Access Grid technology in classroom and research environments

Global communication is essential to industry, research and education. The Access Grid (AG) is a suite of hardware, software, and tools to facilitate communication and collaboration over the Internet. These resources are used at over 500 institutions worldwide to support group-to-group interactions across the Grid including collaborative research work sessions, tutorials, lectures, large-scale distributed meetings and training. This paper will provide an overview of the technology to encourage professionals to integrate benefits and tools of the Grid into their instruction and research. Furthermore, this paper will compare this new technology to more traditional videoconferencing and distributed collaborative working environments. Lastly, it will present issues and challenges that must be addressed to incorporate this momentous technology within the classroom and for collaboration throughout the world.