High-tech invention at UCD

By E.B. Secor/Enterprise staff writer

Until recently only the Jetsons had this kind of technology on their space-age iMacs and PCs.

Remote Technological Assistance, the creation of UC Davis Professor Richard A. Walters of the computer science department, was invented four years ago as a way to improve the educational experience. A three-year $300,000 federal grant, which will run out in September, is funding development.

The program, now called Remote Technological Collaboration due to expanded applications and opportunities, is catching the eye of a number of universities, researchers and individuals nationwide.

THEN: By January, Remote TA, as it was then called, had gained the interest of political leaders such as Assemblywoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis; organizations such as the American Council of Teachers of Russian from Washington, D.C.; and research arms such as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories; to name a few.

The interest in Walters' invention was no surprise. Remote TA had three primary qualities that made it unique and desirable.

First, Remote TA had the capacity for stored sound, which could be replayed as many times as needed. This would come in pretty handy for those learning foreign languages such as French and Spanish.

Second, it had a higher capacity for written foreign languages, from Western European to Japanese and Russian. The program already had the necessary characters and punctuation.

Third, Remote TA allowed the user/client to take a ``snapshot'' of his or her screen and instantaneously send it off to another person or group. This feature would come in handy for a doctor seeking another doctor's analysis of a CT scan, for example.

After all, ``How do you describe a spiral staircase when you are sitting on your hands?'' Walters says. If you could sent a snapshot of it, you wouldn't have to.

Even phone conferences could be taken to the next level with this program, allowing participants to not only discuss slides, designs and photos but to show such items to each other. Users could then make their own notes directly on that item, each in his or her chosen color, with lines drawn to specific points, like notes you would see scribbled on a piece of paper.

In addition, a user could send a URL to another without having to directly log on to Netscape, as an example. The recipient of the URL would have that page right in front or him or her without having to log on to the Web as well, Walters says.

Remote TA was already adding up to be a useful tool for collaborating researchers, co-authors, teachers and their students, and basically anyone who wanted all the benefits of a face-to-face interaction from the comfort of their home or office.

It was already an additional form of communication for those who could see each other face to face and the sole form for those who normally could not and had the potential to revolutionize communication like e-mail already had or the telephone before it.

NOW: Since The Enterprise's first visit to Walters' computer lab in January, he has been encouraged to distribute Remote TC (its new name) as well as expand its use at UC Davis.

He has given at least 35 demonstrations (Walters hasn't even had the time to list the rest) for universities such as Queensland University of Australia, Wabash College of Indiana, UC Santa Barbara, Sacramento State University, Cal State Hayward and the University of Hawaii-Honolulu, to name a few. And those are JUST the university demos since January.

In addition, Remote TC has been nominated by Robert D. Grey, UCD provost and executive vice chancellor, for the Academic Excellence and Cost Management National Award. Remote TC was one of two programs nominated by UCD, something Walters takes great pride in, however humbly.

``On the Davis campus, several things have come up,'' Walters says. ``I will be using it in my own classes, in teaching introductory computer science.'' Japanese and Spanish classes continue to use the program as well.

UCD Italian and French instructors, as well as a UC Santa Barbara German instructor, have also shown great interest in using Remote TC in their classes, according to Walters.

Not only has Remote TC generated a great deal of interest from all walks of education, research and business, it has been and continues to be improved, Walters says.

First, the PC version has a cleaner and more accessible look and feel.

Second, instead of sessions that anyone could drop in on, Remote TC now features a team concept. Group members are defined and only those members can attend study sessions, for example. Walters says the team concept should be good to go in approximately six weeks.

At any time, a team member can read over conversations, notes or listen to recordings of earlier sessions, even sessions that he or she was unable to attend.

Third, what makes Remote TC even more helpful to instructors and students alike is the ability of a teacher to read over student exercises, such as a dialogue in Spanish. Instructors can drop in on such a study session and see how the students are learning on their own time and how they can further be helped.

(Instructors also can access past assignments and solutions to problems while blocking them from their students, Walters says.)

According to Walters, ``It's a seamless continuation between synchronous and asynchronous communication -- a very powerful research tool as well as teaching tool.'' And with additional funding, who knows what the future may hold?

``(There are) people in the nonlearning mode (as well) who feel the concept is a tool that can be used effectively,'' he says. ``It is not just for distance learning. It can be used as an adjunct to assist in all sorts of instances'' in areas such as medicine, neurology, physics, statistics, languages and computer science.

In the area of neurology, Walters hopes to receive the funding necessary to develop Remote TC for neurobiological research, from the cellular to physiological brain. The project is titled the Human Brain Project and a grant proposal went out in October. Walters will hear next spring whether he will recieve the funds.

Venturing into another area of application, Walters hopes to serve as a contractor for a Southern California aerospace company that would like to work with UCD as well as an aerospace design reserch company on the East Coast in developing NASA-type aerospace hardware. A proposal by the Southern California company to NASA will go out next week, according to Walters.

The aerospace/Remote TC alliance came about due to a former UCD computer science instructor who now works at the Southern California aerospace company and knew of Walters' work.

Even UCD's Information Technology Office has inquired about using Remote TC as a security/emergency alert system. Using its ability to instantaneously transmit sound, RTC could be used to notify those in a computer lab, for example, of a fire or other hazard -- ``a new way of handling emergency situations which hadn't been thought of before,'' Walters says.

``So much is pending now that I think it's (Remote TC) going to take off,'' Walters says, adding that he plans on retiring in July and returning to the university at 49 percent time. Currently, he teaches two classes online and two at University Extension as well as working on Remote TC.

Walters will not, however, cut back his Remote TC hours. He hopes to have more time to work on his creation.

``I've got to help it grow for another few years and, besides, I love doing it,'' Walters says.

-- For more information about Remote TC, visit escher.cs.ucdavis.edu.

Monday, Dec. 20, 1999