AMSI Response to the NeCTAR Consultation Paper

Background

AMSI is the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, based at the University of Melbourne. Its membership includes almost all departments of mathematics and statistics in Australia, as well as several other organizations including the Australian Mathematics Society, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and CSIRO. It is discipline based and its main focus is to facilitate national collaboration in the mathematical sciences.

Access Grid (AG) adopted by AMSI

The AG has been adopted by AMSI as the technology to enable national collaboration across multiple remote sites. AMSI (partially) funded the construction of AG Rooms, AGRs, in the mathematics precinct at 11 of our member institutions. The number of AGRs in AMSI member’s precincts is expected to increase: one member is currently committed to construct an AGR and is preparing to seek quotes. Others, subject to funding, are expected to follow in 2011 or 2012.

Our AG program has two major components: teaching of advanced mathematics (at Honours and postgraduate level) and research seminars. The number of advanced courses in the mathematical sciences has continued to increase, since the pilot program in semester 2 of 2006. The eTeaching via AG has promoted the AG technology and confidence in it. As a result, our Research Seminars have been growing in the number offered and the number of AGRs participating. For example, we had 16 AGRS connected with a seminar by Fields Medalist Terry Tao in September 2009, and the Short Course on Haar measure (five Lectures) by Joe Diestel of Kent State University had participation from 8 AGRs in September / October 2010. The AMSI/CSIRO/SSAI Access Grid seminar to celebrate World Statistics Day had 10 AGRs participating on 20 Oct 2010.

For a list of most AGR events, see the website. Other research meetings have used AGRs to facilitate collaborative research, although AMSI does not keep records of these.

Response ARCS 1

What functionality delivered through the ARCS tools and services is important for your research?

In an email of 3 November 2010, ARCS has mentioned a number of "Potential improvements and enhancements to the services ARCS has developed and delivered could include: …ARCS Video Conferencing…"

We would support these. However, there is a strong focus on EVO (to the detriment of AG?): AMSI has been recommending EVO as the desktop video conferencing tool. As yet there has been little uptake from mathematical scientists, but we expect this to increase. A major feature of EVO that’s attractive to AMSI is its connectivity, particularly with AG.

AMSI’s primary need is for the outstanding support we’ve had from ARCS for AG to continue: AMSI has made a substantial commitment to room based video conferencing.

Response ARCS 2

What changes or improvements to these services would you like to see in order to better deliver this functionality?

AMSI would value AG Enhancements to provide a turn-key mode, easy-to-use recording of sessions (including the VNC transmission), multicast VNC (to enable truely interactive meetings to scale up) and seamless integration of software to run mpeg videos (eg VLC media player); and support & training.

Assoc. Prof. Bill Blyth
AMSI Access Grid Coordinator