Video conferencing allows students to take Michigan State courses
High Technology Extends Beyond the Boundaries of the Accelerator Site at Jefferson Lab. On Tuesday and Thursday it enters room B207 in CEBAF Center for an hour and 15 minutes. This technology is in the form of video conferencing - the wave of the future for interactive meetings and conferences when all participants cannot be in one location. For Jefferson Lab post doctoral students, employees and users, video conferencing is allowing them to participate in an "Introduction to Beam Physics" class taught by Martin Berz of Michigan State University.
The video conferencing is set up using PictureTel equipment, a system of telephones, cameras, and software. Participants see an image of the professor, hear his lecture, ask questions, and receive a "real time" response. The World Wide Web is used to post lecture notes and to distribute hand-outs and homework. Participation in the class includes 93 people from FermiLab, Los Alamos National Lab, Argonne National Lab, and Brookhaven Lab, as well as institutions in Canada and Europe and ranges from course credit to a certificate of participation. Jefferson Lab has 10 participants in the class.
Joe Grames, a doctoral student at the Lab, heard about the class from his advisor at the University of Illinois and initiated the effort to bring the class to the Lab. "Generally, coursework on beam and accelerator physics is not available at the Lab, so when an opportunity like this arises, I jump at it," says Grames.
While the video conferencing is valuable for students who cannot attend the class in person, not being able to interact directly with a professor may present problems. Berz anticipated those problems and asked local accelerator physicists to serve as points of contact for help with homework and understanding lecture concepts.
"In each lab, there are one or two experienced individuals serving as local contacts to help with organizational issues, course content, and homework," says Berz. Joe Bisognano and Johannes Van Zeijts of the Accelerator Division are the local accelerator physics contacts for the students.
Local accelerator experts also serve as guest speakers for the class, giving lectures on their areas of expertise. On February 27, Bisognano was a guest lecturer for the class, presenting information about the CEBAF accelerator. He enjoyed the opportunity to participate in the video conferencing and said, "This broadbrand approach to accelerator education where lectures from around the world can be given as part of a university accelerator course is exciting."
The availability of video conferencing offers post doctoral students, employees and users another option for increasing their knowledge of accelerator physics. According to Berz, "This concept offers an efficient and inexpensive mechanism to learn introductory material on accelerator physics in a systematic fashion, and offers the opportunity to earn college credit without leaving the workplace."