A multimedia system for asynchronous collaboration using the Multicast Backbone and the World Wide Web

This paper describes a multimedia system called MWEB that is capable of recording and playing back classroom sessions over the Multicast Backbone (MBone) on the Internet. World Wide Web (WWW) clients are used as a front-end for the MWEB system. Offered media include audio, video and shared whiteboard. The goal of the MWEB system was to enhance the capability of an on-going virtual classroom project at North Dakota State University by providing a means for students to access previously recorded classroom sessions from any general purpose computer workstation attached to the Internet.