The Access Grid™ is an ensemble of resources
including multimedia large-format displays,
presentation and interactive environments,
and interfaces to Grid middleware and to visualization environments.

These resources are used to support
group-to-group interactions across the Grid.
For example, the Access Grid (AG) is used for
large-scale distributed meetings,
collaborative work sessions, seminars, lectures, tutorials, and training. The Access Grid thus differs from desktop-to-desktop tools that focus on individual communication.

The Access Grid is now used at over 150 institutions worldwide. Each institution has one or more AG nodes, or "designed spaces," that contain the high-end audio and visual technology needed to provide a high-quality compelling user experience. The nodes are also used as a research environment for the development of
distributed data and visualization corridors and for the study of issues relating to collaborative work in distributed environments.

The AG technology was developed by the Futures Laboratory at Argonne National Laboratory and is deployed by the NCSA PACI Alliance.

The Futures Lab continues to conduct research
into ways to improve the Access Grid,
for example, to increase the scalability and to enhance
the user interfaces.

||| a virtual world ||| supporting human interaction ||| collaboration across the grid |||

ag-info@mcs.anl.gov