Staff at Central Queensland University’s Gladstone campus recently took the opportunity to learn how to use the University’s latest videoconferencing technology, an advanced computing video wall called an AccessGrid that displays an image 5.5metres by 1.3 metres.

The Gladstone AccessGrid is located in the PELM Conference room and will be used by local staff and research students.

The AccessGrid, one of around 20 currently built in Australia, is a type of videoconferencing facility that allows participants from multiple locations on the Internet to interact in real time.

The AccessGrid can interact with any number of other locations from around the world and simultaneously display live video streams, as well as displaying shared work documents and complex scientific images such as those sourced from electron microscope scans and satellite images.

Jason Bell, High Performance Computing Support Officer for CQU Rockhampton, said the new technology provided CQU researchers a more cost effective way of working with colleagues across Australia and throughout the world.

“This technology allows a group of participants the ability to hear and see each other, as well as share documents, in real time without delays, which provides staff an opportunity to work together when convenient rather than having to travel to meetings or conferences around Australia and the world.".

“The technology was recently used during the SARS outbreak in South Korea in which many hospitals used the technology to enable “virtual” consultations and diagnoses of potential SARS victims by doctors, without running the risk of being infected themselves,” said Mr Bell.

State Government funding has enabled CQU to build the AccessGrids and has enabled Queensland to develop the largest concentration of access grids in Australia.

For more information on AccessGrids, you are advised to visit the following websites: http://www.hpc.cqu.edu.au/accessgrid.html or http://www.ap-accessgrid.org/ (The Asia Pacific AccessGrid Website)