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| Professor Roger Bielefeld explains
features of the new high-tech Case classrooms, including data ports at each desk and a computer-equipped podium. |
CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- If going online with your home computer is like turning on the tap for a glass of water,
getting on the Internet this fall at Case Western Reserve University is going to be like opening a fire hydrant.
In all, 16,000 computers, including machines in every dorm room, will be linked over the coming year to a fiber-optic network
that delivers data at up to one gigabit per second.
That is about a thousand times faster than the typical home broadband connection -- so fast that the research university's
computer experts still do not know exactly what they will do with so much capacity.
And that's the point of this $27 million investment: Case will look to develop applications that benefit from a supercharged
Internet.
With the new system, "you can actually do full-screen, full-motion high-definition video with high-definition sound," said
the school's technology chief, Lev Gonick. "That's pretty amazing when you think about research science."
Medical students will be able to watch surgery in real time from a remote location yet experience it as if they were in
the room.
A musician could even study with a teacher in, say, New York via an Internet audiovisual conference -- provided the teacher
had an equally fast connection.
Getting a high-tech leg up
"This is clearly one of the most aggressive if not the most aggressive deployments" of computer technology in academia,
said Steve Corbato of Internet2, a national consortium of universities working on the next-generation Internet.
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| George Kippel, audio visual services
manager at Case, demonstrates how a computerized podium can control equipment all around the classroom. |
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Corbato expects such so-called gigabit Ethernet technology to be common on university campuses within about two years.
For now, Case has a leg up on such premier tech universities as Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon and the California Institute
of Technology, which offer only a tenth of the speed at 100 megabits per second.
"Many universities are looking into gigabit networking on campus," said Joel Smith, chief information officer at Carnegie
Mellon. "They just proceed more rapidly or less rapidly depending on funding and other concerns."
Case Western, a 9,600-student university, contracted with Sprint and Cisco Systems for the upgrade. As part of the deal,
Sprint can test new technologies at the school. In return, Case gets discounts on future technology upgrades.
Vlad Babich, 30, a doctoral student from Ukraine studying management and operations theory, said it will remove barriers
to complex mathematical calculations.
"Usually we run up against the computer's limitations when we are solving large problems," he said. "Anything you can do
faster, it will definitely make a difference."
The new computer system will be able to run complex applications at lightning speed and move large amounts of data between
computers around campus, Babich said.
Wired classrooms and students
The project does have some costs for students.
Dorm residents are charged a new $400 "technology fee" in addition to the university's $22,500 annual tuition. And of course
they need to own a computer.
The Case system will take about a year to complete, but it is already operating in several dorms and the new building of
the Weatherhead School of Management.
Inside the building, audio visual manager George Klippel demonstrated an otherworldly classroom: Each student desk has
a data port that links into the gigabit Ethernet network. The professor stands at a custom-made computerized podium that looks
like a touchscreen teller machine.
From the podium the professor can control the lights, video projectors and sound system in the room, as well as surf the
Internet and link to every other student computer.
It will take some time to develop broader commercial applications for gigabit Ethernet, in part because companies do not
know what they could do with it.
"It is incumbent upon the higher education community to demonstrate the value of it," Corbato said.
