Electronic Meeting Systems Research Articles

Effectiveness of Using the Meeting Systems in Council Chamber

Abstract In response to the development of electronic government (e-Government), the government and the legislative assembly have made organizational changes to serve the general public. Local councils have adopted full digital audiovisual meeting systems to address councilors’ need for political consultation services. In this study, we explore the actual use of meeting systems based on their main functions. We conducted in-depth interviews with eight councilors using questions designed according to 15 external constructs of the technology acceptance model 3 (TAM 3). The study findings indicated that for councilors who have used the system, their “behavioral intention to use” is mostly correlated with “computer self-efficacy” and “perception of external control” followed by “image.” After using the meeting system, the councilors validated the services. The findings reveal that “computer self-efficacy” and “perception of external control” are the two most important subconstructs that positively affect councilors’ use of the meeting system, followed by “perceived enjoyment” and “subjective norm.” This study provides recommendations based on the interviews on how to accommodate the new technology system, used for reference by manufacturers in marketing and enterprises when implementing the meeting system. JEL classification numbers: C52, H11, M15. Keywords: electronic meeting system (EMS), interactive video on demand (IVOD), technology acceptance model (TAM).

A STUDY OF TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION SYSTEM IN INDIAN MUSIC AND ROLE OF TEACHER

Present conceptual research paper based on technological education system in our Indian Music. Today, everyone enjoys the convenience of technological devices such as cell phones, computers, i-pads, i-pods, notebooks, and faxes etc. which allow us to communicate globally within seconds. However, internet is the most popular form of communication at present in society due to its ability to interact globally from any location. The internet has changed broadcasts media in a most intriguing way. It has enabled everyone to create produce and share ones opinions, music, videos, thoughts etc. Technology should, however, not become the master; it should rather serve as a servant. Formerly known as IIMP, Music Database covers a broad cross-section of music periodical sources, from the most scholarly studies to the latest trends, including classical music, pop and popular music, rock, rap and hip-hop, blues, jazz, traditional and folk music, world music, music equipment and technology, recording techniques and technology, and the music, radio, and music video industries. On-line Conferencing Systems, sometimes referred to as Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS), are Internet-based services offering a virtual environment for real-time remote meetings between geographically dispersed participants. EMS are part of the broader field of Collaborative Internet Systems that encompasses the use of computers and Web technologies to support coordination and cooperation of two or more people attempting to perform a task or solve a problem together. The musical communication is the process of imparting/interchanging of thoughts and opinions through various Medias e.g. textual, audio, video, images etc. Communication is a constant process thought our lives both professionally and personally. The most important part of the internet is that it has made all these mediums readily available twenty four hours as long as one has internet connection. It seems to be taking over broadcast media in term of popularity and effective communication. The present paper focused on the study of Role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Indian Music and Role of Teacher with prime objectives are (i) To understand the concept of ICT and Music in Education. (ii) To discuss the Role of Teacher in ICT Music in Education. (iii) To discuss the Self-Learning Resources (SLR) related to Musical Education. The methodology of the research is a different type involving an interpretative, conversation, observation and study secondary sources, like books, articles, journals, thesis, university news, expert opinion, and websites, etc.

Integrating care for individuals with FASD: results from a multi-stakeholder symposium.

BackgroundFetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has a significant impact on communities and systems such as health, education, justice and social services. FASD is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder that results in permanent disabilities and associated service needs that change across affected individuals’ lifespans. There is a degree of interdependency among medical and non-medical providers across these systems that do not frequently meet or plan a coordinated continuum of care. Improving overall care integration will increase provider-specific and system capacity, satisfaction, quality of life and outcomes.MethodsWe conducted a consensus generating symposium comprised of 60 experts from different stakeholder groups: Allied & Mental Health, Education, First Nations & Métis Health, Advocates, Primary Care, Government Health Policy, Regional FASD Coordinators, Social Services, and Youth Justice. Research questions addressed barriers and solutions to integration across systems and group-specific and system-wide research priorities. Solutions and consensus on prioritized lists were generated by combining the Electronic Meeting System approach with a modified ‘Nominal Group Technique’.ResultsFASD capacity (e.g., training, education, awareness) needs to be increased in both medical and non-medical providers. Outcomes and integration will be improved by implementing: multidisciplinary primary care group practice models, FASD system navigators/advocates, and patient centred medical homes. Electronic medical records that are accessible to multiple medical and non-medical providers are a key tool to enhancing integration and quality. Eligibility criteria for services are a main barrier to integration across systems. There is a need for culturally and community-specific approaches for First Nations communities.ConclusionsThere is a need to better integrate care for individuals and families living with FASD. Primary Care is well positioned to play a central and important role in facilitating and supporting increased integration. Research is needed to better address best practices (e.g., interventions, supports and programs) and long-term individual and family outcomes following a diagnosis of FASD.

The Effect of Comment Errors in Multilingual Electronic Meetings

INTRODUCTION The language barrier is a major source of frustration, dissatisfaction, and friction among employees in many multinational organizations (Neal, 1998; Tung & Quaddus, 2002). In an attempt to overcome this communication problem, many multinational companies are increasingly adopting English as a lingua franca (Piekkari, Vaara, Tienari, & Santii, 2005). However, some employees might not be sufficiently skilled in the chosen language to communicate well (Charles & Marschan-Piekkari, 2002; Kim & Bonk, 2002), and those who lack language skills might not be invited to attend key meetings (Louhiala-Salminen, Charles, & Kankaanranta, 2005). Human interpretation can be used as an alternate solution, but it is often expensive or unavailable. In addition, participants in oral meetings must take turns speaking, reducing the amount of individual air time (Karahanna, Ahuja, Srite, & Galvin, 2002). On the other hand, electronic meetings with automatic translation of typed comments can be more efficient and effective (Fugen, Waibel, & Kolss, 2007), and prior studies have shown that comprehension can be relatively good (Aiken, 2008). When poor translation results occurred, these were sometimes attributed to spelling and grammatical errors in the source comments (e.g., Aiken, Martin, Paolillo, & Shirani, 1994), but no study has investigated the relationships among text errors, individual comprehension, ease of use, and system usefulness. From a practical perspective, it is important to know the extent that text errors affect ultimate translation comprehension, and from a theoretical perspective, this research will increase our understanding of the complex relationships among these selected variables. First, we review prior studies of text errors in electronic communication and then describe a recently developed meeting system capable of translating among 58 different languages. Next, we present a model of language intermediation to develop hypotheses relating to textual errors, and an experiment with the multilingual meeting system is performed to test these hypotheses. The paper concludes with experiment limitations and directions for future research. LITERATURE REVIEW Text Errors in Electronic Communication Most people make spelling errors while typing, even when trying to be accurate, and word error rates have varied based upon skill, text difficulty, and time constraints from 2.5% (Mitton, 1996) to 4.75% (Park, 2008). With electronic mail and especially instant messaging, errors can occur much more often as these forms of communication tend to be more informal and hurried, and there might be less concern for accuracy (Bloch, 2002; Jacobs, 2008; Wang & Chang, 1997). For example, one study of email messages showed that narrative sentences contained 2.4% grammatical errors, informative sentences averaged 2.9%, persuasive sentences averaged 3.4%, and expressive sentences averaged 3.5% (Li, 2000). Electronic meetings are also characterized by informal communication, and one study showed about 6% spelling and grammatical errors (Rebman, Aiken, & Cegielski, 2003) while another showed 8.9% (Park, Aiken, Lindblom, & Vanjani, 2010). Misspellings and poor grammar might not cause comprehension to decline much when a single language is used in a meeting, but these errors could compound when translation is involved in a multilingual discussion. An Example Multilingual Electronic Meeting System Multilingual, electronic meeting systems over the past 20 years have supported a few languages (Aiken, 2008), but a recently developed system called Polyglot provides translations among 58 different languages in 3,306 combinations (Aiken & Ghosh, 2009). In addition to the wide variety of languages supported, the accuracy appears to be fairly good overall, but some language combinations are better than others. An automatic evaluation of a subset of the languages used in this meeting system resulted in the BLEU score (0 to 100) averages in Table 1, organized by language group (Aiken & Balan, 2011). …

The Temporal Dimension of Electronic Meetings: A Study of Synchronous and Asynchronous Idea Generation

INTRODUCTION Some have estimated that managers spend over 60% of their working hours participating in meetings (Tobia & Becker, 1990), and the purpose of these sessions is often accomplished only 50% of the time (LaPlante, 1993). Electronic meeting systems (EMS), otherwise known as group support systems (GSS), can improve the productivity of many meetings involving large groups sharing information (Travica, 2005), and studies have shown that meeting time can be reduced up to 56% of (Grohowski, et al., 1990) and overall project time by up to 71% (Martz, et al., 1992). However, prior GSS research has been conducted mostly on synchronous, face-to-face groups, and other meeting environments have been generally overlooked (Baltes et al., 2002). For example, from 1982 to 1996, 60% of 164 studies were conducted using a face-to-face decision room environment, while less than 20% focused on geographically-dispersed, asynchronous meetings (Fjermestad & Hiltz, 1997). In addition, globalization has increased the need for meetings that can span time-zones and geographic distance (Bandow, 2001; Gibson, et al., 2008). Distributed, asynchronous electronic meetings allow participants to share information and make decisions irrespective of physical and time barriers (Berge, 1997; Hung et al., 2008; Kraut, 1994), and organizations could be wasting huge amounts of money on travel and accommodations for face-to-face meetings that could be conducted asynchronously. (Dowling & St. Louis, 2000). The purpose of this study is to investigate the possible differences between synchronous and asynchronous meetings. First, we discuss prior research on non-synchronous electronic environments and then present the results of an experiment comparing the two settings. Results show that asynchronous meetings might be able to replace more typical decision-room discussions in many situations. SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS COMPARISON STUDIES In a study comparing traditional, face-to-face, oral with asynchronous, electronic groups (Ocker, et al., 1996), the latter reported less social pressure and greater participation equality. With less social pressure and more participation equality, asynchronous participants were able to produce more total comments and more quality comments. Further, asynchronous technologies can reduce the need for an individual to be sociable in order to meet and correspond in a meaningful way with other users, and this can increase productivity (Pendergast & Hayne, 1999). Asynchronous, electronic groups can also provide a higher quality of resolution (Benbunan-Fich & Hiltz, 1999) and present a more complete summary report of the meeting (Benbunan-Fich et al., 2002). However, another study (Warkentin et al., 2007) found that asynchronous groups did not outperform face-to-face teams under otherwise comparable circumstances, and face-to-face groups reported higher levels of satisfaction. Comparisons between synchronous and asynchronous electronic meetings have also had conflicting results. One study (Shirani, et al., 1999) found that asynchronous groups performed a deeper problem analysis, but the synchronous participants generated more comments. Asynchronous groups might make decisions more slowly (Gallupe & McKeen, 1990), but in many other respects (e.g., cohesiveness, participation, and process satisfaction), no differences were found (Burke & Chidambaram, 1995; Smith & Vanecek, 1990; Watson, et al., 1988). However, it is not clear which environment provides more ideas, greater member satisfaction, or better final decisions (Lowry, 2002; Ngwenya & Keim, 2001; Ocker & Morand, 2002; Sedbrook, 2010; Tung & 1998). THEORETICAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES Prior research has had some conflicting results, and a wide variety of technologies were used (e.g., electronic mail, bulletin boards, and chat rooms) for the asynchronous treatment. …

A Cross-Regional Exploration of Barriers to the Adoption and Use of Electronic Meeting Systems

Electronic Meeting Systems (EMS) are intended to support group collaboration in completing tasks. While there have been many case studies and laboratory experiments on how EMS can support group tasks, large scale macro investigations exploring EMS adoption and use have been practically non-existent. Furthermore, while several barriers to EMS adoption and use have been suggested, their validation across organizations remains unexplored. We undertook a global initiative to explore information technology support for task-oriented collaboration in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, and Norway. In this paper, we focus specifically on assessing the adoption and use of EMS, and barriers to their adoption and use in organizations across the four regions. Our results suggest that EMS currently have limited adoption and are used infrequently across all the four regions. A further investigation into barriers to EMS adoption and use suggests that significant numbers of respondents do agree with a list of fourteen suggested barriers. However, while there is significant agreement between two countries (US & Australia) over how these barriers are ranked, there is no significant agreement between the remaining pairs of countries. Implications of our findings are discussed for practitioners and researchers.

Leadership Style, Anonymity, and the Discussion of an Ethical Issue in an Electronic Context

A laboratory experiment was conducted with 42 student groups to evaluate the effects of transactional vs. transformational leadership styles and anonymity when groups supported by an Electronic Meeting System (EMS) discussed the ethical issue of copying copyrighted software. A confederate leader displayed either transformational or transactional behaviors. Transformational leaders motivate effort by raising the awareness of followers to make them aspire to higher-order needs and values and by developing them to fulfill their aspirations. Transactional leaders motivate effort by highlighting the contractual exchange involved in a relationship. Participants working with a transformational confederate were more likely to make arguments that challenged the copying of copyrighted software than those working with one who was more transactional. These arguments, in turn, caused groups exposed to such arguments to have greater deviation among its members in intentions to copy the software. Participants working with a transactional confederate were more likely to make arguments in favor of copying copyrighted software. These arguments, in turn, caused groups exposed to such arguments to have a greater mean of intentions to copy the software. Implications for practice and future research on ethics and leadership in the electronic context are discussed.

Impact of an Electronic Meeting System on the Group Decision-Making Process

Traditional face-to-face meetings are effective for many meeting formats; however, there are occasions when communication needs to be conducted in a more open, anonymous style. When the discussion centers on controversial and/or emotional issues, such as curriculum planning, the need for a nontraditional style may even be greater. Our nursing program decided to utilize a new campus resource called the Group Decision Center to facilitate undergraduate curriculum planning. The Group Decision Center is an electronic meeting system in which the discussion takes place in a face-to-face electronic format. The advantages of an electronic meeting system format include participant anonymity, equal and increased participation by group members, increased productivity and efficiency, automated record keeping, group synergy, and a more structured meeting. The disadvantages include the potential for inappropriate or hostile conversations, loss of acknowledgment for individual idea generation, breakdown of linear conversation, and lack of the nonverbal communication that often influences the meaning within a traditional conversation. The process of developing, planning, and participating in the electronic meeting and the automated record are discussed.

Adoption and Use of Electronic Meeting Systems in Large Australian and New Zealand Organizations

As globalization increases and competition grows, firms are becoming increasingly dependent upon group work and collaboration. The recent surge of reengineering efforts to reinforce a process view of organizational work and the emergence of virtual corporations spanning the globe indicate that firms are relying more on group work today than ever before. Information technology (IT) may have the capability to greatly enhance the quality of collaboration in accomplishing group tasks. This paper focuses on electronic meeting systems (EMS), which are mostly aimed at supporting group work in a face-to-face setting, and empirically assesses their adoption and use in supporting task-oriented collaborative work in Australian and New Zealand organizations. Results from survey data collected from 147 organizations indicate that EMS adoption has been somewhat limited. Most organizations had not adopted EMS to support group work. Further, both the level of adoption and level of use of EMS within the organizations was very low. Barriers to adoption were identified along with implications for future research. Organizational barriers, including compatibility with cognitive styles, lack of incentives and resistance to change, were the most important adoption obstacles. Technological and costs issues were somewhat less significant. Overall, the findings are fairly similar to the US study on which the survey instrument was based, though some adoption differences occurred which may be related to the structure and ownership of the organizations.

Effects of leadership style, anonymity, and rewards on creativity-relevant processes and outcomes in an electronic meeting system context

Thirty-nine student groups participated in a laboratory experiment conducted to study the effects of leadership style (transactional vs. transformational), anonymity (identified vs. anonymous interaction), and rewards (individual vs. group) on creativity-relevant group processes and outcomes in two decision-making tasks supported by an electronic meeting system (EMS). Evidence for social loafing was observed, i.e., anonymity led to lower participation and cooperation in the group rewards condition relative to the individual rewards condition. Further analysis revealed that social loafing was confined to the transactional leadership condition. Corresponding to the social loafing effect, anonymity led to lower group efficacy and satisfaction with the task and higher originality of solutions in the group rewards condition relative to the individual rewards condition. Transactional leadership was associated with greater group efficacy and solution originality than transformational leadership. Anonymity moderated the effects of leadership on group efficacy and satisfaction with the task; transactional leadership was associated with higher group efficacy and satisfaction with the task in the identified condition only.

GroupWare and group decision support systems for wood procurement organisation. A review

Many kinds of decision support systems (DSSs) have been suggested for use of wood procurement organisations, but few meet the real needs of team managers in group decision-making process. Therefore, it has been concluded that the important features of group decision support systems (GDSSs) should be developed for teamwork-based organisations. Electronic meeting systems (EMSs), Computer-aided Visualisations (CAVs) and heuristics as well as other numerical approaches as combined with optimisation seem to be some of the most promising elements of GroupWare, because decisions are made in distributed groups and they deal with human behaviour. Relations between GDSSs and spontaneous decision conferencing (SDC) for modern organisations are also discussed, and suggestions for future research of management approaches are also given.

SPeCS - a spatial decision support collaborative system for environment design

The integration of geographic information systems (GIS), electronic meeting systems (EMS), and workflow concepts, introduces a new approach called SPeCS. Our system intends to support the aspects of multi-criteria spatial analysis within a distributed GIS with tools that can help a group to cope with their activities in this kind of project. It should aid design team members with coordination features that can vary from workflow facilities to tools that can help them achieve resoulutions which shall represent the consensus in a decision-marking process. This work presents a prototype that explores coordination in a spatial collaborative system and supports the geo-referencing of the arguments produced by the discussion involving the members of the design team. The main task of these groups is to produce a proposal for environmental preservations or changes taking into account socio-economic, climate and soil aspects.

Facilitation Methods for Collaborative Modeling Tools

This paper presents results of an ongoing research effort to support effective user involvement during modeling and analysis meetings. Productivity and user participation of traditional group meetings have been limited by chauffeured facilitation and single-user tools. These tools have been designed to be used by analysts rather than for direct use by non-analyst users. Recently, electronic meeting systems (EMS) modeling tools that allow users to work in parallel to contribute directly during meetings have been developed. Such tools allow more domain experts to participate directly and productively during model development meetings than is possible using the traditional approach. Although previous research has demonstrated that EMS modeling tools may be used to develop some model content, little research had been done on collaborative facilitation methods that support these tools. This paper presents a comparison of modeling approaches for use with EMS modeling tools and proposes an approach that overcomes significant problems inherent in other approaches. It leverages the productivity enhancement afforded by direct group access and still results in production of complete, integrated, high quality models. This approach allows models to be developed two to four times faster than with traditional modeling support and yet avoids model ambiguities and inconsistencies.

A Literary Examination of Electronic Meeting System Use in Everyday Organizational Life

This article is based on imagining the widespread daily use of electronic meeting systems (EMS) technology in organizations. Three famous meetings from popular literature—the Mad Tea Party, Twelve Angry Men, and the Last Supper—are used as case studies to illustrate dynamics common in organizational groups. The implications of technology use for the management of these dynamics is discussed, and suggestions are offered for an agenda and new metaphors to guide the next generation of EMS research.

“Got COCA?” A new perspective in building electronic meeting systems

In a previous paper[11], we presented COCA (Collaborative Objects Coordination Architecture) as a generic framework for developing collaborative systems. COCA advocates separation of coordination policies from general-purpose computations in collaborative systems so that the former can be modeled in a high-level specification language. Reuse of both coordination policies and collaboration tools can be achieved.This paper overviews the COCA model and focuses on the application of COCA in building real-life systems. We prototyped a modest set of tools for electronic meeting systems (EMSs) to show how they can be used to support both unstructured and structured meetings, with only changes in the coordination policies and no changes to the tools themselves. A subset of Robert's Rules of Order[21] was formalized and specified as an example of control of formal structured meetings. Finally the current status and the future directions are summarized.

Group Work and Electronic Meeting Systems: From Boardroom to Classroom

In the business community, collaborative efforts of work teams have led to a dramatic increase in the number of group meetings. Business managers, seek ing more efficient and effective methods of managing diverse contributions, have increasingly used information technology to supportgroup work. The same need to improve group communication is relevant to today's classroom, where new technologies can transform the classroom from a traditional instructor-centered environment to a student-centered environment where stu dents actively participate in intellectual discourse. Results from field and labo ratory studies about business usage of electronic meeting systems (EMS) can be applied to the classroom setting. We offer an overview of available tools and suggest some classroom activities. EMS-supported courses provide many new opportunities to foster learning. Students participate, participate more equally, and report a highly satisfying experience.

The electronic meeting system and case study method for school principal preparation

The ambiguous nature of the school environment requires principals to have leadership skills that focus on the purpose of school. Case studies are being used more often as an instructional method in the preparation of school administrators because they encourage the development of critical thinking skills and develop systematic problem solving skills needed for the good school administrator. This study showed a very different result in both the identification of the problem and the solution over the traditional case study method when using an Electronic Meeting System (EMS). The results have implications for school administrator preparation programs.

Effects of Source and Participant Anonymity and Difference in Initial Opinions in an EMS Context*

ABSTRACTThis laboratory experiment studied the effects of source and participant anonymity, and differences in initial opinions in an electronic meeting system (EMS) context. Results indicated that (a) inhibition to participate did not mediate the effect of anonymity on participation as suggested in prior deindividuation and EMS literature; and (b) the effect of anonymity on participation, satisfaction, and postdiscussion agreement depended on the level and type of anonymity involved and whether initial opinions among group members were similar or different. A mechanism that suggests that anonymity may cause participants to focus more on their task by turning attention away from other participants partly accounts for the effects of source and participant anonymity on participation in this study. Future work should focus on determining how different types and levels of anonymity influence process and outcomes in different types of groups.

Electronic Meetings and Intense Group Conflict: Effects of a Policy-Modeling Performance Support System and an Audio Communication Support System on Satisfaction and Agreement

Ad-hoc decision teams were used to examine the effects of an electronic meeting system (EMS) on group satisfaction and agreement. The decision task provoked intense conflict of values. The EMS had two core features - a policy-modeling group performance support system (incorporating structured decision methods and computer-supported cognitive feedback using Multi-Attribute Utility Analysis and Social Judgment Analysis), and an audio-based group communication support system (allowed dispersed members to communicate by voice). Policy groups reached higher agreement than conventional decision-making groups, apparently due primarily to the structure for cognitive-conflict tasks that was imposed on group discussion rather than computer-supported cognitive feedback displays. Audio groups were more satisfied with the conflict process than face-to-face groups. Decision agreement was equivalent across the two media. These audio effects for a highly equivocal task represent a further challenge to media richness theory.

Supporting Inspections with an Electronic Meeting System

:Fagan inspections are a structured review of development documents that consists of individual preparation, a meeting, and rework by the author of the document. The meeting is used to log the defects found in preparation and to search for more defects. The effectiveness and efficiency of the meeting are typically low compared with those of preparation. This paper describes the use of an electronic meeting system (EMS) to support the logging meeting of a total of fourteen electronic inspections in Philips Medical Systems and Baan Company. The results indicate that the electronic logging meeting contributed much more to the overall result of the inspection than was the case in a traditional inspection. The results have implications for both software inspections and EMS. The implications for EMS discussed in this paper are opportunities for the use of EMS in routine meetings, increased use of meeting metrics, and the benefits of fixed-format input in an EMS.