The Project of Virtual Laboratory for Informal Communication on Gigabit Network

As the computer network technology has evolved, the Internet has spread out to include variety of users. They get together and create communities on the network, so that virtual relations between people have been emerging. Many such virtual communities use chat rooms, mailing lists and message boards making use of the existing applications. On the other hand, informal communication such as a chat and private conversation during a break at a conference, has been recognized important. We often come across a good idea when having relaxing conversations. In a daily life, we have various environments for informal communications which are necessary for keeping relations with the others even for having better formal communications. However, it is not so easy to have an environment for informal communications in a cyber space on the Internet when only relying on the existing applications. In this research, we try and use some new experimental informal communication tools in our virtual laboratory environment in which several universities are interconnected with Japan Gigabit Networks (JGN) /ATM. First, We have set up a CCD camera at each laboratory and deliver streaming live video to share the environment. Then, we constructed a meeting system using Microsoft Netmeeting and OpenMCU. In addition, we implemented on-door communication systems using the metaphor of a door on WWW as a media for novel types of informal communications. In this paper, We explain the summaries of experimental environment and the supporting applications for informal communications. We also let students to take the main role of communications so that they use tools for their informal communications in a realistic way.