Modern information technologies are transforming the way people learn. E-learning provides new possibilities for personalized learning at home or in the workplace, reduces the need for costly classroom training, and enables an optimal balance between tradi

3. TELE-TASK IN PRACTICE 3.1 Successful transmissions with tele-TASKAfter testing and using other tele-lecturing software in the beginning of 2001, tele-TASK is in practical use since summer semester 2001. For the first time, tele-TASK was used for the course “Information Security in Open Networks”. Especially aspects of cryptography were explained. By using an electronic white-board, the lecturer was able to write complete mathematical proofs onto the slides. The whole course including video, audio of the lecturer an his laptop’s desktop was digital recorded and sent live to the internet. In comparison to the former used system, we registered a dramatic increase of live and on-demand accesses. In user surveys we realized, that the reason was an easier calling up of course content. Students were using the system in case of time overlapping courses, so that they were able to join both courses. Also at the end of the semester students used tele-TASK course material in order to replay complicated sections of the course. tele-TASK was also used to record two conferences about e-Payment and e-Medicine at the Institute for Telematics in Trier, Germany. Each time overall 200 people joined the conferences live in the internet. In the winter semester 2002/2003 the University of Trier is holding a course about the security concepts in the Internet with tele-TASK. This course is simultaneously transferred to Beijing, China. There, at the University of Technology Chinese students are joining together with the students in Germany the lecture. The quality of the recorded lessons was so high that lots of students all around the world joined the lessons via the internet. In the time of 9 month we got about 40.000 hits on electronic tele-TASK content. The high access numbers and the positive feedback of students and other learners proof the success of the concept.3.2 On operator's sidetele-TASK is a complete program suite for providing high quality teleteaching. The package contains all necessary programs and tools for generating streaming material for the web. The whole system works like a one push button automat. It takes less than five minutes to set up the T-Cube and the technical environment. The complete equipment fits into only one small bag, so that it is possible to offer teleteaching anywhere you are at. In practice, the streaming server is not at the same place as the encoder. Once tele-TASK is installed, nearly any lecture can be recorded. A lot of universities are talking about offering tele-lectures. But if you want to find something in the web, you will have to prepare for a long search. With a system like tele-TASK a university or an institute for further education can allow the students to access and replay all courses they want to see. Also, it is very easy to make the lessons available offline. Only one CD-ROM contains about 6 hours of recorded courses including video, audio and the desktop of the lecturer. The intuitive use of tele-TASK makes unnecessary to train the lecturers. By the use of an electronic whiteboard (e.g. Smartboard) the lecturer can easily anotate his slides with electronic pencils. Another big advantage for the lecturer is the kind of copyright on his lectures. By making scripts of a lesson available online, the copyright trademarks are not protected. Everyone can copy and paste the text to his own documents. With streaming data, it is much more complicated to do this.3.3 On users sideBy integrating tele-TASK documents into webpages makes a calling up very easy for the consumer. By clicking on the corresponding link the player starts up automatically and plays the lesson. In comparison with other teleteaching systems, tele-TASK is very easy to use. Even laymen are able to access the lectures through the internet. The experience with other teleteaching software, which was complicated to use on operator and viewer side, taught us to provide an "as easy as possible" technology for the consumer side. The positive feedback and the high access numbers shows the effectiveness and efficiency of tele-TASK.