The RSVP Unibrowser: bringing humanness and interactivity to e-learning

RSVP (aka Rensselaer Satellite Video Program) initially delivered Master's level technical courses to the working professional via satellite. As technologies changed, so did RSVP. In particular, the World Wide Web forced a rethinking of the future of distance learning. Videostreaming is a natural replacement for satellite broadcast, but affords much more potential. A parallel development, called "GuideOnTheSide", added a human dimension to the asynchronous portion of the learning module. The introduction of the Unibrowser included a videostream frame, a content frame, a communications frame and an interactive frame. These function within the confines of Web tools, such as WebCT. The paper describes the evolution of these tools, their success and failure, and plans for future directions.