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Korea's most famous university, Seoul National University, adopts V2

Jul 23, 2009

Everyone knows that Korea is a country that places a high value on education, it has been for the past several hundred years and continues to be so today. There is an old saying in Korea, "You must not even step on your teacher's shadow". This saying demonstrates the degree of respect that Korean people have accorded teachers from ancient times, and is one of the basic principles on which education is organised by the Korean people.

Korea has three outstanding universities, one of which was founded in Seoul in 1946,  Seoul National University. It is generally believed that Seoul National University is the most prestigious seat of higher education in Korea, and the grades needed to obtain a place there are the highest in the country. In the sixty and more years since it was founded, Seoul National University has already produced a large number of outstanding members of society, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Korea's 14th President, Kim Young-Sam, both graduated from Seoul National University, therefore this school has gained the appellation "Highest School of the Korean People". Presently, Seoul National University has around 23,000 undergraduates and 9,000 graduate students.

It appears that Seoul National University already installed a fairly comprehensive network several years ago, which greatly facilitated on-campus communications as well as communication with the outside world. However, during the daily running of the school, dependence on simple Internet protocols was far from adequate for accomplishing educational reform. For example, the university frequently invited both national and international experts as guest lecturers, yet even the largest lecture halls can only accommodate a few hundred listeners, which often failed to meet the demand for places. At the same time, if the university wanted to invite foreign lecturers to come, they not only had to meet considerable travel expenses, but the lecturers  had to travel long distances, wasting lots of time on the road. All these factors obstructed the university's easy relationship with the outside world. In this situation, the school authorities, after extensive deliberation, decided to install a video conference system which would allow face to face communication at any time or place. After detailed consideration, testing, comparison and trials, Seoul National University finally opted for V2 video conferencing software.

Seoul National University's applications for V2 are numerous and complex, aside from a few minor applications, the chief applications are:

Application 1: A variety of  daily administrative conferences
The 11 campuses, two research centres and 27 research organisations of Seoul National University are widely spaced apart. Using the V2 video conferencing system, teachers and administrative staff can coordinate daily administrative functions between their various offices, raising their work efficiency and the quality of education while at the same time greatly reducing capital expenditure and making a big difference to the overall efficiency of the university's daily business.

Application 2: Distance education
The installation of the V2 video conferencing system in Seoul National University satisfies the need for remote education between campuses, teachers in different locations, demonstration of teaching material, and recording and broadcast of multi-media materials. On the basis of the existing installed campus network, V2 provides a realistic and interactive education environment, excellent technology and high-clarity audiovisuals to keep a firm hold on students' attention, enabling students and teachers to interact as though in the same room together and ensuring the best possible educational result.

Application 3: Academic discussions
Seoul National University frequently holds non-scheduled academic exchange activities. Using the V2 video conferencing system, synchronised academic discussions can be held between campuses, or discussions between local students and international students, and so on. Up to the present, Seoul National University has used the V2 system to initiate protracted academic discussions and cooperative relations with schools in the USA, Japan, Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Application 4: real-time video, recording and broadcasting
The V2 video conferencing system provides an excellent platform for gathering information, all the important activities and conferences in Seoul National University can be directly broadcast, recorded and re-broadcast, thus fulfilling the university's requirement for remote, real-time broadcasting and relaying of broadcasts, and the recorded material can be made available on the university's network for members of the university to watch on demand.

The V2 video conferencing system has extremely powerful audiovisual capabilities, it supports multiple audiovisual protocols such as H.264 etc, and can be connected to the vast majority of commonly used terminals. Users can select appropriate protocols according to circumstances. V2 video terminals use the most advanced industry standard H.264 encoding method, they support H.263 4CIF high quality video display, while at the same time they can provide the user with high-clarity picture definition to achieve high-clarity video conferencing. The system is rich in functionality, including remote camera control, group broadcasts, TV walls, multiple concomitant group conferences, high-capacity video conferencing and so on. User can select the modules appropriate to their specific needs and build a perfect video conferencing platform. Conferencing data tools such as electronic whiteboard, desktop sharing, prompt information sharing, document transmission are all available and are available to users as they are needed.

A spokesperson at Seoul National University said that after the introduction of V2 Conference, communication between different campuses was greatly improved, valuable time was saved, and the effort and cost of arranging conferences reduced. In using the system they discovered its advantages of high-efficiency, economy and real-time interaction, and they found it to be a simple and effective tool for both the administrative and educational work of the university. Furthermore, the system satisfied the needs of distance education and training between the various campuses, and provided a means for the university's leaders, teachers and students to open one to one, or one to many, communication via desktop terminal software. Also, the recording functionality allowed large conferences to be recorded so that they could be broadcast or relayed and so on. The very critical leaders of the university were won over by these factors and thoroughly approved of the system.

As an outstanding player in both the Chinese and Asian markets, Asian market leader for 5 years and China market leader for 8 years, V2 Technology's products are now spreading overseas, and have been adopted by Hanhwa Group (Korea), Woori Bank (Korea), Pokphand Group (Thailand), Sanyo Electric (Japan),  Shimane University (Japan), Panasonic Research (Japan), FE Global Electronics (Singapore), XinMin Primary School (Singapore), Innocent Primary School (Singapore), AC Nielsen Co (Malaysia), amongst others.