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Web Conferencing Tools and Applications: Are they Ready for Us?

with guest experts Mary Trauner of Georgia Tech and Stephanie Franks-Downs of ConferZone.com�

October 24, 2002

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Transcript

What's in between full-scale satellite teleconferencing and conference phone calls? Do you use some combination of Instant Messenger and conference calling to approximate real-time Web conferencing? Would you like to? Is there a need? Is the technology ready for us? Can we afford it? Is anyone doing it right? Our interview focused on the elements you need to consider when thinking about utilizing Web conferencing. Here is a useful document which lists the things you should consider.

Howard Strauss and Judith Boettcher quizzed our distinguished guest experts - and asked your questions, emailed in ahead of time and during the Tech Talk, to expert@cren.net.

Guest Experts

mtraunerMary Trauner is a Senior Research Scientist in High Performance Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She is also a founding member of ViDe and co-editor as well as a significant contributor to the ViDe Video Conferencing Cookbook. She is a member of the Internet2 Commons management team and served as a steering committee member and institutional lead with ViDe's former LSVNP project (Large Scale Video Network Prototype.) Mary's "real job" has been to lead a small team of scientists and engineers in the development of a support infrastructure for high performance computing at Georgia Tech. An atmospheric scientist herself, she has worked to port several large applications to these systems. Since the emergence of Internet2, Mary has acted as Georgia Tech's Internet2 Application Liaison and increased her activities in the application of advanced networks to the solution of large-scale problems. Therein lies much of her interest in digital video - in an educational support role for digital video conferencing, application sharing and data collaboration that can support scientific and engineering applications.

sfranks-downsStephanie Franks-Downs is a marketing professional offering a broad range of strategic and tactical experience, including extensive work in virtual event management and marketing. She has developed and managed marketing and event plans for large, national corporations, helping them strengthen or establish positioning, increase awareness and ultimately increase sales and revenue. Stephanie founded ConferZone.com in 2000 to provide comprehensive, objective content to businesses so that they can make educated and sound decisions when purchasing e-conferencing services or products.

Co-Hosts

cohosts Howard Strauss (above, left), Manager of Technology, Strategy, and Outreach at Princeton University, is Tech Talk's Technology Anchor.
Judith Boettcher is CREN's Executive Director.

Together, Judith and Howard will ask the really tough questions—and relay the questions you email to them at expert@cren.net.

Background & Resources

Here is a useful document from Judy Brown, of the University of Wisconsin, which lists the things you should consider when thinking about Web conferencing tools.

ConferZone is "an objective e-conferencing resource covering Web conferencing, video conferencing, audio conferencing and collaborative conferencing." Sign up now for ConferZine, a free e-mail newsletter that provides subscribers with e-conferencing updates, interviews and commentary—a dose of insight and information on this rapidly evolving industry. For more and to sign up, click here

The TLT Group has been working for some time on low-cost, easy technology solutions that relate to Web conferencing. Of special interest are its projects in the area of Low Threshold Applications.

Some more useful resources:

How do virtual collaborative groups differ from face to face groups. Here is a report on some research at California State University-Hayward. Is your campus doing special things with Web conferencing?