Turkey is a country with a high birth rate that results in a young population. If this young population can be properly educated, the outlook for the nation's future is bright. If the education demand cannot be fulfilled, the future will bring all kinds of problems and social unrest. In order to provide a partial solution at the university level education, İstanbul Technical University (İTÜ) has come up with a project which uses new technologies to improve the quality of the education at a relatively low cost. The project has been taken to UNESCO and has gained their support. Upon their advice, the scope has been extended to Western Asian and Eastern European States as well. The initial feasibility studies have been completed. In this paper, the framework and the technological aspects of the project will be depicted.
The project targets a Distance Education Network primarily for engineering education at the undergraduate, graduate and continuing education levels. The primary problem that the project aims to help resolve is the shortage of engineering and science faculty and experts. The network consists of an interactive satellite broadcast network using a transponder on the Turkish satellite Türksat 1C. Classes, seminars and similar educational material will be broadcast live to receiving nodes in the satellite footprint area. Student interactivity (i.e., the return path) will be provided over telco lines, VSATs, and the internet. 16 simultaneous activities will be supported over the single transponder using modern video/audio compression and multiplexing techniques. The use of new technologies will reduce implementation and operational costs, improve teaching efficiency and quality, and the planned system can be implemented in a relatively short time. The high power of the T1C satellite allows low-cost reception. The educational activities on the network will be enhanced by the use of multimedia and other new information technologies.