Region 3 Newsletter Volume 15 Number 2

Page 4

September 2000

Region 3 e-Conferencing Experiences

Bill Ratcliff
w.ratcliff@ieee.org
Region 3 E-Conference Chair

For nearly 2 years now the seeds of electronic conferencing to support distributed / collaborative work efforts have been developing and growing into a new way of working together here in Region 3.  Electronic Conferencing (e-conf) is one of the elements in this transformation and therefore one of the subjects of this first issue of the Web Based Region 3 Newsletter. This goals of this article are to:

• Acquaint you of the status of e-conferencing
• Provide insight into the resources to get you connected
• Challenge you to get involved

Brief History (How did we get to this point? )

The cost of conducting face to face meetings and conferences is proving to be a limiting factor in many projects within IEEE, universities and some industries.  The results of the Region 3 e-Conferencing Project are very promising on filling that time gap between face to face meetings and making the face to face meeting more productive.

 The journey continues, but the following milestones have been achieved so far:

• The e-Conferencing Guideline version1 (released at Sections' Congress '99) was developed to provide a "road map" for IEEE entities that wish to get started in using e-Conferencing as an integral part of their communication process. In this first phase of the project, the Guideline concentrates on synchronous meeting tools and techniques that model face to face meetings. This Guideline goes far beyond just applying technology to the problem; rather, it provides a relatively complete solution involving tools, sound meeting methods and the experience of participants.
• On 29 January 2000, the Region 3 Executive Committee (Excom), with 31 members in attendance, conducted a business meeting utilizing the e-Conferencing Guideline. The members, located in their homes or offices throughout the southeastern US, were online for over 4 hours (two sessions of 2 hours). A full agenda including a "closed" executive session was successfully completed.
• The preparation for the Region 3 Meetings at SoutheastCon in Nashville (April 8-9, 2000) utilized e-conferencing to conduct an Excom Caucus on April 1, 2000.
• Region 3's Excom has dedicated one hour of each of its last two face to face meetings for specialized training of e-conferencing principles. This training, dubbed "E-conferencing 101 / 102", prepared the Excom members and many area, council, and section chairs for the electronic conferencing process.
• A CD ROM containing tools, guidelines, and other documents was handed out to attendees to assist those who did not wish to download these items from the Internet.

The next phases of the e-Conferencing Guideline development are underway. The goal is to add asynchronous meeting techniques (web, e-mail, newsgroup, etc.) to the mix of tools and techniques available. Region 3's Excom has voted to set up a dedicated experimental server to speed these efforts along.

Introductory sessions have been recently conducted ...

• Papers were delivered to JamCon 2000 and Professional Development Conference 2000 by Charles Lord with interest being expressed by IEEE volunteers around the world.
• A presentation to the IEEE Awards Board by David Green in May also sparked an interest with a follow up Training session being scheduled in late September.

The focus continues to be on making the current technological capability "friendly". The project itself is the product of collaboration using currently available electronic conferencing tools. The new users of the e-Conf Guideline will still have a learning curve to overcome but will be able to concentrate on conducting a meeting and not on developing the meeting tools and methodologies as well.

The design criteria includes:

• An emphasis on using currently available tools that can easily be installed and operated on the volunteer's computing platform.
• A phased development/deployment with ample opportunity for critique based on actual usage.
• Recommendations regarding automated tools will be developed based on those that have been actually used in the project.
• Continual release of revisions to the Guideline will be performed following extensive use internally in the project and external beta Testing.
• Since "one size will not fit all", the Guideline should contain more of what to do rather than a cookbook of how to do it.

The details of the project can be found on the web at https://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/3/e-conf . If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the members of the team by sending an email to r3-e-conf@ieee.org.

You are welcome to join the project at any point in time but the sooner you do the sooner you will reap the benefits. The most important thing you can do as a volunteer in Region 3 is climb aboard.

Midst the glamour of the tools and the glitz of the technology resides the collaborative work ethic that drives the volunteer based organization we know as IEEE. In other words...

"It ain't just the technology but the total methodology of how we work together that is important".

Preparation by: The Region 3 e-Conf Project Team.

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