Assignment #10: Daniela Retelny

The video conference session we had with The Olson’s, Eric and Jerry on Tuesday was a great way to get hands on experience with one of the most important professional collaboration technologies currently used today. Even though video chat is becoming ubiquitous and easily accessible to individuals, it is important to realize the unique differences between professional video conferencing software such as IOCOM and a personal videoconference client such as Skype.

The videoconference session was closely related to the different levels and types of awareness, particularly presence awareness. Presence awareness played a very big role in our session with these professors because it was very clear who we were talking to, what they were doing and what their environment was like.

Several things worked well in terms of presence awareness. Since we were essentially talking to everyone face to face, there were a lot fewer things we could get away with than if we had been talking over the phone or via text. For example, people felt obligated to pay attention and participate since they knew they could be seen. Had we been interacting with these professors via Instant Messenger or the phone, students may have felt more comfortable not paying attention. Furthermore, since we had control of the cameras, we were able to choose how we displayed our environment. For example, we had the option of zooming in on the person speaking or simply showing a zoomed out view of everyone in the class. We were also able to get a clear view of all of their surroundings based on how they had set their cameras up. Viewing the person’s surroundings and work environment is an important aspect of awareness because it helped us to validate the individual’s identity. For example, we could see the entire top of the line monitors and the big yellow ‘M’ in Eric’s office, which would otherwise be hard to fake.

Although the videoconference was a success and did well in terms of presence awareness, it wasn’t perfect. First of all, when we first called the Olson’s their computer automatically answered the call even though they were not in their office. In addition, the Olson’s did not like that the camera’s made us seem as if we were looking in the opposite direction. Also, at one point during the session the resolution of our videoconference with Eric got very low, making it hard for us to see what was going on. Because of the lack of visibility and inability to see Eric and his surroundings, we had to end the conference and restart it using another program. Lastly, the dependence on a technician as well as the planning and coordination involved with each conference, makes the videoconference system a lot less convenient to use.