ILINC proposes to develop a software environment for facilitated synchronous and asynchronous training through the Internet or intranets. This environment will allow training and performance support at a distance using standards based technologies and cognitive approaches that are of demonstrated effectiveness. The objective of Internet access is to reduce/control costs of training, and to make training available to a larger population by providing access anywhere there is an Internet connection. The tools would be designed to allow asynchronous (just in time) education to be combined with synchronous (live) interaction with trainers to dramatically improve the effectiveness and timeliness of training at a distance. The success of Phase I demonstrated the technical feasibility of the proposed solution. At the conclusion of Phase II, ILINC will deliver software where participants will have a robust environment for live online learning, including audioconferencing, application synchronization and collaborative learning applications over a 28.8 Kbps connection.Videoconferencing will be optionally available with higher bandwidths and an inexpensive camera. The environment will be scaleable to 200 synchronous participants concurrently using one server for interactive sessions. This scaleability is over 10 times what can be accomplished with today's videoconferencing systems and at a fraction of the cost.
Keywords: data-sharing object retrieval network distance learning video-conferencing intranet internet training
