Access Grid
The University's Access Grid facilities (723 Swanston St) may be booked online by any staff member, post-graduate or affiliate of the University.
Use of the Access Grid is charged at $75/hour for core University of Melbourne teaching and learning purposes. Any other use has a minimum 3 hour booking, however the charge maybe reduced for regular sessions. Bookings requested outside of usual service coverage hours - starting after 8:30am and finishing before 5:30pm - will incur additional charges.
Booking sessions
Allow at least ten working days in advance for a support consultant to organise testing, especially for international connections. Repeat sessions or known local sites can often be booked at shorter notice subject to availability.
Late cancellation fees
If a cancellation occurs less than 48 hours from scheduled start time of the session, then 50% of the total fee will be charged. Cancellations made on the same day as the booked session will be charged at the full rate.
Advanced tool for collaboration and interaction
Access Grid is an excellent alternative to interstate or international travel for meetings and conferences, and is a powerful enabler of eResearch that connects global networks of researchers dynamically interacting with shared resources, data, and visualizations.
UK and NZ partners in Universitas21 have Access Grid technologies.
Access Grid across shared learning spaces
Access Grid capabilities are available in the McCoy-Fritz Loewe theatre and Architecture-303 (DesignSpace).
We welcome suggestions of any other spaces that could be enabled.
Please email TSS-Feedback@unimelb.edu.au
About AccessGrid
Research Computing Services is pleased to provide The University of Melbourne with a state-of-the-art AccessGrid Node. In a time when national and international collaborations are actively being embraced by academic institutions, the need for real-time communication between geographically separated researchers is becoming paramount. The local AccessGrid Node (AGN) is a persistant presence in the emerging Grid technologies space which allows the sharing of distributed computing resources over the Internet. This presence represents our "Window to the World", and allows us to look in on similarly enabled institutions. The service is free of charge to eligible members of the University community.
What is an Access Grid node?
An AccessGrid Node is resource to enable collaboration between remote sites, utilising high quality audio, video and other shared tools. Moving beyond simple video conferencing, AccessGrid allows for numerous sites to interact easily and efficiently. By providing large projection screens and high quality, echo-cancelled audio, an AccessGrid Node can provide a far more immersive collaborative meeting with remote colleagues than a typical video conferencing solution.
As expected, shared resources include the standard chat, whiteboards, files and desktops, but also include shared web browsing and application sharing such as PowerPoint presentations and question tools. More importantly, AccessGrid also provides a shared interface to Grid middleware, which can provide advanced tools such as remote instrument control and high-end visualization. For more information please visit http://www.ap-accessgrid.org.
Acknowledgment: Research Computing Services