THE PROJECT OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR INFORMAL

COMMUNICATION ON GIGABIT NETWORK

Yasuo Ebara

Yukinori Goto

Toshihiko Shimokawa

Shinji Yamane

Kenji Watanabe

Yuko Murayama

Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University,

Yoshida-honcho, Sakyu-ku, Kyoto, 606-8501, Japan

Faculty of Economics, Kyushu University,

6-10-1, Hakozaki, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, 812-8581, Japan

Faculty of Information Science,Kyushu Sangyo University,

3-1, Matsukadai 2, Higashi-ku Fukuoka, 813-8503, Japan

Faculty of Software and Information Science, Iwate Prefectural University,

152-52 Takizawa-aza-sugo, Takizawa, Iwate, 020-0173, Japan

Faculty of Sciences and Engeering, Saga University,

1, Hojo-machi, Saga, 840-8502, Japan

Keywords:

Informal communication, Virtual laboratory, On door communication, Dynamic VPN.

Abstract:

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 commu-

nication 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.

1 INTRODUCTION

As the computer network technology has evolved, the

Internet has spread out to include variety of users. It

is no more only for researchers and the company em-

ployees but for individuals, as well. Those individ-

ual users have access to the network from their home.

They get together and create communities on the net-

work, 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 (Kraut

et al., 1990; Whittaker et al., 1994; Isaacs et al.,

1996). We often come across a good idea when hav-

ing relaxing conversations. It is more likely for re-

searchers to create new ideas through informal com-

munications rather than through the formal commu-

nication such as the ones at a laboratory seminar and

a conference. In a daily life, we have various en-

vironments for informal communications which are

necessary for keeping relations with the others even

176

Ebara Y., Goto Y., Shimokawa T., Yamane S., Watanabe K. and Murayama Y. (2004).

THE PROJECT OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR INFORMAL COMMUNICATION ON GIGABIT NETWORK.

In Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems, pages 176-181

DOI: 10.5220/0002607301760181

 SciTePress

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 exper-

imental informal communication tools in our virtual

laboratory environment in which several universities

are interconnected with gigabit networks. We let stu-

dents to take the main role of communications so that

they use tools for their informal communications in a

realistic way This paper reports our experiment.

The paper organization is as follows. The next sec-

tion describes about the concept of informal commu-

nication. Section 3 reports on our gigabit network

environment in which we use our tools. Section 4

presents our informal communication tools for virtual

laboratory environment. Section 5 discuss applica-

tions of those tools in our virtual laboratory, and Sec-

tion 6 gives some conclusions.

2 INFORMAL COMMUNICATION

ON THE INTERNET

The informal communication is generated by an en-

counter and a conversation without any deliberate

plan but by chance (Fish et al., 1990; Matsuura et al.,

1993). Generally, the nature of conversation during a

coffee break in a work place or interaction with peo-

ple after work is impromptu. Conversations are real-

time. Facial expressions are of a great help to know

what the partner has meant by his/her words.

In order to achieve a real-time conversation on the

network, people often use a chat system instead of e-

mail. However, the chat system is not able to give us

people’s facial expression because it is a character-

oriented communication tool. Therefore, in order

to implement informal communications via computer

network, a method that can easily tell what you think

and feel is necessary.

In order to tell your present state of mind, emoti-

cons are used in the communications using characters

such as chat and e-mail. An emoticon is a combina-

tion of characters that resembles the facial expression

of people to express sadness, happiness and anger,

etc. Indeed, it is a simple way to express our feelings,

however, multimedia data such as audio or video may

offer better opportunities to transmit them.

Supporting the informal communications using

multimedia data, has been researched in the area

of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW)

and Groupware (Fish et al., 1992; Nakanishi et al.,

1996; Obata and Sasaki, 1998). As the bandwidth of

networking became popular, TV conference systems

were used extensively, and the multimedia environ-

ment was created with the virtual multiple connec-

tions. However, such systems were basically used for

formal communications such as a conference and a

lecture because the systems were constructed on the

infrastructures that were not widely available and ex-

pensive to install.

Moreover, they were not built on an universal in-

frastructure that was easy for a user to operate (Isaacs

et al., 2002). That is why only a few of them are now

in practical use currently.

In this research, we verify our tools for informal

communications on the Internet in terms of usabil-

ity and operability on the network. In the experi-

mental work, ﬁrstly we interconnect the universities

in remote locations by network to construct an infor-

mal communication environment. Secondly we de-

velop several applications and perform examinations

for veriﬁcation.

3 EXPERIMENTAL NETWORK

We have built a research network, called VL (Virtual

Laboratory) Network to connect the geographically

distant universities by gigabit networks.

VL Network makes use of ATM link of the Japan

Gigabit Network (JGN). JGN is a governmental

network designed for research and development of

very high-speed networking and high-performance

application technologies. JGN consists of nation-

wide high-speed optical-ﬁber networks with ATM

switches. The ATM switches are located in ten places

and are connected to each other by very high-speed

optical-ﬁber links. Fifty four nodes are connected to

the ATM switches presumably to let researchers have

an access to the network from anywhere in Japan. VL

Network interconnects ﬁve universities, Iwate Prefec-

tural University, Kyoto University, Kyushu Univer-

sity, Kyushu Sangyo University, and Saga University.

Figure 1 shows the conﬁguration of the VL Net-

work. In this ﬁgure, the connections of Kyushu

Sangyo University and Saga University are presented

by a dotted line, because they are yet to be connected.

Figure 1 shows the IP layer. The universities are in-

terconnected in full-mesh on ATM layer. Therefore,

we can change network topology easily.

The VL Network is connected to the global Internet

via the QGPOP network. QGPOP, Kyushu GigaPOP

Project, aims to build a dedicated R&D Internet in the

Kyushu region with commodity Internet, focusing on

the Internet’s end-to-end principle and new features

such as IPv6, multicasting, and Mobile IP. QGPOP is

connected to Korean Research Network at 1Gbps via

KJCN, the Korea-Japan Cable Network. In this way

VL is connected now to Korean Research Network

with very high speed. We are planning an experiment

for the international informal communication using

multi-languages.

THE PROJECT OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR INFORMAL COMMUNICATION ON GIGABIT NETWORK

177

Figure 1: Conﬁguration of the VL Network.

4 STUDY ON THE SUPPORT FOR

INFORMAL COMMUNICATION

In this section, we introduce some of our tools to share

the VL environment. We had some experiments using

those tools to have a chat or making contact with users

of other universities on the VL Network.

In addition, we explain the outline of each experi-

ment conducted on the VL Network.

4.1 Environment Sharing by using

Streaming Application

We have set up a CCD camera at each laboratory

and deliver streaming live video for 24 hours using

the RealSystem (freeware version) to share the en-

vironment. When using RealPlayer, only one video

of a laboratory is available. In this experiment, how-

ever, we use SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Inte-

gration Language) ﬁle so that the videos of all lab-

oratories interconnected can be seen simultaneously.

Each live video which is delivered by using RealSys-

tem is shown in Figure 2. We set the bandwidth of

the live video to be delivered between 250 Kbps and

450 Kbps so that high quality video can be obtained

to share the environment visually.

Although the above method is effective for sharing

a visual environment, we found that interactive com-

munication did not go so well because of the large

delay in the delivery of the live video information.

4.2 Informal Netmeeting by using

OpenMCU

As interactive communications using RealSystem did

not go so well that we constructed a meeting system

Figure 2: Environment sharing by using RealSytem.

using Microsoft Netmeeting and OpenMCU (Open

Multi Control Unit). OpenMCU is a freeware applica-

tion which is equipped with ITU H.323 teleconferenc-

ing protocol. In the meeting system with OpenMCU,

4 users can be displayed at the same time.

The experimental result shows that both video and

audio could be transmitted and received all right when

the number of users were less than ﬁve. However,

noise was generated in the video and audio because

some hardware systems at laboratories were not com-

patible with one another.

Even in the case of ﬁve users or more, only four of

them appear on the display in the order of receiving

audio information; the system shows only four parties

at most on a display. If the ﬁfth user who is not cur-

rently on the display, starts to speak, he/she will ap-

pear on the display taking a place for one of the four

users. This way the conversation is suddenly inter-

rupted. To solve this problem, we need some control

on who speaks next so that all users can join the con-

versation smoothly. However, such a control does not

ﬁt with the nature of informal communication which

should be impromptu and unplanned.

We conclude that the conversation using Open-

MCU allows only less than ﬁve users to join. Re-

garding the conversation including ﬁve or more users,

we need to develop a new application. However, the

communication system which can deal with an un-

limited number of users may cost much. It is impor-

tant to determine up to how many users can join the

conversation when designing a system for interactive

communication using video and audio. The result of

evaluation is shown in Table 1.

In the communication using Netmeeting, users

ICEIS 2004 - SOFTWARE AGENTS AND INTERNET COMPUTING

178

Table 1: Evaluation results.

Number of users Evaluation

4 or less Transmission/reception

of video and audio was

completed all right.

Noise was generated due to

the incompatibility of hard-

ware

5 or more The conversation was in-

terrupted because the dis-

play switched quickly upon

speech of the user.

Someone had to control the

conversation, so that the re-

quest of the informal com-

munication was not satisﬁed.

sometimes could not hear each other well because

of the low quality of audio. In addition, we found

that it was more useful that users would be able to

input character information including URL and ﬁle

names. To comply with this situation, we added a

chat system so that the communication would go on

smoothly. The chat system also contributed to en-

hance smooth informal communication; it enabled all

users to share speciﬁc information such as network

addresses which would be understood better by writ-

ing. Figure 3 shows an actual informal communica-

tion using Netmeeting and a chat system.

4.3 On Door Communication

We try and implement communication systems using

the metaphor of a door on WWW as a media for novel

types of informal communications. We call those

communications through a door ”on-door communi-

cations”, and presume two types of systems. The ﬁrst

one is a system for a chat at a net door, and the second

one is an on-door message board.

Figure 3: Informal communication by using Netmeeting

and chat system.

4.3.1 The On-Door Chat System

To realize informal communications, we apply chat

system as a method for supporting communication

with video and audio. In addition to the conventional

chat system which uses only characters, we add the

metaphor of a door so that the on-door chat system

is implemented to realize a chat in front of the door

virtually (Suzumura et al., 2002).

Our on-door chat system provides two awareness

tools, viz. knock and shadow. A knock on the door is

used to let the others notice the arrival of a visitor at

the door with an auditory signal.

A shadow indicates the existence of visitors as well

as that of the door owner. When the owner is in the

room, the light can be seen through the door window

as well as the owner’s shadow. A visitor gives a knock

on the door and starts chat with the door owner. If the

owner is not available but any other visitors are out

there, their ﬁgures can be seen outside the door, so

that the new visitor can join the others in chat. If no

one is around, the visitor can leave a message on the

chat board. When a visitor comes across at the door,

his/her shadow is generated outside the door so that

the owner and the other visitors would notice the new

comer.

A door is implemented as a web page. A server

system for generating a door web page functions as a

door dealer. A user (i.e. an owner) gets a door page

from the door dealer. A chat system is presented on

each door page so that the visitors can have a chat. A

knock on the door is used to let the others notice the

arrival of a new visitor at the door with an auditory

signal. When an owner has connected with a door,

his/her shadow appears on the door window, whereas

the shadow of visitors appears in the foreground of a

door. We added a feature so that we could have some

more sounds, which show users’ emotion as well as

their associated texts (i.e. emoticons) than merely a

knock sound. For example, clicking ”LAUGH” but-

ton gives an icon, ”:-)”. A knock produces a text

”Knock!” on a chat line. Figure 4 shows an example

of our chat board.

4.3.2 The On-door Message Board

We discuss the message board for supporting the sys-

tem of informal communication. The message board

system which is used on VL Network is called ”on-

door message board” (Segawa et al., 1999; Murayama

et al., 2001; Segawa et al., 2002).

The idea of our on-door message board is to bring

a message board on the door of a room in a student

hall of residence into the WWW environment. We

have developed a message board system on WWW for

asynchronous communication, which provides users

with simple tools for drawing (Murayama et al., 2001;

THE PROJECT OF VIRTUAL LABORATORY FOR INFORMAL COMMUNICATION ON GIGABIT NETWORK

179

Figure 4: On-door chat system.

Figure 5: On-door message board.

Segawa et al., 2002). Letters are coded as a collection

of lines. On this board, any message can be written by

hand making use of a mouse and a tablet. We add the

time visualization function so that messages in past

will be fading out gradually.

We ﬁnd the system useful speciﬁcally when we are

having a discussion using Netmeeting within the vir-

tual laboratory, one can express his/her idea in an im-

age in a cooperative manner; that is one can add image

objects such as lines and letters onto the ﬁgure image

drawn by some others. Figure 5 shows the message

board.

We have not tried the extensive use of the time visu-

alization function yet, and shall try and use this func-

tion in fugue experiments to ﬁgure out in what occa-

sion the function is most useful.

4.4 Access from External Network

by VPN

We have an access control on applications on the VL

Network so that they are permitted to use only by

the authorized users inside the VL Network. Those

outside the VL Network are not allowed to access

the experimental environment of VL Network. How-

ever, we consider it very important that authorized

users can join the community from anywhere with-

out restrictions to implement informal communica-

tions. For this reason, we use a Virtual Private Net-

work (VPN) so that those authorized ones outside the

VL network can also access VL Network and join the

community. For example, in Kyushu University, the

Faculty of Economics, which is outside VL network,

is connected to VL network of a graduate school of

Information Science Electrical Engineering by using

VPN technique. (See Figure 6.)

As an extension of the VPN technique, we im-

plemented Dynamic VPN (DVPN) (Kashima et al.,

2003). DVPN allows a connection to VL Network

from a user’s home which is connected to a commer-

cial provider where the IP address changes dynami-

cally. As a result, all the authorized users who are reg-

istered with VL Network can access the VL Network

from anywhere to join informal communications on

the Internet (Figure 6).

Figure 6: VL Network with DVPN system.

5 APPLICATION FOR VIRTUAL

LABORATORY

We have performed several experiments. We con-

structed a virtual community on the Internet in order

ICEIS 2004 - SOFTWARE AGENTS AND INTERNET COMPUTING

180

to promote communications among students. Thor-

ough our experiments, we found that the academic

knowledge exchange of students in remote places

was promoted by means of virtual laboratory environ-

ment. In future, we shall look into how the education

based on informal communications would work by

organizing voluntary seminars so that students have

more opportunities to learn from each other.

In the future, we will also consider how to enjoy

the Internet when making evaluations of the commu-

nication system. As the ﬁrst step, for discussing the

environment sharing, we have already conducted ex-

periments of an e-party in which users could join from

remote places via network. The experiments were

performed by broadcasting a party at a laboratory in

real time. After several e-party experiments, we found

that the followings, with which a new system should

be realized, were necessary for supporting informal

communications.

• a method to transmit video and audio smoothly (for

a place connected to low-bandwidth network)

• sharing the display by multiple users

• the development of easy-to-use user interface

6 CONCLUSION

In this paper, in order to clarify the problems for re-

alizing informal communications on the Internet, we

reported our VL project to construct a virtual labora-

tory environment in which several universities were

interconnected with gigabit networks. We then ex-

plained the summaries of experimental environment

and the supporting applications for informal commu-

nications.

In the future, we will evaluate these applications

in detail and look into the problems. We will then

develop new applications and systems. Moreover, we

will perform network construction and experimental

operation with the next generation protocol, IPv6 on

the VL Network. Finally, we would like to let those

applications work with IPv6.

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