Candace Holman
Office of the President & Provost
Harvard University
60 Oxford St. 121F
Cambridge, MA 02138
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I am writing to endorse the participation of MIT's Plasma Science and
Fusion Center (PSFC) in the PIC-SER the campus trials being offered by
the Presence and Integrated Communications Working Group of Internet2.
This trial will be done in conjunction with the Institute's Integrated
Communications Project (ICP) being coordinated by Information Services
and Technology (IS&T).
The ICP's intent is to understand the opportunities presented by
integrated (voice-video-data) network-based communication technology,
both existing and that which will become available in the next several
years, for education, research and community. To that end we are
undertaking set of experiments or prototype implementations with a
view to understanding the impact of their broader adoption at MIT and
to help us develop IT services in the next 3-5 years.
The experiment at PSFC will help MIT understand how future
technologies could be used to better support research communications
and collaboration. The PIC-SER trial will give us access to software
before comparable commercial products are available. The results of
this experiment will both inform MIT's future directions in
communications services and contribute to the general understanding of
how these technologies can impact the Internet2 community and beyond.
IS&T is committed to making staff and resources available in support
of the PIC-SER trial at PSFC.