The recently Access Grid (AG) technology, will be used to establish and strengthen the networking bonds to researchers in jurisdictions participating in the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). This will facilitate technology transfer to and formation of collaborations with, the major research centers in the more densely populated and technologically developed parts of the country. The AG is a multi-site, interactive multimedia system which allows group to group collaboration. To deploy AG nodes to EPSCoR states, a concerted effort is needed to package the required hardware, document the installation process, assist in trouble shooting, and provide training. Six multimedia teleconferencing facilities in the EPSCoR states would be established after constructing nodes of the AG at: the University of Kansas, the University of Kentucky (in place), Montana State University, North Dakota State University, the University of South Carolina, and West Virginia University. The project, serving as a prototype, or proof of concept of viability within the EPSCoR community, is geared toward establishing partnerships (e.g., additionally, the Argonne National Laboratory, along with the National Computational Science Alliance at the University of Illinois will serve as technical resources). In addition to establishing the six AG sites the project will also explore research issues that affect AG operation. For example, Spatialized Audio (ability to make a qualitative differentiation to separate voices to make individual voices more distinguishable), Audio, Setup, Balance and Quality (mechanisms for remotely setting and detecting audio balances), Video (improvements: tools to monitor and control color balance and quality), Networking (designate important streams to dynamically switch and re-route traffic), and Application Integration (visualization stream integration).
