http://www.vireal.ethz.ch/
Projekttyp: Research tools
Keywords: Virtual-real collaboration, Roomware, Pharmaceutical sciences, Interactive furniture, Group-based learning, Collaborative teamwork

The project Vireal Lab established an environment combining virtual science worlds with the real world in the library of the ETH Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences. A special room was equipped with intelligent roomware technology: tables, chairs and whiteboards with integrated electronics, providing easy access to the Internet, databases and the local computer network.
This infrastructure is used to support interactive seminars and research meetings with remote labs. Participants will soon be present as virtual individuals, allowing real-time discussion of complex data. Course material for asynchronous teaching, chat rooms and live videos for synchronous teaching are accessible on the server, making the students more independent of time and place without loosing contact and information.
Vireal Lab is used for student work, collaboration with project partners, graduate, and postgraduate education, as server for educational material and for continuing education in the medical
professions.

Meilensteine:
2000/04/01		Project start
2000/10/30		Hardware installation planning in detail. Usage concept; security and access concept established.
2001/10/15		Construction of the vireal lab in the pharma-library Irchel 36-L-08.
2001/10/30		Testing & adaption of molecular simulation software for the new hardware.
2002/02/05		A first seminar has taken place in the vireal lab based on existing data transfer technology in winter term WS 01/02. First evaluation results by Inst. of working psychology finished.
2002/05/30		Introduction of the vireal lab in daily research & teaching use of the departement of applied bio sciences (D-ANBI) and other interested ETH groups.
2003/12/31		Project end