Jefferson Lab Readies for May 19 Open House

These photos were taken at Jefferson Lab's 2010 Open House. The event was attended by 7,000 visitors. Hundreds of lab employees and visiting researchers volunteered to spend the day talking to the public about their research and the capabilities provided at the lab.

Jefferson Lab will hold an Open House on Saturday, May 19 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.
                
Come and explore the world-class research underway at the lab. Several of the lab's facilities will be open to the public, and visitors will be able to see and hear about the lab's research projects.

The event will include a number of firsts, including the first opportunity for the public to visit Jefferson Lab's newest experimental hall (Hall D), which is a cornerstone of the 12 GeV Upgrade project underway at the lab. The $310 million project, funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Science, will allow the lab to continue as a world leader in nuclear physics research. The project will provide new and enhanced research capabilities for the 1,360 scientists from 259 institutions that come to Jefferson Lab to conduct experiments or who use data from lab experiments. Ground was broken for Hall D in April 2009.

This event will also include the first opportunity for the public to visit the lab's new Technology and Engineering Development building. This state-of-the-art facility, which was built with some of the latest energy conservation and sustainability technologies, will provide research and work space for lab staff and visiting scientists.

Numerous exhibits, demonstrations, tours and hands-on activities are planned for the event and will offer opportunities for learning and fun for families and people of all ages. This year's theme "Passport to Science" will provide an interactive dimension that can be used by visitors of all ages as they travel around the lab.

Visitors will be able to see and hear about the lab's research program and its particle-acceleration capability (superconducting radiofrequency), a core capability for which there is growing interest in the U.S. and abroad. The lab's supercomputing and simulation capabilities will also be on display and the Free-Electron Laser Facility will be open.

Several local universities, museums, private companies and government agencies will present activities and information on complimentary scientific endeavors.

Special Presentations During the Day
Scientific talks will be given in the MCC (Bldg.  85) conference room every hour on the hour, starting at 10 a.m. Talks will include the lab mission, the Free-Electron Laser program, the physics of everyday life, and radiation safety.

10:00 a.m.: You Already Know this Physics! - Jack McKisson, Senior Engineer, Experimental Nuclear Physics
11:00 a.m.: The Story of the Atom: From Ancient Greeks to Jefferson Lab - Alexei Prokudin, Postdoc, Theory Center
12:00 p.m.: Lasers at Jefferson Lab - Michelle Shinn, Senior Scientist, Free-Electron Laser
1:00 p.m.: Lasers at Jefferson Lab - Michelle Shinn, Senior Scientist, Free-Electron Laser
2:00 p.m.: Radiation at Jefferson Lab - Keith Welch, Deputy Manager, Radiation Control, ESH&Q

Science Education: Lab staff and local teachers will have educational activities for school-age children in the CEBAF Center atrium. Cryogenics demonstrations will be offered in the auditorium every hour on the hour, starting at 10 a.m. Shows take place at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.

The Open House will be free of charge and will be held rain or shine. Free public parking for the event will be available on the Jefferson Lab campus and adjacent property. Parking lots will open at 8:30 a.m. No early arrivals admitted. No vehicles will be admitted to the parking lots after 2 p.m. All parking will be accessible by turning east onto Hogan Drive at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Hogan, in Newport News. This intersection has a stoplight and Newport News Police will be on hand to direct traffic.

Visitors will be able to access the lab from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m. and stay until 3 p.m. The event is spread out over several facilities and involves a lot of walking, taking multiple flights of stairs and walking down and back up rough, inclined truck ramps. In some areas, visitors will be walking on compacted gravel or dirt surfaces instead of pavement. Wear sturdy, comfortable shoes and sunscreen or a brimmed hat and protective clothing. Free shuttle buses will be available to carry visitors between some of the tour stops, but marked areas may be traveled on foot. Photos and videotaping are welcome.

Vendors will be selling light refreshments. Jefferson Lab's last Open House was in May 2010. Jefferson Lab is located at 12000 Jefferson Ave. Newport News, Va. 23606.

National Labs Commit to Sustainability Effort

This image is of the cover of JLab's Site Sustainability Plan. The document is available online as a pdf at: http://www.jlab.org/fm/energymanagement/sustain_plan.pdf

Drawing upon years of research and technical knowledge, the national labs are taking on the critical task of making their unique facilities national models of sustainability.

To achieve this goal, leadership and staff at Jefferson Lab, and at the other national labs, are working to identify and implement best practices and innovative operations strategies to make facilities, and the larger Department of Energy research complex, more sustainable.

Sustainability is much more than acting environmentally "green." It encompasses a combination of economic, social and environmental elements that must balance to achieve a sustainable solution. Strategies that provide significant environmental benefit for instance, but are not economically feasible, or socially acceptable are not sustainable, according to Bill Mooney, the lab’s energy manager.

"In general, sustainable behavior encourages everyone at the lab, in our professional and personal activities, to systematically consider, in advance, the efficient utilization of all  the resources we  use, and how to reuse, recycle or correctly dispose of them after use," Mooney explains.

Federal legislation and various executive orders prescribe a specific set of diverse goals that define sustainability for the DOE and all federal agencies. A list of sustainability goals and Jefferson Lab's respective plans to achieve these goals over time is available in the lab's Site Sustainability Plan. The SSP considers a variety of sustainability initiatives that range from greenhouse gas reduction, to energy efficiency metrics, construction practices, waste management and water conservation. The SSP is updated annually. A copy of the current SSP, and additional information, including many useful links to DOE and EPA resources regarding sustainability, is available at https://www.jlab.org/sustainability.

"I would encourage all JLab staff to review the SSP to better understand the many areas of sustainability in which the lab is actively engaged," Mooney adds.

Jefferson Lab, as a community, has and continues to invest in a variety of efforts designed to improve the efficiency of certain operations, recycling, and purchasing products with recycled content. The lab also has strived to reduce waste, minimize energy consumption, and protect the environment from harmful materials or activities.

An important part of the lab's sustainability effort was creating a Sustainability and Environmental Management committee. The SEM committee has recently been chartered to support the development and implementation of sound sustainable practices throughout the lab, promote sustainability education and awareness, and oversee the lab's Environmental Management System. Membership in the SEM committee includes individuals from a cross section of lab organizations. Additional committee members, and/or interested participants in committee activities are always welcome.

To learn more about SEM committee plans, make suggestions, share ideas or ask questions regarding the lab's sustainability program, please contact Bill Mooney, ext. 5461 or email mooney@jlab.org.

JR/IS Provides Lab Staff With Tools to Register Visitors and Researchers

Sue Ewing, Registration/International Services administrator (right), and her assistant, Tara Wilkerson pause for a photo. They help lab staff to provide guests, visitors and international researchers with an organized, efficient transition into Jefferson Lab while ensuring that the lab complies with Department of Energy contract rules as well as federal government rules and regulations for international visitors.

Jefferson Lab is a user facility; and over the years, people from nearly 90 countries have visited the lab or come here to conduct research, according to Sue Ewing, JLab Registration/International Services Administrator. Part of the JR/IS mission is to provide guests, visitors and international researchers with an organized, efficient transition into the lab while ensuring that the lab complies with Department of Energy contract rules as well as federal government rules and regulations for international visitors.

Ewing oversees the registration and approval process for all individuals not of U.S. citizenship coming to the lab. And to that end she is responsible for training and assisting the lab's administrative support staff and travel coordinators that help JLab hosts or sponsors who are responsible for initiating the registration process and the paperwork required to bring international visitors and researchers here.

"Hosts, administrative support staff and travel coordinators form the leading edge of JLab's visitor registration process," she explains. "The key to a successful visit for an international guest rests with the guest's JLab host. The registration process should be started well in advance of the visit date. The process needs to be done completely and notification of approval received by the visitor onsite date."

 "JR/IS provides oversight, answers questions, and assists with troubleshooting glitches that could prevent a visitor from getting to the lab or send them home prematurely," she adds.

The paperwork is demanding and can be time consuming, she admits, and involves coordination and approval by a host of agencies, including the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Labor, customs and border patrol, Homeland Security, and U.S. embassies around the world.

"But, if a host contacts his or her division or work center admin. support staff or travel coordinator as soon as an invitation has been made, they can help the host with the process," Ewing notes.

When the on-line registration and training is followed, and the visitor provides the required documentation, the process goes smoothly and quickly, according to Ewing, and a guest arriving at the lab can receive an access badge and begin conducting research within a matter of hours.

A critical part of bringing individuals who aren't U.S. citizens to the lab requires the host to write a "Business Invitation Letter" to the visitor or new researcher. The letter provides the foreign visitor or researcher with critical information about the nature of the trip; and is required for the visitor to ensure entry to the U.S. with a Business Visa. The visitor or researcher must present the letter to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials at the U.S. Embassy and at the U.S. port-of-entry when they enter the U.S.

To make writing the Business Invitation Letter easier, the JR/IS staff has created a sample letter. The sample is available under Step 3 on the JR/IS Hosting Foreign Nationals web page at https://www.jlab.org/div_dept/admin/HR/jris/hosting.html

Entry for citizens of Cuba, Syria, Iran and Sudan takes more time. These requests must go through a review and approval process by the Department of Energy's Office of Science. This process can take anywhere from six months to a year. However, once they've received initial approval or have been issued a Permanent Alien Resident Card (green card), future applications to return can be handled locally and quickly.

Ewing is available weekdays from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; and her assistant-in-training, Tara Wilkerson, is available weekdays until 5 p.m. to answer questions and provide guidance.

Wilkerson helps staff the Support Service Center reception desk (Bldg. 28, formerly called the VARC). She is an initial point of contact for all guests and visitors, and is involved in the registration, training and badging processes for everyone coming to the lab. 

Ewing is very excited about bringing Wilkerson onboard the visa/immigration side of JR/IS. Ewing is currently training/mentoring her in all areas of visa and immigration. Wilkerson is now processing J-1 and H-1B visas and moving forward with becoming an expert in the complex world of immigration rules and regulations.

"I am very, very happy to have Tara onboard as a second person at the lab to concentrate on visa and immigration," Ewing said.

For more information about the international visitor registration process, and the services provided by JR/IS, visit its webpage at: http://www.jlab.org/hr/jris/

The JR/IS office is located in Room 44A in the Support Service Center, Bldg. 28, and may be reached at 757-269-7687/6119 or via email at: ewing@jlab.org and wilkerso@jlab.org.

By Judi Tull
Feature writer

Steps to a Successful Visitor Registration

Assistant Tara Wilkerson welcomes a scientist at the Jefferson Lab Support Service Center reception desk. The JLab Registration/International Services staff help provides guests, visitors and international researchers with an organized, efficient transition into Jefferson Lab while ensuring that the lab complies with Department of Energy contract rules as well as federal government rules and regulations for international visitors.

Here are the basic steps to take when you decide to invite an international researcher, guest speaker, job applicant, student or visitor to JLab.

Step 1: Host notifies department or division admin. support of the intent to invite a foreign national visitor/researcher to JLab and whether any type of JSA financial support or reimbursement is anticipated.
Step 2: Registration/tax form information is sent by admin. support to the visitor/researcher for submission.
Step 3: The dept. or division prepares the official Business Invitation Letter and sends it to the visitor/researcher, and reminds the visitor of the Business Visa requirement. A copy of the letter is sent to JR/IS.
Step 4: The host notifies the visitor/researcher of any required security/safety trainings for the areas the researcher will be using.
Step 5: The visitor/researcher's completed and submitted registration is processed by JR/IS for host approval, creates or updates the JList database record, submits the tax form to the travel office, notifies the host/admin. support by email of registration completion. Then, admin. support may then begin the Travel Authorization process for travel arrangements, if necessary.
Step 6: The visitor/researcher arrives and checks in with JR/IS. JRIS provides new visitors/researchers with a package of JLab and regional information. The visitor/researcher is then picked-up by or sent to the host dept. or division or User Liaison office.
Step 7: The host is responsible for the visitor/researcher while at JLab.
Step 8: Per U.S. Department of State Exchange Visitor Program regulations: All visiting foreign nationals on a J-1 visa – not sponsored by JSA – must present a letter from their sponsoring institution's International Services Office giving authorization for payments by JSA. If this letter is not presented, reimbursements, honorariums, etc. are not allowed.

Ewing Welcomes Lab's International Visitors

Sue Ewing
JLab Registration/International Services Administrator

Mementos of the work she does are all around Sue Ewing's office in the Support Service Center: Russian nesting dolls, a scroll from Jerusalem, photos from all over the world. For the past decade, Ewing has staffed the Jefferson Lab Registration/International Services office – or JR/IS – the singular portal through which come all foreign visitors to the lab.
                        
Ewing is responsible for training and assisting the lab's administrative support staff and travel coordinators who help JLab hosts (or sponsors) with the registration process and the paperwork required to bring an international visitor, guest or researcher to the lab. She oversees the registration and approval process and is the receiving point for all individuals who aren't U.S. citizens upon their arrival at the lab.

"I love this work," she said with a warm smile. "It can be challenging and sometimes stressful, but it is very rewarding and satisfying. It's nice to be part of giving someone a chance to contribute to the amazing research work accomplished here."

Ewing graduated with her master's in education in June 2011, following up on a bachelor's degree in business administration. "It's never too late for education," she commented.

She's also about to be certified as a nutrition consultant through the American Fitness Professionals Association, something she was spurred to do when she joined the YMCA and found lots of fitness advice, but little information on nutrition. With this certification, she'll be able to speak to school and civic groups about the importance of eating healthy.

In Their Own Words with Chrysostomos Michaelides

Tommy Michaelides uses specialized control software to "talk" to a set of profibus switches.

I was born in Nicosia, the capital of Cyprus, the oldest of four children. My dad was in construction and my mother stayed at home with us.

I went to public schools until high school when I was accepted into a special technical school that focused on physics, chemistry and the sciences. When I graduated, like all young men in my country, I was required to serve 26 months in the army. Since the island is small – only about three-fifths the size of Connecticut – even though I was away from home, I was never really very far. My duties in the army were varied: I was tasked with fixing weapons, working in stockrooms, even making sure the troops had enough potatoes for supper!

When I was finished with the army, I went to work as an electrical technician in a mill factory that made pasta. On weekends and vacations, I had the opportunity to travel throughout the Greek islands where I sailed and went scuba diving. I also toured Egypt. It was a very good life for a young man.

While I was working, I realized that I felt strongly that higher education was important. I applied to three schools: the University of Melbourne, the City University London and Old Dominion University. I know it sounds like a diverse choice of schools, but I knew people who were either at those schools, or had been. In fact, the son of a friend of my father's was at ODU. I was accepted at all three schools, and chose to come to the United States in 2002.

I took a cab from the Norfolk airport to the dorm at ODU, and the cab driver asked my name. When I told him my given name, which is Chrysostomos, he said he'd just call me Tommy. And that stuck.

I was amazed as we were driving at the size of the cars and the trucks and the large four-lane highways. I'd never seen anything like it! It was very exciting.

Back in third grade, we had a choice of what language we would study, and I chose English. I've been able to speak it well [actually, my given name means ''well spoken''] but I had a lot of trouble writing it correctly. I needed to take English as a Second Language classes to get up to college-level writing.

One thing I didn't struggle with at all was American food. Growing up, we were a very conservative family and there was only one way to cook things, and our food was simple. I loved all the choices I found here – especially ranch dressing!

I stayed at ODU for one year, and quickly realized that I could take the same courses at Tidewater Community College at a much lower cost, so I transferred there for my sophomore year and returned to ODU after that.

During school, I met the woman who would become my wife, Jennifer. She was working toward her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. I graduated on May 5, 2007, with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and we were married two weeks later.

After graduation, I worked as a software engineer for two years at an area company that made book-binding machines. There were rumors that the company was not doing well and would be closing, so I decided to leave before that happened. I went to work as the lead electrical engineer at Bauer Compressors in Norfolk. The commute from our home in Hampton was grueling and we were starting our family, so I was interested in finding something closer to home. A friend mentioned an opening at Jefferson Lab, and I decided to apply.

The interview was like nothing I'd ever experienced before! There were eight engineers in a room with no windows, all asking me very technical questions. I was very rattled.

I knew that it would be a challenge coming to the Safety Systems Group from the private sector. Learning the lab's culture and acronyms was definitely a hurdle. My first big project was part of a work-for-others tasking: to assist in implementing some new software for the Personnel Safety System for the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. The technical aspects were not that different from work I had done before but the acronyms stumped me. When I got the specs, I kept looking through them and turning the pages. I went to my supervisor, Kelly Mahoney, and Henry Robertson, my deputy leader, and told them I had no idea what the specs were asking for. They were very helpful. Once they walked me through the acronyms, everything made sense.

My next and current project is with the radiation-protection ion chambers in the experimental halls. They are sensors that are strategically put in place around the beam line and the dumps to protect the electronics from prompt ionizing radiation.

Safety here is a state of mind. It's a lot of responsibility to know that you're the person who has to think about what could go wrong – and to make sure it doesn't.

My wife works at Riverside Hospital's rehabilitation center, and we have a young son, Andreas, who's named for my father, so our life is very busy. I'm also working on my master's in electrical engineering, specializing in controls, at ODU, and hope to finish by 2015.

The past few several months have been exceptionally busy. Early this year I was in Austin, Texas, for courses at the U. S. Particle Accelerator School, and we spent time with my family in Cyprus over Christmas. And late last year I became an American citizen. There were about 100 of us at the Federal Courthouse in Norfolk taking the oath, and we had a big cookout at our house to celebrate. It was a very big moment for our family.

Everyone at the lab has been so helpful, and so welcoming. I really like being here; this is the best job I've ever had.

As told to Judi Tull
Feature writer

Safety Systems Group's Work Protects People, Equipment

Tommy Michaelides checks the fiber optic connections between two remote safety-rated Programmable Logic Controllers. The new PLCs will be installed in the new experimental hall, Hall D.

The Engineering Division's Safety Systems Group specializes in high-reliability engineered systems used to protect people and equipment from hazards unique to accelerator and test facility operations. Jefferson Lab's safety systems include personnel safety systems (PSS), machine protection systems (MPS), and the beam envelope limit system (BELS).

In their work, Safety System Group members adapt and apply engineering standards, practices, and training from other high-assurance disciplines such as aerospace, defense, and chemical process controls.  

Tommy Michaelides' work for SLAC included programming safety logic controllers as part of an upgrade to the Linac Coherent Light Source, or LCLS, a powerful accelerator driven X-ray research facility. He also worked on the central control safety systems for FACET, the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experiment Tests, a test bed for advanced accelerator concepts like plasma wakefield acceleration. 

JLab uses the same safety controllers for the Hall D safety systems, as part of the 12 GeV Upgrade project. Ion chambers are used in the CEBAF experimental halls to protect unique and sensitive equipment and the high power beam dumps. Ionization chambers create a measureable current proportional to the flux of ionizing radiation passing through a gas filled tube.

The JLab MPS ion chambers are used in areas where they must discern between a nominal level of background prompt ionizing radiation such as beam centered on a thin window or an experiment's target, and the higher prompt radiation produced when the beam strays off into a thicker piece of material like the target frame or beam pipe. When this abnormal condition is detected, the ion chambers shut off the beam before there is permanent damage to the frame or the beam pipe.

The BoNuS Experiment: Snubbed Protons Tattle on Neutron Structure

This is a photo of the spare Time Projection Chamber for the BoNuS experiment. The experiment was carried out in Jefferson Lab's Experimental Hall B in the fall of 2005.

Protons and neutrons are the fraternal twins of the sub-atomic world and the building blocks of all atomic nuclei. While similar in many respects, it's their differences that give them their unique properties. Now, scientists are exploiting these differences to gain deeper insight into these fundamental particles that build our visible universe.
                                    
Protons and neutrons are similar because they are made of the same building blocks, yet different because these building blocks come in different proportions. Both particles are built of three (valence) quarks, and both contain two of the six "flavors" of quarks discovered so far: up and down quarks. While the proton is made of two up quarks and one down quark, the neutron touts two down quarks and one up quark. 

According to Wally Melnitchouk, a theorist in Jefferson Lab's Center for Theoretical and Computational Physics, by probing both the proton and the neutron, scientists can better learn how the different proportion of quarks yields different properties for these particles. Melnitchouk is a spokesperson for a collaboration of researchers who are conducting an experiment at Jefferson Lab to probe these particles.

"The proton is just one combination of ups and downs. So with the proton data alone, we cannot determine both up and down, we need the neutron," he says.

But probing the neutron is tough, even for Jefferson Lab's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility, which was built to probe the subatomic realm. CEBAF fires a beam of electrons into the nuclei of a target material. It can thump, transform or knock out particles that reside in the nucleus, so that scientists may study them.

However, there are no "free" neutrons to study. Once formed, a neutron that is not bound inside the nucleus of an atom will dissolve into simpler particles in minutes. "To study free neutrons, you'd have to replace your target every 10 minutes," Melnitchouk explains.

Sebastian Kuhn, also a spokesperson for the experiment, as well as chair of the Jefferson Lab Users Group and a professor at Old Dominion University, says the experiment is, therefore, taking aim at the next-best thing: an isotope of hydrogen, called deuterium.

"What people are left with are nuclei that contain neutrons. And the simplest nucleus that we can possibly use is the deuteron; it's just one proton and one neutron. And that's what people have tried to study as an approximation to a free neutron. Subtract the proton and hope to get the free neutron," Kuhn explains. "What we set out to do with this experiment is to eliminate as much as possible any effects on the neutron, due to the fact that it's bound in a nucleus."

To minimize these effects, the scientists probed only those neutrons that were very loosely bound. Such neutrons had very little interaction with the proton in the nucleus immediately before or after the reaction. Knocking out the neutron disintegrates the nucleus, releasing the proton.

"There's a proton and a neutron: you hit the neutron, and the proton becomes a spectator, it just watches what happens to the neutron. So you look for that proton to come out," Kuhn says. "We only choose events where the proton was moving backwards relative to the electron beam, and at low momentum. Those are the two signatures we use to distinguish spectator protons from anything that was involved in the reaction: backward and slow."

The scientists developed a new piece of equipment, the Radial Time Projection Chamber, to capture and measure the slowly moving protons.

The experiment, dubbed BoNuS (for Barely Off-Shell Neutron Structure), was carried out in Jefferson Lab's Experimental Hall B in the fall of 2005. After careful and detailed analysis, the results were published in the April 8 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.

Among other results, they studied the likelihood that scattering electrons can alter the neutron to form so-called resonances.

"A resonance is an excited state, which basically means that the internal configuration of the quarks changes in a well-defined manner. For instance, one quark changes its spin, or two quarks start moving around each other, or some other changes of the internal motion occurs that lead to a new, more energetic state of the neutron," Kuhn says.

While some of the proton resonances are well-documented, there has been little exploration of the neutron resonances, since, until now, the neutron has been difficult to probe. This is the first experiment to reveal a sequence of neutron resonances. Encouragingly, the sequence appears to, in some ways, mirror the sequence of proton resonances.

"This will allow us to study the differences between the spectrum of resonance excitations of the neutron and the proton," Melnitchouk says. "We now have a way of directly studying the structure of the free neutron; this is just the first glimpse. But this experiment demonstrates that this method works and opens up a whole new range of experiments to study the structure of the neutron."

Beyond new information of resonances of the neutron, the BoNuS experiment also offers a direct view of the motion of the quarks inside the neutron.

The scientists say now that the experimental method has been confirmed, they plan to use it in future experiments with the energy-upgraded electron beam at Jefferson Lab to continue probing the neutron, in hopes of revealing more of its structure and of the behavior of the quarks inside. 

"For the first time, we can directly compare the structure of the neutron to that of the proton, and we can then start explaining the differences in terms of fundamental properties of bound quark states," Kuhn says.

By Kandice Carter
Science writer

Webinar Tools Can Save You Time and Money

ComWould you benefit from a meeting with a colleague, but have a tight travel budget or just don't have the time to go to a distant location? Or a group of far-flung collaborators needs to hold a real-time discussion regarding the data analysis for their experiment? Or one of your conference or workshop guest speakers just called to let you know that bad weather has grounded their flight?

The answer to these and other communications situations may be using the expanding webinar capabilities available through Jefferson Lab's Information Technology Division.

"There have been improvements and new services added to the webinar and videoconferencing capabilities available to the Jefferson Lab community," says Jessica Perry, Help Desk manager.

The primary webinar tool supported at JLab is ReadyTalk. It has been demonstrated as highly efficient and user friendly. It allows you connectivity anytime, from almost anywhere, supports visuals, and requires minimal resources, according to Perry. Once you have ReadyTalk, you can set up a meeting weeks in advance or on a moment's notice.

"We support and encourage the use of ReadyTalk," she adds. "It is considered user friendly and nearly all the national labs make this resource available."

ReadyTalk can be used on demand for any size of meeting: from two people conversing from their offices located across the Peninsula or halfway around the world from each other, to 96 participants, in as many locations, taking part in a conference or workshop. The system can accommodate up to 150 on request, and can handle up to 3,000 participants with personalized operator services.

ReadyTalk works internationally and provides information on the service's website for international conferencing access numbers. Visit: http://www.readytalk.com/legacy/an.php?tfnum=8667401260  or http://www.readytalk.com/account-administration/international-numbers

To use ReadyTalk, the person initiating the meeting needs a ReadyTalk account. Everyone participating in the meeting needs only a phone line or phone connectivity over your computer, and a computer with Internet connectivity. The system provides real-time dialogue and a visual interface for sharing things like PDF documents and PowerPoint briefings. You don't need a conference room, a camera or any set up support. And if your phone is through your computer, ReadyTalk can even be used in locations such as airports with wireless connectivity.

When you need full-fledged videoconferencing, the CNI group can provide resources for using EVO (Enabling Virtual Organizations) and audio-video conferencing with a Polycom.

EVO is a videoconferencing system designed by CalTech that is available at many of the national labs and U.S. academic institutions. EVO can be used from a number of JLab conference rooms, according to Perry.

Both ReadyTalk and EVO require setting up an account – in advance of your meeting. The ReadyTalk system only needs the chairperson of the webinar to have an account, the rest of the participants do not need an account. Plan on three to five business days to set up a new ReadyTalk account. But once an account is established, scheduling and conducting meetings is quick and easy. A new EVO account can be set up in a day.

"These are great resources for real-time visuals and face-to-face discussions," Perry notes. "Using these utilities can save you time and money while providing a valuable communication interface."

Check with your collaborators, before deciding which system to use, Perry suggests. "And check in with the Help Desk regarding current capabilities. Some of this technology is advancing at a rapid rate."

All JLab staff and registered members of the lab's Users Group can use these lab resources. Tutorials are available on the Computer Center website. Hands-on training is available on request.

Perry also encourages those who use these resources to provide the Help Desk with feedback. "Let us know which utility you used, how you are using it, and how well it performed or met your needs."

These are communications services supported by Jefferson Lab's IT Division and are found across much of the larger Department of Energy system. ReadyTalk, which is one of the ESnet Collaboration Services, is funded by the Department of Energy.