Web Conference Research Articles

As simple as pressing a button? A review of the literature on BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton is an open source virtual classroom software. Since this software was released in 2009, many studies have explored how to use it, especially for e-learning. However, to date, there is no published systematic synthesis of the relevant literature on the subject. This literature review appraises the effectiveness of BigBlueButton in educational settings and pulls relevant pieces of information together into a readable format. The main conclusion is that BigBlueButton is intuitive, interoperable with other software and has the potential to positively affect the learning performance of students. Despite the features and functionalities of BigBlueButton, several limitations are apparent: web conference educators have less control over online teaching compared with their face-to-face counterparts, practical subjects are difficult to teach through web conferencing, technical challenges may affect web-conferencing sessions, web conferencing requires skills additional to those of conventional teaching, cultural differences may affect students’ attitudes towards web conference–based learning and educators that teach through web conferencing may feel isolated in their role, both geographically and collegially. By reviewing the features, potential impacts and limitations of BigBlueButton, this study contributes to the growing literature on web conferencing systems and provides insights into the role of BigBlueButton in e-learning.

Преимущества и недостатки цифровизации гражданского, административного и арбитражного процесса

The purpose of this study is to identify positive and negative digital changes that have affected the activities of judges and other persons involved in the case, within the framework of the trial. Research objectives: to study the prerequisites for the emergence of web conferences as a form of litigation; consideration of the main problems that arise in practice in the framework of electronic record keeping and legal proceedings; analysis of positive legislative innovations in the field of digitalization. We use general scientific methods (dialectical, logical, systemic), private scientific methods (historical, statistical, sociological), as well as special legal methods (comparative legal, formal legal). We review the main changes that have appeared in the procedural codes since January 1, 2022. We draw attention to the absence of legislative deadlines for filing a petition to participate in a court session through the use of the web conference system. We make a distinction between web conferencing and video conferencing. We conclude that it is impossible to fully comply with the procedural form within the framework of an online meeting. This is due to the requirements for the procedure for conducting a trial, including in terms of giving evidence and explanations. We note that there is a failure to comply with certain procedural principles in the application of the system of online meetings, namely the principle of publicity, competitiveness and equality of the parties. We indicate the main advantages of digitalization, which include: the emergence of a new way to submit documents through the use of the public services portal, similar opportunities for obtaining final court decisions, as well as electronic notification of the court session date.

Questions of the use of videoconferencing and web conferences in civil proceedings

Questions of the use of videoconferencing and web conferences in civil proceedings

A Report on the Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Web Conference in the Pre-discharge Phase for Heart Failure Patients

A Report on the Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Web Conference in the Pre-discharge Phase for Heart Failure Patients

TSA-SCC: Text Semantic-Aware Screen Content Coding With Ultra Low Bitrate.

Due to the rapid growth of web conferences, remote screen sharing, and online games, screen content has become an important type of internet media information and over 90% of online media interactions are screen based. Meanwhile, as the main component in the screen content, textual information averagely takes up over 40% of the whole image on various commonly used screen content datasets. However, it is difficult to compress the textual information by using the traditional coding schemes as HEVC, which assumes strong spatial and temporal correlations within the image/video. State-of-the-art screen content coding (SCC) standard as HEVC-SCC still adopts a block-based coding framework and does not consider the text semantics for compression, thus inevitably blurring texts at a lower bitrate. In this paper, we propose a general text semantic-aware screen content coding scheme (TSA-SCC) for ultra low bitrate setting. This method detects the abrupt picture in a screen content video (or image), recognizes textual information (including word, position, font type, font size and font color) in the abrupt picture based on neural networks, and encodes texts with text coding tools. The other pictures as well as the background image after removing texts from the abrupt picture via inpainting, are encoded with HEVC-SCC. Compared with HEVC-SCC, the proposed method TSA-SCC reduces bitrate by up to 3× at a similar compression quality. Moreover, TSA-SCC achieves much better visual quality with less bitrate consumption when encoding the screen content video/image at ultra low bitrates.

Faculty readiness for a digital education model: A self-assessment from health sciences educators

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the continuity of education across the world is being supported through e-learning. Healthcare programs especially, require continuing patient-centered training to benefit individuals and society. The objective of this study was to assess the faculty members’ skills to continue educational services through a digital education model at the beginning of the lockdown. The methodology consisted in a quantitative approach descriptive and cross-sectional design. The instrument was a survey with two sections: (1) self-assessment and (2) self-ranking based on the digital education model. The results for 497 participants indicated higher scores on active learning and web conference digital skills. Evaluation is still a competence required to be reinforced by the faculty to incorporate a full transition into online learning. There seems to be an agreement about faculty readiness to implement different active learning strategies, despite being in a distance education model. Implications for practice: University leaders welcomed the self-assessment that faculty members performed on digital skills as it allowed them to adapt the training programs and designate staff teams to support the educators once classes restarted. Educators implementing a digital education model should consider a planned and structured educational solution that is beyond the distance between learners and teachers, but an engaging environment for learning incorporating different technologies and active pedagogies.

Rabies mortality and morbidity associated with animal bites in Africa: a case for integrated rabies disease surveillance, prevention and control: a scoping review

ObjectiveThe objective of this scoping review was to map the current situation and available evidence and gaps on rabies morbidity, mortality, integrated rabies surveillance programmes, and existing prevention and control...

New trends in scientific knowledge graphs and research impact assessment

New trends in scientific knowledge graphs and research impact assessment

Report on the 11th international workshop on location and the web (LocWeb 2021) and the 11th temporal web analytics workshop (TempWeb2021) at WWW2021

LocWeb and TempWeb 2021 were the eleventh events in their workshop series and took place co-located on 12 th April 2021 in conjunction with The Web Conference WWW 2021. They were intended to be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia as a potentially hybrid event, but due to the pandemic, were fully moved online. LocWeb and TempWeb were held as one colocated session with a merged programme and shared topics to explore similarities and introduce attendees to the two related and complementary areas. LocWeb 2021 explored the intersection of location-based analytics and Web architecture with a focus on on Web-scale services and location-aware information access. TempWeb 2021 discussed temporal analytics at a Web scale with experts from science and industry. Date : 12 April, 2021. Websites : https://dhere.de/locweb/locweb2021 and http://temporalweb.net/.

Multidisciplinary approach of teaching radiology to medical students in Egypt: Is this an effective method?

BackgroundIn multidisciplinary education, different perspectives from more than one discipline are used to illustrate a certain topic. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of an online, multidisciplinary radiology curriculum to teach radiology to medical students in Egypt. A multidisciplinary team of radiologists, surgeons, and internists taught a series of 5 case-based radiology sessions on a web conference platform. Topics included common clinical case scenarios for various body systems. Undergraduate medical students across Egypt were enrolled in the course. A pre-test–post-test design was used to evaluate the efficacy of each session. Upon course completion, students filled out a subjective survey to assess the radiology education series.ResultsOn average, 1000 students attended each session. For each session, an average of 734 students completed both the pre-test and post-test. There was a statistically significant increase in post-test scores compared to pre-test scores across all 5 sessions (p < 0.001) with an overall average score improvement of 63%. A subjective survey at the end of the course was completed by 1027 students. Over 96% of students found the lecture series to be a worthwhile experience that increased their imaging knowledge and interest in radiology, and that the use of a multidisciplinary approach added educational value. About 66% of students also reported that the session topics were “excellent and clinically important.” There was a marked increase in reported confidence levels in radiology competencies before and after attendance of the sessions.ConclusionsAn online radiology curriculum with a multidisciplinary approach can be implemented successfully to reach a large group of medical students and meet their educational objectives.

Humanitarian Customs: Lessons Learned Regarding Cusoms Response and Role in Supply Chain Continuity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper, presented at the World Customs Organization (WCO) PICARD Web Conference 2020, analyses the challenges faced by Customs and the key stakeholders in the cross-border supply chain due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It documents the role of Customs in supply chain continuity by recording policy responses, innovative practices and technological solutions to highlight the initiatives taken for faster release of cargo including emergency relief cargo, hasslefree movement of international passengers and reduction in time and cost for the stakeholders in cross-border supply chains. For disseminating the lessons learned as a way of sharing best practices, the paper discusses how Indian Customs has facilitated the movement of goods while applying appropriate risk management; how Customs has enhanced communication, collaboration and cooperation with their Participating Government Agencies and the private sector; and what measures are being taken by Customs to protect their frontline officers. An analysis by the authors of dwell time data across major customs formations in India proved that the policy responses by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) yielded positive results through reduction in dwell time from May 2020 onwards. The authors have also analysed in detail the importance and effective role of the WCO in supply chain continuity across the globe during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Teaching Cognitive Behavior Therapy to Postgraduate Health Care Professionals in Times of COVID 19 - An Asynchronous Blended Learning Environment Proved to Be Non-inferior to In-Person Training.

Training of postgraduate health professionals on their way to becoming licensed therapists for Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) came to a halt in Germany in March 2020 when social distancing regulations came into effect. Since the German healthcare system almost exclusively relies on this profession when it comes to the implementation of CBT and 80% of those therapists active in 2010 will have retired at the end of 2030, it is critical to assess whether online CBT training is as satisfactory as classroom on-site CBT training. An asynchronous, blended, inverted-classroom online learning environment for CBT training (CBT for psychosis) was developed as an emergency solution. It consisted of pre-recorded CBT video lectures, exercises to train interventions in online role-plays, and regular web conferences. Training was provided at five different training institutes in Germany (duration 8–16 h). Postgraduate health care professionals (psychiatrists and psychologists) (n = 43) who received the online CBT training filled out standard self-report evaluations that assessed satisfaction and didactic quality. These evaluations were compared to those evaluations of students (n = 142) who had received in-person CBT training with identical content offered by the same CBT trainer at the same training institutes before the COVID-19 crisis. Both groups were comparable with respect to interest in the subject and prior knowledge. We tested non-inferiority hypotheses using Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney ROC-curve analyses with an equivalence margin corresponding to a small-to-medium effect size (d = 0.35). The online training evaluations were non-inferior concerning information content, conception of content, didactic presentation, assessment of the trainer as a suitable role-model, working atmosphere, own commitment, and practical relevance. In contrast, we could not exclude a small effect in favor of in-person training in professional benefit and room for active participation. Our results suggest that delivering substantial CBT knowledge online to postgraduate health-professionals is sufficient, and at most incurs minimal loss to the learning experience. These encouraging findings indicate that integrating online elements in CBT teaching is an acceptable option even beyond social distancing requirements.

Upcoming SIGWEB supported conferences

The Special Interest Group on Hypertext and the Web, SIGWEB was created in 1989 to support the community participating in the annual ACM Hypertext Conference. In its fourth decade, SIGWEB continues its efforts to support a wide range of communities and conferences. Recently, the Web Conference's legal and financial sponsorship was transferred to SIGWEB and thus joins the family of seven annual conferences in 2022. SIGWEB supports several specialized conferences, short courses, and workshops of different sizes, as well as the annual Hypertext Conference. SIGWEB sponsored conferences focus on timely topics in applied and computational hypertext and Web disciplines and provide a place for members and the entire applied Hypermedia and Web community to exchange ideas and to meet with and expand their network of colleagues. In this article, we provide a brief overview of SIGWEB sponsored conferences, in addition to events that are in cooperation with SIGWEB. Due to the current Corona crisis, many event organizers opted for an online conference format or allow remote participation. These conferences are marked accordingly.

Do Mconf ao Vale Do Mconf: topografias poéticas em um sistema de webconferência em meio à pandemia

In this essay, we present the collective writing path on a web conference system called Mconf, between April and July 2020, months in which Brazil was faced with the exponential growth of the pandemic related to Covid-19. Amidst the beginning of social distance, together with the suspension of classes and the subsequent adherence to Emergency Remote Education, a group formed by 25 masters and doctoral students from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul met around a seminar held extracurricularly and in a virtual way, focused on the theme of poetry and its ethical-political implications in the academic context. We now refer to Mconf as Mconf Valley in an attempt to translate the strangeness and enchantment to which we were subjected in our first experience in remote education. In order to sustain the power of collective writing in virtual mode, fragments of shared notes are presented, a resource in which the participants write in a collaborative and unidentified way. Although we have lived an important experience of virtual coexistence, we read that it does not replace the burning desire that the classes will again behave in the warmth of presence, where we can further activate our poetic opportunities. © 2021 Curriculo sem Fronteiras. All rights reserved.

Living in the End Times: Utopian and Dystopian Representations of Pandemics in Fiction, Film, and Culture

Abstract A personal report on a recent Web conference hosted by Cappadocia University, Turkey on the cultural impacts of pandemics. January 13-15, 2021.

Organizational Communication Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic: Effectiveness of Strategies and Practices used by Organizations in Turkana County

In a crisis situation, employees face challenges and pressures because they have to deal with unexpected disruption in their routine working environments with high level of uncertainty. Organizations in Turkana County are no exception and therefore the management had to come up with strategies to ensure continuity. Organizational communication strategies and practices play important roles in giving employees information, direction and support. This research aimed to explore how the responses of organizational communication strategies and practices are and how effective Organizations in Turkana County employed them to such a specific crisis: Covid-19 Pandemic, using situational crisis communication theoretical framework. This research applied qualitative approach. This research applied qualitative approach. This research involved four organizations, two business organizations and two educational organizations which were selected using maximum variation sampling technique. Four people representing each of the organizations were interviewed using inductive method. Data was analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings showed that organizational communication strategies and practices being used by all participants' departments are mostly related to the preparation stage and the response stage of the crisis management. Early crisis management planning, forming crisis management teams and preparing supporting communication system, including providing health care facilities and communication protocols for infected employees are salient practices during the preparation stage. In the response stage, leader and horizontal communication intensively used a variety of social media and web conference applications. Interestingly, informal communication was minimized, while formal communication was conducted intensively and transparently. Furthermore, sensitivity to employees' needs and conditions as well as emphatic communication expressing positive emotion and support was perceived as positive to help employees understand the information well and to feel understood and appreciated.

REFLECTIONS REGARDING ANATOMY TEACHING WITH THE USE OF DIGITAL TOOLS

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization - WHO declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. To maintain interaction and ensure that students access quality content, teachers have started to use digital platforms. The purpose of this work is to report on the experience provided by the III Workshop of Maranhense Anatomical Techniques. The Center for Advanced Morphophysiological Studies - NEMO of the State University of the Tocantina Region of Maranhão - UEMASUL and State University of Maranhão - UEMA, held the workshop associated with the discipline of Anatomical Techniques of the Postgraduate Course in Animal Science, being one international online event through the YouTube platform. The way of teaching animal and human anatomy has evolved towards active methodologies, to accompany the didactic-pedagogical evolution with the advances in digital technology. Anatomy teachers feel the need to redefine the objectives of this discipline. The professors showed mastery over the lectures and the use of the platform used to broadcast the event, managing to talk about Animal and Human Anatomy in a completely different way, combining theory with practice. Under these circumstances, an innovative teaching-learning method, supported by the internet, has been serving an unlimited number of students interested in short courses. Keywords: Anatomical techniques. Continuing Education. Web conference.

A National Web Conference on Integrated Siddha Approach in Clinical Practice and Research on COVID-19 Pandemic (ISACC)- Tirupati, December 2020

Siddha Clinical Research Unit (SCRU) Tirupati, working under the Central Council for Research in Siddha (CCRS), Ministry of AYUSH, Govt. of India, conducted a National Web conference titled “Integrated Siddha Approach in Clinical Practice and Research on COVID-19 Pandemic (ISACC)” on 23&lt;sup&gt;rd&lt;/sup&gt; Dec 2020, as a part of the fourth Pre-Siddha Day observance. Totally, 256 participants from Siddha colleges and various institutes of CCRS attended the Web conference and 9 eminent Speakers share their knowledge at the conference. The Technical session was separated by three panels, (i)Siddha Standalone and Integrative Clinical trials on COVID-19, (ii)Siddha Preventive and Prophylactic Measures on COVID-19, (iii)Experiences in Siddha Integrative Clinical Practice on COVID-19. The take home message of the conference insisted upon the three facts - the need for more clinical trials , need for increased experience sharing platforms for Siddha medical system and finally that Siddha standalone as well as integration for COVID-19 management gave significant outcome in both preventive and promotive healthcare. Central Council for Research in Siddha (CCRS), Ministry of AYUSH, Govt. of India and Directorate of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy (DIM&amp;amp;H), Government of Tamil Nadu, contributed a lot in Research and services in COVID-19 pandemic.

Changing participation in web conferencing: the shared computer screen as an online sales interaction resource

Abstract This article explores the increasing digitalization of workplace communication. Drawing on the material environment in a complex, technology-mediated workplace environment, the article investigates how remote sales interaction is constructed and managed by its participants. The data consist of web conferences conducted in Finland between a salesperson (SP) and a prospective customer (C). During the meeting, SP delivers a software solution demonstration on a shared computer screen on which only SP is able to take actions. Deploying the method of multimodal conversation analysis, the research focuses on how the shared computer screen is used as an interactional resource to achieve joint attention and to direct participants’ focus during the sales meeting. First, the shared screen view is SP’s resource; for instance, when SP describes the functionalities of the software, he/she recurrently uses deictic expressions and other linguistic means in combination with coordinated keyboard activity. Later, the shared screen view evolves into a medium for both participants’ actions. The findings suggest that, as the negotiation gets closer to the context of the customer organization’s business, C may use the screen as a vehicle for his/her own interactional purposes. Through a gradual growth in understanding of the software, C begins commenting on the screen view or guides SP’s actions on the shared screen, enabling both a collaborative sales interaction and knowledge construction in a complex technological environment. Unlike previous studies on technology-supported institutional telephone interactions, SP’s screen view in the present study is a resource shared by both the professional and the client. The study contributes both to the field of technology-mediated workplace studies as well as to the field of sales and marketing research.

Report on the 30th the web conference 2021 (TheWebConf2021)

The Web Conference (TheWebConf2021) is the premier conputer science conference on the state of the Web and its related areas. It covers the Web from a wide spectrum of aspects, including technical areas of artificial intelligence, security, privacy, knowledge representation, mobile computing as well as social sciences, economics, policy, accessibility and others. The year 2021 marked the 30th edition that was organised in Ljubljana, Slovenia, but took place fully online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.