Case Study of ASCIT: Fostering Communication through Interactive Technologies for Long Term Sick Children - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 214

tial part of the architecture is inspired on the IP
Multimedia Subsystem. With the Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP) being the key technology behind
the IMS, the client application incorporates the
Intellivic SDK, a toolkit for integration SIP-based
video telephony into an application.
Due to the real-time nature of the A/V streams
the Real-Time Transport Protocol (RTP) is being
used. In order to not exceed the 128 kbps (or 256
kbps) upload bandwidth limitation the A/V streams
are compressed using mpeg4 80kbit QCIF com-
pression for video and speex narrowband 15kbit
compression for the audio. Furthermore, HTTP,
FTP and ENet are being used for transmitting
media, messages etc.
Besides a PC and a 3D accelerator graphics
card both sides need A/V hardware including a
webcam/camera and a headset with echo cancel-
lation (AEC).

tool to offer more variety in curriculum subjects
seems to be related to the availability of main
subjects in home or hospital education.

ACkNOWLeDgmeNT

This study was conducted in view of the ASCIT-
project financed by the Flemish Interdisciplinary
institute for Broadband Technology (IBBT) and
following partners: Androme, Alcatel-Lucent,
Artec-Electronics, Televic, Vlaams Patiënten-
platform, Hospital School Gasthuisberg, Bednet
vzw, and Vlaamse Liga tegen Kanker.
We also gratefully express our gratitude to
the European Fund for Regional Development
(ERDF) and the Flemish Government which are
kindly funding part of the research at the Expertise
Centre for Digital Media.

User evaluation

ReFeReNCeS

In order to evaluate the system, field trials had
been set up with the future target audience within
authentic settings. The participants were said to
make use of the prototype in the way they believed
it to be relevant and applicable.
Two major research questions were as fol-
lows: (i) In what way was the prototype used for
socialization and which social outcomes were
reported by the participants? (ii) Did the use of
the prototype provide a larger amount of varia-
tion with regard to (a) subjects and (b) didactical
strategies as compared to the learning contents of
their home of hospital based instruction?
In sum, we can state in all cases the tool was
used for socialization purposes leading to an in-
crease in social contacts, especially for children
being absent at school for longer periods in time.
In most cases, the use of the tool offered the par-
ticipating child an increase in didactical strategies
used as compared to the amount of strategies used
in home or hospital education. The ability of the

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