Access Grid move into further education

by Katy Middlebrough, Access Grid.

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Access Grid is a collaborative videoconferencing tool which has long been regarded as a resource for academics in Higher Education and Research. The Access Grid Support Centre (AGSC) is looking to change this perception and broaden Access Grid’s user range by introducing Access Grid and its collaborative tools into UK Further Education. They will do this in collaboration with the JISC-funded Regional Support Centres (RSCs) and the JANET Further Education Account Manager for England & Wales.

With an increase in online and distance learning, the videoconferencing and collaborative tools market is now well saturated with potential products to use. So why should Further Education colleges choose Access Grid? There are many reasons. The Access Grid software is very flexible: it can be installed and used on a desktop or laptop, set up in a large meeting room, or scaled up to work in a lecture theatre. The number of participants invited to an Access Grid session is limited only by bandwidth, and the size of screen that users have to display the video feeds. Tools for document, file and whiteboard sharing make Access Grid ideal for teaching seminars.

To help promote Access Grid and their services, the AGSC has been running a series of educational workshops within the University of Manchester and at various Further Education Colleges. The workshops have been well received, because they have highlighted the advantages of using Access Grid through live demonstrations of the different software options and features that are available. One of the workshops has lead to an exploration into how the Access Grid technology could be used to facilitate seminars with signing for deaf students.

It is clear that teaching is no longer restricted to the classroom; with more and more courses being offered via Podcasts and web streaming, a tutor no longer needs to be in the same room as their students. Access Grid provides not only the option of giving lectures remotely, but also allows for real-time interaction between tutor and student, thus retaining the feeling of being in a traditional lecture.

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