Uni TV sends dental education into regional centre

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 09 November 2011 09:19

IT Industry - Development

The University of Melbourne is part of a project to demonstrate the use of IP TV to deliver professional and further education content around the state.

Backed by the Victorian Government's Broadband-Enabled Innovation Program, Uni TV will use IPTV to deliver professional and further education content around the state. The initial trial will link the University of Melbourne Dental School with its Rural Clinical School in Shepparton to provide education to students and clinicians.

Other project participants are Ericsson Australia, AARNet, and Panasonic Australia.

Project leader, Ken Clarke of the University's Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society (IBES) said "The project brings together the academic expertise of the University with the industry knowledge of our project partners to increase the reach of interactive educational experiences across Victoria."

Colin Goodwin, broadband strategic marketing manager at Ericsson said "IPTV - or TV over broadband - is used around the world to deliver TV and other forms of video for entertainment to homes and offices. The concept of Uni TV is to use the same technology to deliver educational content over the NBN as a complement to the conventional delivery of lectures and tutorials."

Earlier this year, University of Melbourne officials floated the idea of commercialising Uni TV to deliver courses to people that are unable to attend university in person, whether they live in Australia or overseas. Uni TV has been in development since 2009.

In June, IBES and Ericsson received the 2011 Global Telecoms Business Innovation Award for remote education innovation. Part of the Uni TV vision is to use 3D TV where appropriate, for instance to demonstrate a surgical procedure or a scientific experiment.