U  N  I  V  E  R  S  I  T  E     L  I  B  R  E     D  E     B  R  U  X  E  L  L  E  S
 
 


 

Service Télématique et Communication
 


N° 19  May 2000

 
 
 
E D I T O R I A L
 
Our Editor, Nadia PARONI, told me to write a brief editorial because of the quantity of material to publish. 
Hence I will only mention that this issue does not present (yet) any report on our upcoming new European Commission IST project, DEEPSIA, for which the negociations have just started; the consortium is led by our partners from COMARCH in Poland.

Happy reading,

Paul VAN BINST 

 
Since the beginning of this year, the group of our VUB Collaborators includes Ines MARTINEZ MORENO (as well as Alain ISAAC who was pictured in the previous issue). STC also welcomed Ali HACHAMI, a student from the ENSIAS school in Rabat (Marocco), who completed his thesis on network security matters

 
BTA General Assembly and Position Paper 2000

Rik DAEMS, Minister of Telecommunications 

Paul VAN BINST and Christian VAN ASBROECK, President and Vice-President of BTA
 



 

The General Assembly of the Belgian Teleworking Association was hosted by BELGACOM and welcomed Rik DAEMS, Minister of Telecommunications, who clearly stated his interest in BTA activities.

It was also the occasion to present the Position Paper 2000 drafted by Members of BTA, addressing a number of key issues for the Public and Industrial worlds, in relation with the “New Ways of Working”. 

An audience of about 100 persons made it quite a successful event.


 


 
INTRANET HEALTH CLINIC
The European project "Intranet Health Clinic" ends in March 2000, 2 years after its launch.  Service Télématique et Communication was in charge of developing the web site of the Cavell Institute in brussels. The web site has been developed as a service provided by the Cavell Institute to their patients. The Intranet Health Clinic web service provides general information regarding pregnancy as well as information related to the Cavell Institute itself. The main purpose of the web service is to provide appropriate information any time the patient may require it, reducing workload of the healthcare professionals without any compromise regarding the quality of the content.
The development of the web site was done in close collaboration with gynaecologists of the Cavell Institute.



 

 
UNIVERSAL
ULB-STC is a small partner in a large consortium which has launched the UNIVERSAL project, part of the European Commission IST programme.

The UNIVERSAL Exchange for Pan-European Higher Education will demonstrate the feasibility of an open exchange system for course units between institutions of higher education across Europe and elsewhere in the world. The system will embrace offers, enquiries, booking and actual delivery of course units. The aim is to develop and validate a model and standards that could later be widened to embrace other groups of higher education institutions and that could be transplanted into the market for training in industry, commerce and government.

The key innovation will be to create and manage an open market by introducing a brokerage platform with a standard way of describing the pedagogical, administrative and technical characteristics of course units.
The system will enable institutions to enrich their curricula with remotely sourced material. It will be compatible with a variety of business models pursued by different institutions, including open universities and alliances between peer institutions. In addition, the common catalogue and continuous assessment mechanisms will enable institutions to selectively grant credits for course units delivered through UNIVERSAL. Students will thus benefit from a wider choice of course units within their own institutions and from virtual learner mobility between institutions.

For this project, ULB-STC will work in collaboration with our Colleagues from VUB and from Haute Ecole Francisco Ferrer. 
 


 

 
A NEW TEACHER IN OUR POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMME
 
Hervé FEUILLIEN, Director General of the CIRB/CIBG (Centre d’Informatique pour la Région Bruxelloise) has joined the high-level team of Professors who contribute to our postgraduate curriculum “DES en Télématique et Organisation” at ULB.
 

Like all the other teachers, he will bring his personal and professional vision to our adult students who are regularly enrolling for this diploma, since more than 10 years now.
 


 
A new President for the Belgian ATM platform

 
The Belgian ATM Platform and its Broadband Internet Group is an association of more than 30 members representing industry, operators and users. Among its main activities are a number of specialised working groups meetings, a regular presence at the Belgian TMAB telecommunications fair, and the organisation of an annual symposium in the fall, which has drawn more than 120 people in each of its 4 previous instances.

The next symposium, in November 2000, will address the theme "Towards a quality broadband future".
 
Our VUB Colleague Rosette VANDENBROUCKE has been elected by the Board of the Belgian ATM Platform to take on the Presidency, replacing Ronny DAVID from TELINDUS who will remain active as vice-president.
 
 


 
 


 
Security in Differentiated Services and IP Multicast
 
In the context of a IWT-funded research contract with ALCATEL, we are studying various aspects linked to the use of IKE and IPsec mechanisms in combination with differentiated services (in particular the Expedited Forwarding service).  Because such types of services usually require en-route modifications of IP packets, they can be incompatible with the use of IPsec.  We are therefore looking at possible solutions to solve such problems.

We are also studying how IP multicast traffic could be secured.  As of today, IPsec and IKE are not designed for use in IP multicast environments.  There are also multicast-specific security requirements which are not met with the existing IPsec.  We will therefore look at all those problems and suggest possible practical solutions to solve (at least some) identified problems.

The project also includes the development of an IKE/IPsec implementation aiming at a prototype for the solutions designed on securing differentiated services and IP multicast, as mentioned above.


 
BRUNETTE au Musée
 
The City of Brussels' Education Department and Service Télématique et Communication have joined once more to extend the activities of the BRUNETTE (Brussels Network for Telematics in Education) project in developing together multimedia training and educational web modules through the City's museums (Maison du Roi, Hôtel de Ville, Musée du costume et de la dentelle, Brussella 1238).
 
These activities take place within the framework of a project named IRISweb (Interactive Regional Information and Self-awareness through Webculture) initiated by the Scientific Policy Ministry and coordinated by CIRB (Centre d'Informatique pour la Région Bruxelloise).
The idea is to involve all the educative community members according to their competences (from elementary to graduate) through the BRUNETTE project.  The stress will be put on communication, exchanges, creativity and pluridisciplinarity.
The objective is to address schools with interactive and media tools meant to help students get acquainted with culture, history, traditions, craftman's trade and art in general. 
This educational project will be conducted under a pluridisciplinary approach and is designed to allow students to obtain and provide information but also to give them the opportunity of exchanging ideas with other people all around the world using new ways of communication as for example the newsgroups and electronic mail, largely developed in the Internet context.

Marie-Jeanne STALLAERT

 
EuroDemo, with or without Commission contract…
Although our EC contract ended in 1999, we were asked by the DG Information Society to still welcome and support a number of projects, whose Annual Reviews were successfully carried out at VUB/ULB. 

Pictured here is the team of project COBROW, one of the longest-standing among our many groups of EuroDemo friends (Marcel DASEN, ETHZ, Lars KAUFMAN & Holger BOENISCH, Universitaet Ulm, Andrew SCOTT, Lancaster University, Bernhard Plattner, ETHZ, Konrad FROITZHEIM, Universitaet Ulm).

 
In Memoriam

 
Frédéric BRAS, who was a member of  STC for many years and actively involved with the City of Brussels in the scope of the BRUNETTE project, has left us abruptedly at age 29. 

We will remember a smart young man and a fine collaborator.


 
MEMBERS of SERVICE TELEMATIQUE ET COMMUNICATION
 
Charles AGBOH, Denis AUQUIER, Ehsan CHIRAZI, Alain JOUREZ, Olivier PARIDAENS, Nadia PARONI, Krzysztof SOCHA, Paul VAN BINST, Jean-Marc VERBERGT, Piotr WENCEL.

Our VUB collaborators:
Alain ISAAC, Ines MARTINEZ MORENO, Rosette VANDENBROUCKE
(for all of the above, e-mail is: surname@helios.iihe.ac.be)

Our Student collaborators:
Raphaël DAUE, Gilles OGER (ULB)

Secretariat: 
Daisy PIRNAY (IIHE/VUB-ULB)  (pirnay@hep.iihe.ac.be)

Other regular collaborators:
Marie-Paule SPINETTE, Anne SPOIDEN (ULB), Yves BRANTS, Guy DEPIESSE, Georges ROUSSEAU (IIHE/ULB-VUB), Marie-Jeanne STALLAERT (Haute Ecole Francisco FERRER), Alain NYS (City of Brussels' Education Department).

Contact:
Service Télématique et Communication - Professor Paul VAN BINST
ULB - CP230 - Boulevard du Triomphe - 1050 Brussels - Belgium
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3211 or 3209 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816

Rosette VANDENBROUCKE
VUB - ELEM - Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium
Tel.: + 32 2 629 3210 - Fax: + 32 2 629 3816

World Wide Web Address:
http://www.iihe.ac.be