Multimedia communications refers to integrated processing and communications of voice, image, audio, video, and computer generated graphics and data. In order to prepare the students for this fast evolving technology, the Department of Electrical Engineering is setting up a new Multimedia Laboratory, equipped with a number of multimedia personal computers, audiovisual equipment, and necessary networking and peripheral devices. This laboratory is used for a new laboratory course titled Multimedia Information Processing and Communications, which provides students with hands-on experience to the acquisition, processing, and communications of voice, image, and video, as well as multimedia document creation. Being interdisciplinary by nature, this course is offered as an elective course for senior students majoring in electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science. The facilities in the laboratory can also be used for senior projects and other undergraduate/graduate research projects in the area of multimedia communications. Planned senior/master's joint projects include building prototype video conferencing and video-on-demand systems over the Internet. Currently, the department has very strong and active educational and research programs in Telecommunications and Image Processing. The addition of the Multimedia Laboratory strengthens these programs and provides a synergy among these disciplines. The success of this development can be evaluated by feedback from students and employers. To enable fast and broad dissemination of the experience, the project is establishing an Internet homepage that contains all the developed courseware and related publications.
