The many rooms of the virtual work-place

Since the mid-90’s the University of Karlstad has been involved in research work on the usage of so called videotelephony in therapeutical work as well as studies in common social distance interaction. Four main projects have been presented during a five-year period: Videtelephony and language training for people with Aphasia Videtelephony and language training for people with Mental Retardation Videotelephony as a network tool for speech pathologists Videotelephony as a text telephone for people with language and speech impairment At the moment the projects have resulted concretely in some 20 videophones installed all over the country and some international tests as well. A main ingredient in the projects has been to study the social importance of this technology as well as the educational possibilities in the technology, that is, how learning is amplified or not through the usage of videotelephony. The final aim of all the projects is five fold. First we want to establish a well founded description of the quality of the communication situation in relation to its physical counterpart. Secondly we want to study cost-effective alternatives in th