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Videoconference facility connecting NLC
High-speed link allows students to take classes taught by instructors around the Peace By Greg Amos, Staff Reporter
Wednesday December 23, 2009  | NLC Tumbler Ridge program leader David Szucsko.
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A high-speed videoconferencing facility built over the summer at the Tumbler Ridge campus of Northern Lights College (NLC) is broadening horizons for local post-secondary students.
“We’ve got some hopes for it,” said NLC spokesperson Brad Lyon. The facility is allowing Tumbler Ridge students to take university-transferable arts and science courses taught remotely by instructors in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. It’s particularly useful for the applied business technology program, Lyon said.
The long range plan calls for making the facility available to the public and businesses, who may wish to avoid commuting by holding meetings by videoconference.
The $30,000 facility was built in August, along with a similar facility in Chetwynd, and was ready for use at the start of classes in September. Videoconferencing facilities now exists at 13 NLC campuses, all except for the Atlin campus. Each facility involves a modified classroom equipped with enough cameras and monitors that an instructor can teach two separate classes in separate locations at the same time.
“Reducing travel will decrease our carbon footprint,” said NLC Tumbler Ridge program leader David Szucsko. “It will help our instructors communicate on a more visual basis with our learners. It’s definitely a good thing for people in Tumbler Ridge.”
In Fort Nelson, the facility may prove to be a good source of revenue, as natural gas producers have expressed interest in using the facility to hold meeting with executives in large cities, said Lyon.
The videoconferencing gear, set up by North Vancouver-based Navigata Communications, runs on a 10-megabyte full duplex ethernet connection, which allows for equally good performance whether sending or receiving data. The system increases the college’s Internet transmission speed by about four times, allowing some classes that were formerly taught by teleconference to upgrade to videoconference.
Navigata has applied their expertise in fixed-wireless Internet solutions to several remote communities in Northern B.C., and recently completed a two-year project to bring high speed Internet access to remote communities covering 73,400 square kilometres in northwestern B.C.
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