Session 2220

INTERNATIONAL VIDEO THESIS DEFENSES VIA THE INTERNET:PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

Edward G. Tezak, Ph.D., P.E., Scott Spetka, Ph. D., Aleksey Skuratov, Ph.D.SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome/The Center for New Information Technologies

ABSTRACT

The State University of New York Institute of Technology, SUNYIT, at Utica/Rome and MoscowInstitute of Electronics and Mathematics, MIEM, made history on September 19, 1996, when SUNYIT andMIEM computer science faculty conducted a thesis defense for a Russian student located in Moscow usingthe Internet. This event punctuates the culmination of over two years of effort characterized by a series offirsts. The uniqueness in conducting thk thesis defense lies in the manner in which it was done and as well asthe way the entire Master of Science program was administered. It was done in a totally distance learningenvironment. The students were residing in Moscow and SUNY faculty were in Utica, NY. Three defensestook place in Moscow in conventional fashion

INTRODUCTION - MAKING HISTORY

and the last four of the defenses took place using the Internet.

SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome and Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematicsmade history on September 19, 1996, when SUNYIT Professors Jorge Novillo and Sam Sengupta of theComputer Science Department of the School of Information Systems and Engineering Technology (ISET)and MIEM Professor Aleksey Skuratov conducted a thesis defense for Andrey Chernyshov, a Russian studentlocated in Moscow. At first blush this does not appear to be a profound accomplishment. However, thisevent punctuates the culmination of over two years of effort characterized by a series of firsts which includesbut is not limited to the following:

o First joint venture to offer a complete degree program between US and Russianinstitutions by distance learning totally in English.

o First offering of MS in Computer Science.o First thesis defenses in Moscow.o First thesis defenses using the Internet.

The uniqueness in conducting this thesis defense lies in the manner in which it was done and as well asthe way the entire Master of Science program was administered. It was done in a totally distance learningenvironment. The students were residing in Moscow and SUNY faculty were in Utica, NY. Three defensestook place in Moscow in conventional fashion and four of the defenses took place using the Internet.

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BACKGROUND

In the spring of 1993 the SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome began a collaborativerelationship with the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics to offer a Master of Science inComputer and Information Science, something never before attempted. This was in response to a requestfrom the Association for International Education to help modernize certain fields of Russian higher education.Vladimir Kinelev, Chairman, Russian Federation State Commission on Higher Education approached thenChancellor D. Bruce Johnstone at SUNY Systems Administration. Since the program was to be taughtentirely in English it was decided that students in the Computer Science discipline would be the best equippedto handle a Masters level program in a second language. Eight students were selected by MIEM toparticipate in the pilot program fimded by a $150,000 grant to SUNY Systems Administration from the USInformation Agency. SUNY Systems Administration then approached SUNY Institute of Technology atUtica/Rome to determine the feasibility of offering the program by distance learning.

PLANNING THE PROGRAM

The basic postulate adopted by SUNYIT was that the program must be conducted using essentiallythe same parameters that resident students use in earning their 33 credits for a Master of Science degree.Otherwise, the program might lack credibility. SUNY Computer Science faculty proceeded to devise aprogram of study for these Russian students. As is the case with resident students six transfer credits wereallowed under the general elective category. Resident students are normally allowed the latitude to selectelectives in order to tailor their program of study to their own taste. Because of the small size of the cohortthis was not deemed feasible so the faculty taught the five core courses and selected the three electives for thestudents. All courses were three-credit courses. After all five SUNY faculty had taught a course in theprogram the students each selected their thesis committee chairman to supervise a 3 credit thesis. A secondSUNY faculty member and a MIEM faculty member were selected to round out the committees. Theschedule called for one class to be taken in the Summer of 1993, two in Fall 1993, two in Spring 1994, one inSummer 1994 and two in the Fall of 1994. Spring 1995 was to be devoted to thesis preparation. Themilestone timetable slipped somewhat for a variety of reasons with one course being taught in the Spring of1995, however, the final May conclusion target date was retained.

CONDUCT OF THE PROGRAM

Classes being taught to resident students in Utica were videotaped and were sent to Moscow alongwith copies of all overhead visuals shown in the class. In some courses the visuals were captured on floppydisks so that students could down load individual copies of the highest quality. Students in Moscowindividually viewed the tapes in a self-paced environment. Each faculty member made at least one visit toMoscow to meet with the students and to introduce themselves and their course. Exams were faxed or handcarried. Faculty and student dialogue took place using Email over the Internet and via fax.

CONVENTIONAL DEFENSES OF THESES

A target of opportunity presented itself in the form of the UNESCO International Conference onEngineering Education (ICEE-95). A major media event, including a graduation ceremony, was planned toshowcase the pilot project at the UNESCO conference scheduled to be held in late May of 1995. SUNYInstitute of Technology faculty and staff would travel in mass to conduct the seven theses defenses, attend the

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conference, present papers, and partake in the graduation exercises. As we all know from experience onecamot put a stopwatch on a thesis or constrain it to a rigid timetable. The faculty did not want to be put in aposition to compromise their academic integrity for the sake of meeting a deadline. Therefore, the majormedia event and graduation ceremony was cancelled when it became apparent that all students would not beready to defend their theses in May. However, three students, Drnitry Ponomarev, Olga Sherbakova andAnatoly Kolochkov defended their theses in Moscow in conventional fashion in May of 1995 and became thefirst three to complete all their requirements. This was in conjunction with a visit of Professors Sam Senguptaand Ray Jesaitis who presented papers at the UNESCO Conference. One student dropped out of the programearly to pursue a job opportunity. The other four students finished their theses during the summer of 1995.

HOW TO FINISH THE PROJECT

The original plan for defense of the theses was cost effective. Everyone would have been at the sameplace at the same time. Now adjustments had to be made and a new game plan established. Do the SUNYfaculty travel piecemeal to Moscow to conduct individual defenses? Do the students travel piecemeal toUtica to defend? Will there be a graduation? If so, where, in Moscow or Utica? When would it occur? Whoparticipates and at what cost? Since this was a distance education experiment and considering fiscalconstraints a decision was made to attempt to conduct the remaining thesis defenses in a distance learningmode. What mode should be used?

PLAN “B”, THE UNIQUE ALTERNATIVE

Video cotierencing using satellite transponders is very expensive and is really not very unique. It wasfinally decided that we would complete the project by using Multicast Backbone, M-Bone, capability and theInternet. Cameras were set up in Moscow and Utica. Because of bandwidth constraints in Russia a fillinteractive videocotierence could not be established using M-bone. The rule of thumb according to DonBrutzman, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA is that one needs at least 200 Kbps for fill motion M-bone broadcasts. The Russians only had one 64 Kbps channel available at MIEM. Although tests involvingboth audio and video had been successfid between SUNY Tech and Rome Lab at as low as 20 Kbps the audioloss was too dramatic after going through 14 routers in route to Moscow. The next problem to be solved washow to handle the visuals that the students would need during their defense. It was finally decided thatstudents would load their visuals on electronic whkeboards.

THE ACTUAL DEFENSE

Computer displays in Moscow and Utica had split screens which included video of both locations aswell as the whiteboard, display of the student’s visuals. The whiteboard occupied about one half the screenwith the videos of the student’ and the SUNY faculty each occupying about one quarter of the screen. Thevideo portion of the broadcast was of reasonably high quality. Although the available bandwidth was 64 Kbpsthe actual broadcast rate from Moscow was normally about half that rate. The refresh rate of the Russiantideo was about one fhme every three to five seconds. These still color images were clear enough to capturethe student’s mannerisms, emotional state and facial expressions. The SUNY Institute of Technologybroadcast rate the first day was limited to 1 Kbps in order to save bandwidth. This resulted in a refresh rateabout once every minute or twowhich was deemed unsatisfactory by the Russian audience. The rate for theremainder of the defenses was increased to 14 Kbps which resulted in refreshed picture every 30 seconds.

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For the usc of the rccursivc slope syntaxanalyscr it is neccssary to represent anexpression in the form of the recursivc datastructure. This means that an expression isdefined in terms if itself. If the expression canbe defined only with the usc of characters ‘+’,'-, ‘*’, ‘/’ and the parenthesis, then allexpressions may be defined with the usc of thefollowing rules:

Expression =Term [+ Term] [-Term]Term=Factor[*Factor][/Factor]Factor=Variable,number or Expression

It is obvious that some parts of theexpression may not exist at all. The bracketsmean these optional expression parts. Thesymbol ‘=' means ‘produce’.

All these rules arc well known as the rulesfor expressions production. In accordancewith these rules the Term may bc defined as “amultiplication or division of Factors”.

in the describcd expressions the prioritiesof operators arc unconditional, i.e. the innerelements consist of the elements with higherpriorities.

Figure 1. Tanya Kirillova explains her visual while SUNY staff & faculty observe computer screens as shown above.

USE OF POTS

To overcome the bandwidth problem POTS technology was employed i.e., Plain Old TelephoneService. A speakerphone was setup at each location so all participants could hear the student’s presentations’and the questions and answers. On Tuesday, September 19, 1995, Andrey Chernyshov successfully defendedhis thesis and made history as the first one to do so. He was followed on successive days by Tanya Kirillova,Marina Nikolaeva and Dmitry Tyles. The connection was established daily at about 10:00 AM Utica time and6:00 PM Moscow time. Typically a half hour was used to establish contact and insure the audio, video andwhiteboard connections were functioning properly. The students then presented their thesis in the next three quarters of an hour. There was about a half hour of questions and answers and about a fifteen minute wrap- up. The other Computer Science faculty who acted as advisors, served on the committees or taught in theprogram were Professors Roger Cavallo, Scott Spetka and Mike Pittarelli.

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THE TECHNICAL DETAILS

Professor Spetka is unilaterallyresponsible for achieving this momen-tous event. His efforts along withthose of Eugeny Didenko, hiscounterpart in Moscow, in makingthe technology work whileencumbered with severe technicallimitations were truly Herculean. Heobtained the requisite software andhelped the Russians to install IPmulticast protocols in their Solariskernel and configured the Russianmachines from Utica. Hardware inRussia included; SUN SpareStation 5, Solaris 2.3, SUN cameramodel X485A and SUN video cardmodel Xl 085A. The video camera Figure 2. Dr. Spetka at his workstation.and video card were loaned to MIEMby SUNY. Equipment at the SUNY end included: Spare Station 1 router, Spare Classic, four pentiums, Suncamera and video card. During the presentations of the thesis we used the Xerox nv (network video) programfor sending video, LBL vat (visual audio tool) for audio, LBL wb (whiteboard) for postscript and text, andLBL sd (session directo~) for connection management. As previously stated the vat proved to beunsatisfactory during tests with roughly two-thirds of the audio packets being lost.

CONCLUSIONS

Although we were unable to take fill advantage of the M-Bone technology we did succeed inconducting the first distance learning thesis defense between the US and Russia. It may not have been fillmotion video but the event was a great accomplishment. The process may have been primitive but the resultswere more than a monumental success. We made the most of the technology that was available to us. We didnot have a lot of finesse but we got the job done. It is amazing what can be done by combining a positiveattitude with bandaids, bailing wire and duct tape.

POST SCRIPT

In early December the Russian students traveled to New Yorlq visited various SUNY campuses, sawNiagara Falls, ate Buffio wings and pizza and enjoyed a night of bowling and went sight seeing in New YorkCity. On Sunday December 10, 1995, the seven Russian students made history as they walked across thestage in Kunsela Hall at SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome with their SUNY classmates andreceived their Master of Science Diplomas in Computer and Itiormation Science.

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Figure 3. Degree conferred to Dmkry Ponomarov at Commencement by President Peter Cayan.

INFORMATION ABOUT AUTHORS

Edward G. Tezak, P. E., BS USMA, MS in Astrodynamics from UCLA, Ph.D. in EngineeringMechanics from VP18SU. Currently Dean of Information Systems and Engineering Technology at SUNYInstitute of Technology at Utica/Rome. He has served on the Board of Directors of ASEE as PIC Ill Chair.Member, International Conference on Distance Education in Russia, ICDED-96, Program Committee.

Scott Spetka, Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA. He is an Associate Professor of computerscience at the SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome. He is working on integrating multimedia toolswith database systems and networks, with ATM networks and protocols and research projects at the USAFRome Lab. Dr. Spetka has been active in the IEEE Dual-Use Technology and Applications conference.

Aleksey K. Skuratov, Ph.D. from Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics (M I EM). His thesiswas in Computer-aided Design of Microprocessor Systems. He worked on this pilot project with SUNY. Heis Chief of Direction of The Center for New Information Technologies in Higher Education and ProgramCoordinator of Association for International Education and member of ICDED-96 Organizing Committee.

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