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MDC Seeks the Latest Technologyby Art Smith |
Wow! I'm actually in my office when it's time to write a Questing column. Since I wrote the last column, the MDC has not met, and no earth-shaking developments have occurred, so I think I'm caught up on the news. What I want to do this time is ask you for help.
At the last meeting (September, 1998 in Seattle), the MDC voted to hold at least one meeting next year (1999) electronically, if suitable technology could be found. It was left up to the chairman (me) and the Executive Committee to determine what "suitable technology" might be. I've managed to come up with a list of features for such a product, with a ranking from necessary to window-dressing. What I'd like is to hear from you about software you've used or heard about that might meet our needs. Who knows-maybe this will even inspire one of you to produce a great product!!
In general, the features are listed in decreasing priority order, though the first three features (price, platform and throughput) are not "present" or "absent" features.
Price: Obviously, less is better here. Each member institution spends somewhere around $1,000 per meeting in airfare, hotel bills, meals, meeting fees, etc., sometimes more, sometimes less. A price of up to $1,000 per member institution is, therefore, worth considering, anyway.
Platform: On what computers does this technology run? PC's are available for most people. Some folks will want Macs (though probably relatively few M'sters). Unix boxes and VMS machines (VAXes and Alphas) would also be nice. What is the minimum speed/version, etc. required by the software? What special equipment is required (microphones, cameras, etc.)?
Throughput: If this software will work over a 14.4KB modem, just about everybody should be able to use it. If it requires ISDN or T1 connectivity, many people may be out of luck. Something in between seems reasonable.
Speaker Identity: Each "speaker" should have their identity show every time they speak. Anonymous comments are not appropriate in an MDC meeting.
Moderated Speaking: Ideally, the "chairman" of the meeting should have to grant permission for each person to speak. Individuals can send requests to the chairman, who then grants speaking permission (perhaps for a fixed period of time) to those who make requests. Requests should queue up as needed. Our members are used to this sort of parliamentary procedure, and it is occasionally necessary to prevent interminable discussions and sidetracks.
Document Download: In addition to providing the meeting forum, there should be a mechanism to download documents related to the meeting. This could be handled separately (with an FTP site), if necessary, but it would be nice if documents could be easily downloaded without leaving the meeting forum.
List of Participants: It is necessary to know who is present for the minutes and to determine if a quorum has been established. We could poll the known members, but it would be much easier if a list of current participants could be generated.
Transcription: A transcript of the session should be generated. This will be indispensible when it is time to prepare the minutes of the meeting. The transcript must identify the speaker as well as what is said. It should also include other information generated by the meeting software (whiteboard data, list of downloadable documents, voting results, etc.).
Controlled Membership: People should not get speaking privileges (at least) without permission of the chair. This is in keeping with the meeting rules laid out in the MDC Constitution. It is unlikely in the extreme that permission would be denied, but it must be controlled to retain continuity from meeting to meeting.
Whiteboard: This can take two forms. A "text only" board would be fine. This would be a separate window (or similar partition) on which one person at a time can write and which is displayed for everyone to see independent of the discussion. This is useful for displaying agendas, lists of pros and cons, straw polls, etc. In some software, the whiteboard allows graphics, which extends this to allow the "scribe" to draw pictures, too. Occasionally that is useful.
Whispering: This is where one participant can talk privately to another participant. These "whispers" are not sent to anyone else (including the chair) and are not part of the transcript. This is useful, but not critical.
Voting: If the meeting software allows people to vote easily, this could speed the process. If not, roll-call votes can be used. It would be nice to be able to do a quick "show of hands" vote, but this is not essential.
Audio: If people can speak into a microphone and be heard by everyone, as opposed to typing, it might be nice, if only to get inflection. Doing this would narrow the range of platforms and would eliminate such features as transcription, so it might be more of a loss than a gain.
Video: Like audio, it gives more of the feel of a real meeting, but at the expense of requiring more and costlier equipment and greater throughput. This is probably purely window-dressing.
So, what technology do you know of that matches this list of requirements? If you have some ideas, please send me some e-mail (Emergent@sockets.net) or call me (573-882-2666). Thanks in advance for your help!!
Art Smith chairs the MDC and is in charge of computer systems at the University of Missouri's Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Email: Emergent@sockets.net