Cornell has been honored for a "breakthrough in design that sets a new standard" for distance learning.

The directors of TeleCon, an international telecommunications conference for educators and business executives, selected Cornell as a finalist in the "Most Significant Advance in Two-way Motion Videoconferencing" award category for its highly automated classrooms located in the new School of Industrial and Labor Relations building, which opens next semester. The announcement was made Nov. 6 at the TeleCon XVII annual meeting, co-sponsored by the United States Distance Learning Association, in Anaheim, Calif., which attracted an international audience of 25,000 educators and business leaders.

Accepting the award on behalf of Cornell was Jonathon D. Levy, associate director of the Cornell Office of Distance Learning. Levy was at the annual meeting to present a paper titled "Designing the High Performance Fully Interactive Virtual Classroom."

The award "recognizes and validates the university's design philosophy," Levy said.

Cornell won third place in the international competition for "offering a fresh approach and achieving the highest and smoothest level of interactivity." Although the cost of the Cornell rooms is a fraction of the average price for sophisticated installations, Cornell's design was selected over hundreds of entries worldwide. First place went to the U.S. Department of Energy for a 15-site multi-million dollar emergency communications network. Second place went to Intel Corp. for a new videoconferencing project.

The technologically advanced classrooms are the result of a decade of research, planning and design, said David B. Lipsky, director of the Cornell Office of Distance Learning. "The facilities will empower the faculty to create leadership for Cornell at the highest end of the distance learning spectrum," he said.

Currently, most distance learning video-teleconferences use technology designed for board rooms and small meetings, having only a single monitor and one or two cameras. Cornell's new high performance classrooms use three large screens with projectors, six automated cameras and 34 microphones, allowing all students (in the Cornell classrooms and at a distance) to enjoy seamless interaction.

"Students and faculty have a full view of each other and of presentation materials, just as they do in a traditional classroom," Levy said, "even though some of them are hundreds or thousands of miles away."

Control of the rooms is automated and a simple touch screen allows faculty or an assistant in the control room to operate the advanced features of the rooms. Sophisticated technology allows faculty to see and interact with distant students without having to operate any of the equipment.

"The challenge," Levy said, "was to incorporate the functionality of a broadcast TV studio in an environment that looks and feels like a traditional amphitheater."

The classrooms' design and their underlying philosophies are described on a Web site:http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/distlearn/ilrrsc.htm#Amphitheater.