Federal Minister for Education, Science and Technology, Julie Bishop will officially launch the new high-tech network linking Charles Sturt University and its regional communities to one of the world’s largest research platforms, this Thursday 14 September in Canberra.

 

Minister Bishop will launch AARNet3, the next generation of communication technology that will link universities and regions across Australia and overseas with high speed, high capacity online systems.

 

Two members of the Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet), Charles Sturt University (CSU) and University of New England (UNE), will demonstrate AARNet’s advanced videoconferencing capabilities to the minister.

 

As part of the CSU launch into the network Ms Bishop will see school children from Wagga Wagga and Armidale in regional NSW perform a musical item together before discussing the possibilities offered by videoconferencing with academic and information technology staff, including CSU’s Acting Vice-Chancellor Ross Chambers.

 

Professor Chambers says that AARNet3 is incredibly important to a university like CSU with its campuses based across regional NSW. “This allows us to work together as one university. It gives CSU staff and our regional communities access to the best in world class research and expertise. It will have immediate benefits for our research staff and will greatly enhance our ability to develop and deliver teaching programs.

 

“As Australia’s largest distance education provider, CSU will be able to better serve its distance education students though the use of higher bandwidth, video streaming and class-based video collaborations, while also improving intercampus communications.

 

“The improved telecommunications will enhance our research efforts worldwide, especially in collaborative projects with partner institutions, while the communities we serve across regional Australia will also benefit from the links,” Professor Chambers said.

 

CSU has developed considerable expertise in using videoconferencing systems for remote lectures and tutorials. For example, education lectures have been offered by staff based in Bathurst to their students viewing from their Dubbo Campus classroom since 2000, while biomedical sciences students on Orange Campus have been receiving lectures from Wagga Wagga-based staff since 2005. These have been offered over the University’s own internal telecommunications system.

 

In June 2006, regionally-based University campuses were connected into AARNet, which includes many of the nation’s metropolitan based universities and provides large bandwidth capabilities to universities.

 

Other institutions to demonstrate their use of AARNet3 at the Canberra function will include South Australia’s Flinders University and CSIRO through its telescope in Parkes, NSW.