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But difficulties in booking can
easily
lead to only some sites being
available at
the time picked. If someone
asks you to
travel to a video conference,
consider
refusing: perhaps they would
like to
travel to your office instead?
Preparation:-
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Before the conference:
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1. Booking the conference
Hall.
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It is advisable to check and
re-check
the booking at both ends.
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Thus problems with the booking
system
from a user's viewpoint include:
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o Even when all agree a booking has
been
made, the connection is not always
made
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o It is almost impossible to know
whether
a booking has been accepted.
Confirmations may or may not be
sent,
may or may not be accurate. The
long
chain of people involved makes this
very
unreliable (e.g. only one end of a
video
conference will do the booking on
behalf
of all; they will go through their
local
contact, who will contact
Edinburgh.)
A failure at any point of this
chain
results in people not knowing the
state of the booking.
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o The public web record of bookings
is not kept up to date and does
not
reflect what conferences are
booked
and what slots are free.
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o The notation for sites in that
record
is not comprehensible by users. It
doesn't
use the normal names of the places
connected, and doesn't provide a
glossary.
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(Organise a parallel computer link
(as an equivalent to an OHP) if talks
rather than discussion are to be
presented.
The video link will only transmit one
video channel: typically a picture of
the
present speaker.
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To give a talk, the equivalent of an
OHP
is needed to transmit "slides" to
another
monitor in each video suite. Audiences
say
they quickly get tired of hearing
without
seeing the speaker (this was the
comment
by students on a 10 minute monologue
with
slides I gave in one of our sessions), so
the
main video channel cannot be used
for
"slides" successfully.
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This extra link is not (yet) provided
as
standard, but can be done by having
a
computer with an internet
connection
provided in every suite, linked
perhaps
by Net meeting. You are likely to have
to
organize this equipment yourself:
certainly
independently of booking the
video
conference. You need to:
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o Arrange to have the hardware
(computers) set up at every site for
the
conference. In a big room, you then
need
to have the computer display
projected
on a big screen so everyone at the site
can
see it.
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o Arrange to have them connected to
the
internet there.
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o Decide how to link them e.g. if you
use
Net meeting, then all the machines
need
to be PCs.
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o Decide how to prepare your
"slides".
PowerPoint is easy, maybe web
pages.
Too bad if you wanted to do slides
by
hand or using a photocopier.
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o You will probably need to know the
IP
address of those machines (or rather
the
network ports in the rooms) and to
tell
the other participants what they
are.
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Agree and publish an
agenda
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Consider introducing yourselves in advance
by
another medium e.g. email, web pages.
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Use email to prepare everyone for the meeting.
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These might include:
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o Every site should have a written list of
phone
numbers: those of every other video suite,
the
Edinburgh switching centre, and the
phone
extensions of local technical assistance.
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o If a computer internet link is being used
in
parallel, then each site should have to hand
a
written note of their own IP address (to
tell
other sites as required).
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o Every site needs someone familiar with
the
video controls: these cannot be
learned
simultaneously with having a
meaningful
conference. If you don't have an
experienced
user, then someone needs to practice in
advance
(see next section).
Setting:-
The controls are not effortlessly
usable.
Therefore:
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• You need to have a practiced person
at
each site to operate the controls,
organizing their training if necessary.
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• If possible the person "chairing"
the
session should not also be
operating
controls. Arranging for a practiced
user
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The controls are not effortlessly
usable.
Therefore at each site you.
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• Either need a user with previous
experience
of THAT suite (the controls are
different
at every site);
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• You need to arrange a little practice
for
a designated person.
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Groups get restless very quickly
when
someone is practicing or fumbling
while
they wait (another student criticism of
one
of our cases): after all, they can't
learn
anything because it is not their hands
on
the controls.
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So having someone turn up and do it for
the
first time with a group causes
dissatisfaction
and the perception of a bad
meeting.
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A new user can practice a lot of it without
a
connection (operating the cameras
and
looking at the result on a monitor), but
the
best thing is to book the conference 30 mins
earlier and have one person at each site
turn
up then to practice and to check
the
arrangements. During such a setup,
you
could:
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• Ask if they can hear you comfortably;
and
vice versa
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• Ask if they can see you; find camera
shots
that THEY say suits them.
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• Ask them to look you in the eyes (in
their
monitor) so you know what direction
they
are looking when they are looking at
you.
Sound:-
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The position of the microphones should
be
taken into account when positioning
the
participants. You cannot judge what
sound
you are transmitting (unless you have
a
sound meter).
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You must ask the other end and believe
what
they say. The fact that you can hear OK
is,
unlike in face to face, no clue at all
about
what they can hear.
QA should test the sound coming
from
speakers in different parts of the
room.
Room layout (preparation) :-
Having all the chairs facing one way,
towards
the cameras and monitors seems to work well.
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One issue is giving everyone a good
view
of the screens (and being in view of
the
cameras). Another is that if a group are in
a
circle, it is easy for them to feel a group
and
the person at the far end to feel not part of
it.
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Video Resolution:
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Effective resolution is bad. What matters
is
the size of objects at the user's eye (in,
say,
centimeters per radian, or inches per
degree).
Thus it doesn't directly matter how big text
is
at the far end: a lot depends on the display
at
the receiving end.
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To get the most out of a video channel,
every
user needs to be near enough to the
screen
that they can just or almost see the
individual
pixels or scan lines. However in many
video
suites, although the monitors look big, in
fact
users are much further away.
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For instance, sitting at my office
computer,
the monitor fills 20-30 degrees of my field
of
vision, but in the video suite at Glasgow,
it
fills perhaps 5 degrees.
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Just as in giving a talk at a new place,
you
cannot be sure how big you need to make
the
text on your OHPs, so in video
conferencing
you cannot be sure what the display
condition
s will be at the far end (and you cannot
see
them yourself either); but our experience
is
that this is a concern.
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2. If you have name plates or hold up
printed
material, the letters need to be over 2
inches
high (255 point print) in a shot framed
to
show a person.
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3. It is useful to have a visualiser available.
(You can then, but only then, use
smaller
print. Smaller means say 24 point, NOT
12
point.) I.e. Bring printed "slides": with font
as
big as OHPs require. (A "visualiser" is a
"rostrum camera" i.e. lights and
downward
pointing camera set up to do close-ups of bits
of paper. Probably looks like an OHP with
a
video camera where the projector lens
should
be.)
Meeting :-
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The Large scale :
considering the purpose of the meeting, and
organising the overall joint task. In
education, this will be the level of
pedagogical
success or failure.
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The medium scale:
things you can do in any meeting to make
it
go better e.g. start with introductions,
begin
by agreeing an agenda.
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The small scale:
issues of turn taking, asking the other end
to
give you a different camera shot (or not,
and
being frustrated).
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Large scale: Organising the meeting
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All the preparation that can help any
meeting
and/or tutorial apply. Basically, having
a
clear idea about the main purpose of
the
meeting, and having all participants
prepared
for it. Thus if it is to be a tutorial, the
students
need to have done the work and be
prepared
to present in some definite way.
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1. Agenda.
A definite agenda for the
conference is useful
and should be agreed and
circulated
beforehand particularly insofar as it
informs
participants about what each needs
to
prepare, unless it is so simple that
no
separate document is needed.
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o Alternatively, an electronic agenda
(e.g.
a web page, a powerpoint screen) could be
made available during the meeting if an
extra
internet connection (e.g. using Net
meeting
between PCs in every video suite) is
being
used. This would have the advantage that
it
could be edited during the meeting, yet
still
be shared by all
participants.
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2. Participants should have access to all
the
material for the conference and time to
read
it before the conference takes place.
Materials
which are on the Web can be accessed
easily
by both sites and shared, discussed etc. --
that
is one method, but faxing paper can
equally
work for small numbers.
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3. One recipe that works (has worked) is
for
the student to have written an essay,
the
tutor to have read and commented on it,
and
preferably to have sent the written
comments
in advance. Then the discussion can
consist
of going through the comments.
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4. Another is for students doing group
work
to prepare a short presentation of
their
results or what they have done,
including
electing which student will represent
the
group. The tutor can then discuss
these
presentations.
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5. But just as in face to face seminars,
a
general discussion may flop unless
all
participants know they will be
speaking
(and what about) and prepare some ideas
to
offer.
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Running the meeting: medium
scale social actions
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All the things that help run any meeting
and
/or tutorial apply, but are more important.
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1. Agenda.
A definite agenda for the
conference is useful
and should ideally be visible to
all
participants during the meeting.
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2. When using a long PowerPoint
presentation,
many overheads etc. it would help if
the
audience at the other site could
occasionally
see the lecturer/tutor instead of just
hearing
him/her.
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Either organize a second channel (e.g.
Net
meeting over the internet, to give 2
screens
of communication), or have the person
in
charge of the equipment at the speaker's
end
switch regularly between the visualize
(shot
of a slide) and a shot of the speaker.
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3. Unless the group has already met before,
it
should begin by going round in turn with
each
person introducing them self, including
a
statement of what they hope to gain from
this
meeting.
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o In multi-site conferences, it is important
to
go round each site at the start so that
everyone
gets at least a glimpse of the rest of
the
audience. Remember that you will then
only
see one other site at a time.
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remember more than 2 names from
introductions. However the lettering must
be
very large e.g. 144 point (1.5 inches high).
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o In multi-site conferences, it is
also
important to have clear labels for each
site,
as the picture will jump between sites,
which
often look like anonymous rooms. The
best
solution is to have a caption
inserted
electronically on the outgoing image, as
is
now done by the University of
Glasgow;
otherwise a name plate with
enormous
lettering.
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5. A good way to promote
discussion,
particularly if it is the first discussion
the
group has, is to ask each person to say
how
the topic relates to a personal
experience.
Running the equipment: small
scale social actions
You have to control the camera shots.
And
because (see below) this doesn't do
everything
you want, you have to do small scale
social
actions to compensate e.g. ask the other
end
to change the camera shot, nod in
an
exaggerated way to compensate for
low
resolution, etc.
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• What is wanted, but you can't have, is
to
control the cameras at the other end, just
as
in face to face you turn your eyes and
head
to see what you want when you want. This
is
not offered you currently.
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• Because of this, you have to tell them
what
you want: normal tacit practices won't
work.
For instance, if their sound is too quiet it
is
no good talking louder. They hear fine,
and
won't talk louder to suit you, particularly
if
they have several people in their room
who
can hear each other fine.
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• Probably it is best to begin by
explicitly
asking each other if you can hear
well.
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• Then, ask them to look at their monitor
that
shows your face(s): so you will know what
it
looks like when they are looking at you.
In
most setups, their eyes will not meet
yours,
but be looking downwards (cameras are
often
on top of the screens). You have to ask
what
"eye contact" will look like.
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• The person controlling the shots
probably
needs to have little else to do, so they
can
concentrate on what is wanted and how
to
operate the controls.
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• What the other end will want is both to
see
the room as a whole, and the speaker's
face
and reactions, and what the speaker
is
pointing to e.g. a slide on the visualiser.
This isn't possible.
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• Probably participants should
train
themselves to give feedback about being still
"there" explicitly. Just as on the phone
you
have to say "uh uh" more often than face to
face, so you probably need to do this on
video
conferences AND have the cameras show
all
bodies/faces periodically.
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• Similarly, probably we should get in
the
habit of explicitly asking them to change
the
camera shot ("show me what the others
are
doing now").
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