbia.edu; Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676 *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/ *
**********************************************************************