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Online Collaboration often includes Web Meetings to visually present subject matter. Confer & Inform Meeting uses the term Meeting to represent an online gathering of people resulting from a host inviting interactive participants together at one time. Online collaboration is used to often include the terms net meeting, online meeting, web conference, and video conference (video conferences often do not use the video feature).
Overview
Collaboration, with respect to information technology, seems to have several definitions. Some are defensible but others are so broad they lose any meaningful application. Understanding the differences in human interactions is necessary to ensure the appropriate technologies are employed to meet interaction needs.
There are three primary ways in which humans interact: conversations, transactions, and collaborations since April 2008"
Conversational interaction is an exchange of information between two or more participants where the primary purpose of the interaction is discovery or relationship building. There is no central entity around which the interaction revolves but is a free exchange of information with no defined constraints. Communication technology such as telephones,
instant messaging, and e-mail are generally sufficient for conversational interactions.
Transactional interaction involves the exchange of transaction entities where a major function of the transaction entity is to alter the relationship between participants. The transaction entity is in a relatively stable form and constrains or defines the new relationship. One participant exchanges money for goods and becomes a customer. Transactional interactions are most effectively handled by transactional systems that manage state and commit records for persistent storage.
In collaborative interactions the main function of the participants' relationship is to alter a collaboration entity (i.e., the converse of transactional). The collaboration entity is in a relatively unstable form. Examples include the development of an idea, the creation of a design, the achievement of a shared goal. Therefore, real collaboration technologies deliver the functionality for many participants to augment a common deliverable. Record or document management, threaded discussions, audit history, and other mechanisms designed to capture the efforts of many into a managed content environment are typical of collaboration technologies.
An emerging category of computer software, a collaboration platform is a unified electronic platform that supports synchronous and asynchronous communication through a variety of devices and channels facilitating online collaboration.
An extension of groupware is collaborative media, software that allows several concurrent users to create and manage information in a
website. Collaborative media models include wiki (Comparison of wiki software) and
Slashdot models. Some sites with publicly accessible content based on collaborative software are: WikiWikiWeb, Wikipedia and Everything2. By method used we can divide them into:
- Web-based collaborative tools
- Software collaborative tools
By area served we can divide them into:
The Three Levels of Collaboration
Groupware can be divided into three categories depending on the level of collaboration—communication tools, conferencing tools and collaborative management (Co-ordination) tools.
Communication can be thought of as unstructured interchange of information. A phone call or an IM Chat discussion are examples of this. Conferencing (or collaboration level, as it is called in the academic papers that discuss these levels) refers to interactive work toward a shared goal. Brainstorming or voting are examples of this. Co-ordination refers to complex interdependent work toward a shared goal. A good metaphor for understanding this is to think about a sports team; everyone has to contribute the right play at the right time as well as adjust their play to the unfolding situation - but everyone is doing something different - in order for the team to win. That is complex interdependent work toward a shared goal: co-ordination.
Electronic communication tools
Electronic communication tools send messages, files, data, or documents between people and hence facilitate the sharing of information. Examples include:
Electronic conferencing tools
Electronic conferencing tools facilitate the sharing of information, but in a more interactive way. Examples include:
Collaborative management tools
Collaborative management tools facilitate and manage group activities. Examples include:
- electronic calendars (also called time management software) — schedule events and automatically notify and remind group members
- project management systems — schedule, track, and chart the steps in a project as it is being completed
- workflow systems — collaborative management of tasks and documents within a knowledge-based business process
- knowledge management systems — collect, organize, manage, and share various forms of information
- prediction markets — let a group of people predict together the outcome of future events
- extranet systems (sometimes also known as 'project extranets') — collect, organize, manage and share information associated with the delivery of a project (eg: the construction of a building)
- hosted intranet systems (such as Hyperoffice,
Hotoffice or Intranets.com) — collect, organize, manage and share information associated with the delivery of a project (eg: the construction of a building)
- social software systems — organize social relations of groups
- online spreadsheets — collaborate and share structured data and information
Collaborative software can be either web based (such as Cool Conference Live, UseModWiki, Scoop or Commonware), , or desktop systems (such as CVS or RCS).
Collaborating with Web Meetings
Web meetings are used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet. In a web meeting, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees computers or a web-based application where the attendees will simply enter a URL (website address) to enter the conference.
A webinar is a specific type of web meeting. It is typically one-way, from the speaker to the audience with limited audience interaction, such as in a webcast. A webinar can be very collaborative and include polling and question & answer sessions to allow full participation between the audience and the presenter. In some cases, the presenter may speak over a standard telephone line, pointing out information being presented on screen and the audience can respond over their own telephones, preferably a speaker phone. There are web conferencing technologies on the market that have incorporated the use of VoIP audio technology, to allow for a truly web-based communication.
In the early years of the Internet, the terms "web conferencing" was often used to describe a group discussion in a message board and therefore not live. The term has evolved to refer specifically to live or "
synchronous" meetings.
Web Meeting Features
Other possible features of a web meeting include:
- Slide presentations (often created through PowerPoint)
- Live video (via webcam or digital video camera)
- VoIP (Real time audio communication through the computer via use of headphones and speakers)
- Web tours - where URL's, form data, cookies, scripts and session data can be pushed to other participants enabling them to be pushed though web based logons, clicks, etc. This type of feature works well when demonstrating websites where users themselves can also participate.
- Recording (for viewing at a later time by anyone using a unique web address)
- Whiteboard with annotation (allowing the presenter and/or attendees to highlight or mark items on the slide presentation. Or, simply make notes on a blank whiteboard.)
- Text chat (for live question and answer sessions)
- Polls and surveys (allows the presenter to conduct questions with multiple choice answers directed to the audience)
- Screen sharing/desktop sharing/application sharing (where participants can view anything the presenter currently has shown on their screen. Some screen sharing applications allow for remote desktop control, allowing participants to manipulate the presenters screen, although this is not widely used.)
Web conferencing is often sold as a service, hosted on a web server controlled by the vendor, either on a usage basis (cost per user per minute) or for a fixed fee (cost per "seat"). Some vendors make their conferencing software available as a licensed product, allowing organizations that make heavy use of conferencing to install the software on their own servers. Some web conferencing software is distributed free for hosting on the MC's server. There is also software available that is installed on the MC's computer and does not require server configuration software.
An important capability of web conferencing software is application sharing, the ability for one party in the conference to share an application (such as a web browser, spread sheet, etc.) from their desk top with every one else in the meeting and pass the control of the application to someone else in the meeting.
History of Web Conferencing
Real-time text chat facilities such as IRC appeared early in the internet's history. Web-based chat and instant messaging software appeared in the mid-1990s. In the late 1990s, the first true web conferencing capability became available and dozens of other web conferencing venues followed thereafter.
In May 1998 Eric R. Korb was first to use the term "webinar "(web-seminar) to brand the online meeting service for his company ComLinx, LLC. Korb received a registered trademark (Serial Number 75478683) by the USPTO on April 18, 2000. Korb successfully defended the mark several times, but widespread use of the mark without his permission flourished throughout the internet making it very difficult to monitor and defend. Korb eventually transferred ownership of the mark when the dot.com boom failed and ComLinx was forced to shut down in 2001 due to lack of funding. The mark has subsequently been abandoned.
The first commercial 100% computer base web-conference (webinar) product called StarLive was delivered by Starlight Networks in 1997 (acquired by Picturetel in 1998).
StarLive combined multicast video (MPEG1 on Intranets along with RealVideo on the Internet with slides and chat and support tens of thousands of simultaneous users across different countries.
As of 2006, the market continued to expand as web conferencing became a more widely accepted alternative to face-to-face meetings requiring travel, and as a richer form of communication than voice-only conferences.
Standards
Web conferencing technologies were not standardized for many years, a significant factor in the lack of interoperability, platform dependence, security issues, cost and market segmentation. In
2003, the IETF established a working group to establish a standard for Web conferencing, called "Centralized Conferencing (xcon)". Mechanisms for privacy and security are important requirements for the resulting protocols.
The deliverables of xcon, listed as part of their charter include creating:
- A basic floor control protocol. This was published in 2006 as RFC 4582: Binary Floor Control Protocol (BFCP)
- A mechanism for membership and authorization control
- A mechanism to manipulate and describe media "mixing" or "topology" for multiple media types (audio, video, text)
- A mechanism for notification of conference related events/changes (for example a floor change)
CONFiance is an implementation of the XCON framework and BFCP licensed under the GPL and Academic Free License.
AbiTeq Confer & Inform Web Meeting
Meeting uses TurboMeeting software coupled to an R-Hub Multi-Function Web Conferencing Appliance to provide users with reliable, secure, convenient and affordable web meeting service.
- Ease-of-use
- Affordability
- Security
- Control
- Reliability
R-HUB's breakthrough Universal Attendance technology enables users of any platform to join meetings by using a browser and requiring no download.
Universal Attendance
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If you have used web meetings before, you likely would experience some of
your attendees failing to join in your conference and the whole
conference falls apart. Let alone the frustration and time taken by
your attendees to download and install meeting client software. There
are many reasons for the failure:
- Computer locked down by corporate IT policy that prevents
installation of any software
- Blocked by firewall and proxy servers
- Blocked by anti-virus and anti-spy software
- Unsupported platforms like Mac, Linux, Unix, etc.
- Wrong or missing Java Virtual Machine or Flash installation
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Patent Pending TurboMeeting Universal Attendance*
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100% attendance by a browser only has been demanded
since day one when web conferencing started. Today, TurboMeeting offers the
first truly universal attendance web conferencing solution.
- Your meeting attendees do not need to download any kind of
software, no Java Applet, no Flash and no documents.
- As long your attendees can view Google/Yahoo maps with their
browsers from any of the platforms: Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac, Linux, Unix and
iPhone, they can join your meetings and see your presentation.
- Joining a meeting is as easy as typing a URL and as fast as 5 seconds depending on your attendees' Internet connection speed.
Confer & Inform Meeting's TurboMeeting supports much more sophisticated and more powerful meeting types other than the no-download meeting type. Those web meeting types require
meeting attendees to download and install TurboMeeting.
The Impromptu Web Meeting
AbiTeq Confer & Inform Meeting may be the first service to offer ad-hoc web meetings for two colleagues discussing an issue over the phone. One of these people needs only to have subscribed to a two person unlimited meeting plan
for a reasonable price affordable to nearly anyone. He/she can start a reliable and convenient web meeting in less than 30 seconds. Show a document, drawing, web site or other application to the colleague and continue on with the discussion. When the colleague desires, the presentation control can be passed with one click, so their computer application is visible.
Confer & Inform delivers the web meeting as a useful tool for everyone.
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