[Teleconference 98: Conference Tools ]

Discussion Help

Commenting, Discussions & Following the Debate

Page Contents
Introduction

The WebBoard Discussion Facility

Full Help on WebBoard

Searching the Discussions

Email: The Fail Safe Fallback

Organizing Poster Sessions

Introduction

The 1998 ZeroEms II conference has been organized so as to be able to deal with one of the main criticisms that was leveled at the 1997 pilot project, namely its rather difficult and awkward "discussion facility" (see the meeting's CyberConfernce and the early discussions concerning it. In a phrase, the complaint was that active participation in the discussions required more time and computer competence than most of the participants cared to give to it.

The response in fact was quite varied. Those more familiar with the Net had no difficulty in accessing and participating in the discussions. However, the complexity of entry held many back, including a number of our more senior colleagues less accustomed to working under these new and often admittedly rather rough conditions, to the detriment of the meeting as a whole. So, this time we knew that we needed something that was going to be a great deal more immediate and transparent in its use, so that we could get everybody aboard and comfortable with our discussion space. To this end, we have created a two step facility for comment and discussion within this conference which will be quickly introduced here. You will see. It is simple and easy to use.

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Throughout the conference, whenever you are viewing text or content you will now be able to add your comments and observations with a single click. The key here is the Discussions tag on the navigation bar to your immediate left. Clicking this will bring you directly to the conference discussion area that has been developed to serve the meeting as a whole. Think of it as the main entry hall to the meeting as a whole, with the discussion going on in different rooms which are marked and open for you to visit as you wish.

When you click on the discussion hot link, here is what happens, in order: A second window opens up bringing you to the entry page of the WebBoard discussion facility, You now have two windows open - one for following the conference and reading as you wish, the second for adding your comments, posing questions, making observations, and/or inserting a paper or piece of your own that you feel will enhance the level of the exchanges on the topic you have decided to address.

As you will note, the use of this conference tool requires that you 'sign in' the first time around -- if you have not already done so as part of the initial registration. You will find the entry routine is really quite clearly explained, and you really should have no difficulty with it. Once you have gone in the first time and assigned yourself a password, you will come into the general entry, where you will note that the organization into the conference tracks and within them the various sessions is scrupulously respected. It should thus have a familiar, reassuring feel to it. Once there, you may either wander around the meeting as a whole to get an idea of what is happening throughout, or if you wish you can zero in on the tracks and sessions that are of particular interest to you. In future visits, you will be ale to come directly into the 'front hall' without having to repeat that painful sign in. That said, it really is no more complex or time consuming than what we normally face when we enter any larger conventional conference for the first time.

You will also find it instructive to "wander around" the discussion areas, in particular of course in the tracks that are of particular interest to you. Let us consider an example by way of quick illustration. At you move around the exchanges on the telework track, if you happen to notice that someone is already addressing that paper or point you have in mind (say, Patricia Mokhtarian's fine piece in the Telework: Pros and Cons Session), you can simply click the indicated item (also known as a "thread") and add your comment right there. If alternatively you wish to take off on another angle in the discussions (say for example that no one has yet addressed the thorny issue of labor union attitudes, well you would then simply "start a new thread", call it something like "labor union attitudes" and let fire. Once you have done that, you may wish to check out that page from time to time to see what, if any response, your point has gotten. This re-visiting process will involve the exact same steps as above.

It is that simple. If you need further information on this, we will shortly be providing more detailed guidance here on this page. For now you may wish to try it, even leaving a comment or question your first time around. If you want an example of how it works, have a look at the exchanges that are currently unfolding in the Telework Track under 7 Questions. That should help clarify things a bit. If it's a question that needs our help, your organizers will have a look and try to get back to you quickly with something useful on it.

You may find it useful to down load here a copy of the full html Help file for the Board, which you ca do right here: Down Load WebBoard Help Here.

Searching the Discussions

The conference's WebBoard also offers some handy Search Functions. This means that you will be able to go in and search the databases (since that of course is what these end up as being) for specific names of phrases, which of course becomes especially handy when the volume of the debates expands beyond the point where just manual nosing around will suffice. Again, the Search function in both cases is pretty intuitive, and is backed up by full explanations via the Help desks.

Should you lose your bearings, or if alternatively you have had enough of the discussion and wish to return to the meeting, it will suffice simply to hit the Return to Teleconferencing 98 link to your left. That will bring you right back to where you started... our get-together right here.

Should for some reason you find the above somewhat daunting, we have also made provision to that you can share your comments and ideas with the meeting, via a single click of the e-mail icon at the top of the page. This will call up the familiar e-mail box which you can then use to note your comments with no more ado. The advantage of this approach for you is its speed and simplicity. (A disadvantage to us, though, is that we have to go into the discussion areas later and manually insert your text. But no bother for now.) The short-coming in this from your point of view however is that while you can thus make your comments, you will not be able to see what kind of reaction they get until you engage one or the other of the discussion links. Still, you may wish to start with just emailing, and then once the conference has proven its interest and you have become more familiar with its workings, you jay chose to switch to one of the more powerful tools.

Email as backup: Sometimes when the Net slows down to a crawl (toward the latter part of the weekday and early evening in Europe), you may find it slow going over in the WebBoard. It is here where the direct email shoot will be a real convenience. If you get stuck, try it.

A final note on email - and that is to recall that it is of course the best route for more private communications. So, if you have something that you feel the others need not be troubled with, please make use of the e-mail icon, and just to be sure you may also wish to note that the message is not intended for more general distribution.

Want to set up your own informal real time conference? You can do that right here via the same TeleConference WebBoard that we are using for the discussions. Full instructions are available the top navigation panel of the Board. You can create "real-time virtual communities" in this way in which you can exchange information, questions, issues, and concerns with fellow users in your conference chat rooms. You can also include images and active links in your messages. (Note: To use the chat feature you must be using a JavaScript enabled browser such as Netscape Navigator 3.0 (or higher) or Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or higher.)

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That then completes this orientation of the ways in which we are trying to make this into a truly interactive meeting - albeit given the constraints of both technology on the one hand, and us as human beings with habits and at times real problems with making use of the technologies and mechanisms that are already before us. You may have comments or questions on this which you will want to share with the organizers or the meeting as a whole. If so, we invite you to move up to the icons just above, take your pick, and let it go.

Continue orientation tour: Tools for Tyros