Co-ordinator's column
Patrice Le Moing, LEVERAGE Project Manager from CAP GEMINI TELECOM FRANCE in Rennes, brings us up to date with progress in the LEVERAGE project
LEVERAGE: a reminder
LEVERAGE is a collaborative research project, partially funded by the European Commission’s DGXIII Advanced Communications Technologies and Services (ACTS) programme which brings together a multi-disciplinary team of academics and industrialists from twelve organisations across Europe spanning six countries and many different cultures.
LEVERAGE: where are we now?
Newsflash: First LEVERAGE trial in Cambridge completed March 1997.
It is often a long way from discussing the initial ideas to achieving the final objectives of a project. During the first year of LEVERAGE the international team preparing the trial at the University of Cambridge had to work under a particularly tight schedule:
- academics had to agree on a prioritised set of requirements for the LEVERAGE system;
- experts and developers had to translate these requirements into a realistic multimedia architecture and to design the system accordingly;
- the integration team had to put together the various hardware and software building blocks purchased, modified or developed - on time and within budget;
- and last but not least, the partners at the University of Cambridge Language Centre had to find, brief, organise, support and monitor real end-users.
A first indication of the result of all this work can be found under Pedagogical issues.
LEVERAGE: market research
In parallel with the system implementation, the LEVERAGE team has been carrying out some market research. A questionnaire aiming to provide a preliminary overview of the market for LEVERAGE-like systems was sent to over 1,300 potential users of such systems across Europe. The results are still being analysed, but the emerging trend seems to indicate that most respondents tend to favour communication facilities already familiar to them (such as e-mail, or WWW) which leads us to conclude that projects such as LEVERAGE must also play an evangelising role in educating end-users about the huge potential of networked technology.
LEVERAGE: where next?
We want to ensure that the feedback from the first trials is used effectively to improve the second and third trial. In addition, a number of new challenges lie ahead:
- the forthcoming trials will be trans-national (involving England, France & Spain) through JAMES (the ACTS project managing the ATM pilot network) and the National Host in each country;
- the design will have to take the latest technological developments (such as native ATM interfaces) into account.
The results of the first and second trials and the discussion of related pedagogical and technical issues will be presented at the first LEVERAGE conference which will take place early in 1998. (Report on first LEVERAGE conference featured in LEVERAGE News 4).
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