Video and shared whiteboards for cooperative problem solving

Abstract

The paper describes an experiment for evaluating how cooperative activity with a remote partner is affected by adding a video channel or a shared whiteboard to conventional audio communication. The result of the experiment showed subjects in the video conditions tended to trust their partner's opinions easily without discussing them sufficiently for both to reach a similar level of confidence, and completed tasks within the given time limit. Shared whiteboards did not speed up task completion, but lead to longer discussions.