Abstract
This project topic, Teleconference System, is one of the state of the art
invention and need of many organizations for purpose of reducing cost,
risk and time wastage. This project strives to bridge the geographical
distance between two or more organization. Other importance of
Teleconference includes: (i) For organizations, delivery costs are reduced
with resultant cost benefit in terms of time, travelling and spread of
resources over large groups. (ii) Delivery of full courses, lessons, tutoring,
project work and training can be provided to the students through
teleconferencing. The study outlines the main concepts of the analysis and
design methodology of the proposed system, compares it to the existing
and goes further to explain the design and implementation of the system.
System was achieved using visual basic 6.0 and run on a windows xp or
higher versions. The fact finding techniques employed is interview,
observation, online and library research.
1.1 Background
As computer and electronics technology continues to grow over the ages,
many new innovations continue to flood the industry, creating machine and
avenues through which human activities can be enhanced.
The development video messaging over media is an important aspect of
this growth in technology. Such information was then able to be packaged
and transmitted remotely from source to intended users. But this was
rarely a real time scenario. The best we can get out of this was a live
coverage of an event, which was usually of high cost and difficult for
individuals to own.
The advent of the internet offered better opportunity for inventors to think
of better ways of making the communication of video information from
source to target in real time and with less cost. Many equipment have
been developed to this effect. Further improvement has given birth to
what is now known as teleconference.
The word ‘tele’ means distance. The word ?conference‘ means
consultations, discussions. Through teleconferencing two or more locations
situated at a distance are connected so that they can hear or both see and
hear each other. It allows the distant sites to interact with each other and
with the teaching end through phone, fax, and e-mail. The interactions
occur in real time. This means that the learners/participants and the
resource persons are present at the same time in different locations and
are able to communicate with each other. In some situations, questions
can be faxed/e-mailed early for response by the resource persons
conference is further described by Matthew Lombard and Theresa Ditton
as ?an illusion that a mediated experience is not mediated.” Today, it often
considers the effect that people experience when they interact with a
computer-mediated or computer-generated environment. The
conceptualization of presence borrows from multiple fields including
communication, computer science, psychology, science, engineering,
philosophy, and the arts. The concept of presence accounts for a variety of
computer applications and Web-based entertainment today that are
developed on the fundamentals of the phenomenon, in order to give
people the sense of, as Sheridan called it, ?being there.” Since
teleconferencing is actually a useful tool in organizations because it is
solely used to bridge the geographical distance between two or more
companies, and from my research, I have discovered that it is only big
companies that can actually afford it, so I designed this project inorder to
curb that trend that is allow smaller companies purchase and also make
use of it.
1.2 Aims and Objectives
The major objective of this work is to develop a Computer Based
Teleconference. It also targets at contributing to academic research work.
1.3 Justification for the project
The need for a teleconference system is obvious for several reasons as
shown below:
a. It Impacts on education by allowing live participation without
physically being present for a lecture
b. Legal issues can still be treated even when a person is not fit to
go to court
c. Press men can attained international conferences without
having to be physically present
d. Telemedicine is possible because of teleconference
e. It makes the best use of the available resources by expanding
the learning opportunity and taking the resources to the
learners.
f. It overcomes time or scheduling problems for the learners who
can assemble at a learning center for a limited period only
because of their full time or part time work, and family and
community commitments.
g. It can be designed to meet local specific requirements of
training in terms of content, language and conditions.
h. Training is of high quality and consistent. There is exposure to
multiple perspectives from the primary sources, and therefore
as the input from the resource persons is direct, there is little
loss of quality in transaction.
i. There is greater appeal, motivation and retention of information
as a variety of teaching methodologies are used.
1.4 Scope of the Project
The scope of this work will include the following
a. A dynamic Network system that can communicate in real time
b. To be able to implement a video streaming server.
c. Explore the power of visual basic in data handling
1.5 Project Report Organization
This report is organized into five chapters. The first chapter takes care of
introduction: background, aims and objectives, justification, and scope of
the project. Chapter two is the literature review. Chapter three is the
project methodology, analysis, limitations of the existing system, system
design, system flowchart and top down design were done. The input,
processing and output modules are critically analyzed.
In chapter four, system implementation, testing and integration: choice of
development tools, system requirements, and testing were carefully done.
Finally chapter five closes up with summary, recommendations and
conclusions: limitation, Bill of Engineering Measurement and Engineering
(BEME), bibliography, appendices