JISC

This proposal is concerned with remote collaboration activities involving videoconferencing (henceforth abbreviated to VC). Its main focus is on activities currently offered or managed by the JANET Videoconferencing Service (JVCS).

These include 'conventional' videoconferences, Access Grid (which combines VC with collaborative tools such as document sharing and online chat), and EVO (a web-based, desktop, VC system). However, additional remote collaboration technologies will also be addressed.

The proposal will develop better knowledge base about the environmental impacts of VC usage; utilising this knowledge to stimulate more institutions, networks and individuals to minimise work-related travel; and creating best practice examples in areas with the potential for rapid expansion of VC use.

There is considerable evidence that VC can create both business and environmental benefit. In particular, a number of studies have documented considerable transport avoidance from its use, e.g. at Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile1, NTT2, the UK Department for International Development (DFID)3, and Vodafone.4 As a result, the recent Smart 2020 study calculated that increased use of VC has the potential to reduce global CO2 equivalent emissions by up to 80 million tonnes by 2020.

JVCS hosted over 20,000 video conferences in the academic year 2007/08. Although substantial, it is only a very small proportion of total meetings within the sector. The SusteIT report also found that a relatively small number of sites and networks accounted for a high proportion of these conferences, suggesting that, despite the excellence of the technical infrastructure, VC overall has not had the transformative effect on most institutions or individuals that has been forecast by Smart 2020.

However, there are some very successful individual applications, including Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor in Wales, and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA). Hence, the SusteIT report concluded that there was considerable "potential to increase demand considerably in institutions which are not currently 'power users', especially as the current JANET infrastructure could support higher levels of use." It argued too that the combination of unused capacity, tangible benefits e.g. in travel reduction, and the potential for high profile demonstration and publicity initiatives, made VC expansion "one of the 'quickest wins' that can probably be achieved in the area of sustainable ICT."

The SusteIT report identified a number of barriers to achieving this quick win. Some of these are now being addressed by the strategic review being conducted by JANET(UK), which is likely to result in greater emphasis on marketing VC services, and making them more accessible to users, e.g. by clearer explanation of products and more user friendly booking systems. The technical remit and focus of JANET(UK), coupled with resource limitations, make it difficult for it comprehensively address certain other important issues, notably:

• Provision and promotion of information on the environmental impacts of VC over travel, which could greatly assist marketing, given the sector's current focus on reducing carbon emissions;
• Difficulties in reaching beyond the IT community to create strategic connections with potential VC users within the sector; and
• Delivering the "strong, and co-ordinated, messages from key sector bodies about the use of VC" which the SusteIT report felt was vital.

This project has been designed to reduce these barriers, in part by using an enhanced evidence base on environmental benefits to reach a wider and more strategic audience within the sector.

The project has produced a number of reports (R), briefing papers(BP) and case studies (CS):

See the "Storified" version of the Video-Conferencing in Universities and Colleges workshop held on 6 March 2012.