Transcript of "The Information Systems Shuttle: A Proposal for Collaborative Learning and Research" May 4, 21:00 UTC (5pm EDT, 2pm PDT) (orientation session at 20:30 UTC) Blake Ives, Louisiana State University Site: VMC @ Louisiana State University This conference was sponsored by the ISWorld Net Virtual Meeting Center (VMC) http://www.isworld.org/vmc The contents of this transcript may be further distributed if the complete transcript is kept together including this message. The contents many not be analyzed, quoted, reported or otherwise disseminated without the explicit permission of the VMC The slides associated with this transcript are the full record of this conference. The slides are available from the VMC web site. Participants Blake Ives, Baton Rouge, LA USA Nina Tan,USA Robert Bond, USA Janna Crews, USA Munir Mandviwalla, Philadelphia, USA Ed Watson, USA Fiona Nah, USA Joao Albino, Brazil Harald Minrath, Germany Daniel Mittleman, USA Denise Haskins, USA Astrid Lipp, USA Dietrich Seibt, Germany MAIN SESSION (see below for orientation and breakout sessions) 5/4/98 16:01 Blake Ives: Okay, the official start time has arrived. 5/4/98 16:01 Blake Ives: Hello everyone! I am most pleased to have such a distinguished (and courageous) audience - and perhaps from as many as seven different countries. 5/4/98 16:02 Blake Ives: Munir will be working behind the scenes to respond to any technical problems you might "whisper" to him. Munir has also done yeomen's work in setting up this entire operation - thanks Munir for your efforts. 5/4/98 16:02 Blake Ives: Based on his past experience, Munir suggests that we try to focus and keep the conversation from drifting too far. 5/4/98 16:03 Blake Ives: So, here is the agenda for the day. First, I will provide a quick overview of the "Virtual Shuttle" proposal. Second, we will clarify any confusions. Then I will present two discussion questions for us to consider . Time permitting, we may also break out into discussion groups for three more questions. 5/4/98 16:03 Blake Ives: Lets first review the concept This will be a bit of an experiment, as I intend to imbed small, hopefully readable, images in the chat. Here comes the first one - the agenda for the broader talk. 5/4/98 16:03 Denise Haskins: Hi Blake, I am representing Geo Wash. Univ 5/4/98 16:04 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slidetwo.gif And Hi Denise. 5/4/98 16:04 Blake Ives: Whisper to me if you are having problems reading these. Whisper to Munir if you are having problems with it hanging up on the refresh. 5/4/98 16:05 Blake Ives: Some assumptions: 1.) We are in the information technology business (most of us, anyway). 2.) IT seems likely to have the same dramatic impact on our industry as it is having on many others. 3.) We appear to be, at best, slow followers in applying these technologies, both for scholarship and education. 5/4/98 16:08 Blake Ives: Let's look at the opportunities for both scholarship and education: First, scholarship. 5/4/98 16:08 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slidethree.gif 5/4/98 16:09 Blake Ives: Michael Myers wonderful page on qualitative research is a great example of "living scholarship", published in MISQ Discovery. And, this particular exercise we are all taking part in today, illustrates the promise of a number of the other bullet points. 5/4/98 16:09 Blake Ives: Now lets look at the opportunities on the learning/teaching side. 5/4/98 16:10 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slidefour.gif 5/4/98 16:10 Blake Ives: Okay, I have been hogging the air time. Let me stop there for a few moments and see if anyone wants any clarification or wishes to make additions to either of the previous two slides. 5/4/98 16:11 Denise Haskins: RE: Reengineering Learning -what is student life cycle educ. 5/4/98 16:12 Daniel Mittleman: I think the slides to a good job of capturing the core concepts. 5/4/98 16:13 Harald Minrath: Blake, do you have any concrete reengineering stories which you could make avvalilable 5/4/98 16:13 Blake Ives: RE: Student Life Cycle - from the time a student applies until they die, they could/should be "connected" to the univerity electronically. Harnessing alumni is part of it. 5/4/98 16:13 Janna Crews: To Denise: I interpret this as life-long learning. 5/4/98 16:13 Blake Ives: Re: Reengineering Stories - the full paper, which is available from the VMC main site, includes a number of reengineering initiatives I have been involved in. 5/4/98 16:14 Blake Ives: Here I just want to ensure we have identified the "big bullets" regarding the potential of reengineering scholarship and learning. Any additions? 5/4/98 16:14 Daniel Mittleman: Harold, Bob Briggs has a wonderful reengineering story available as a paper on his web site. It is about his technology supported learning intervention in a fifth grade classroom in Washington DC. And I know that Janna Crews (in this conference) has been active with Bob on some of his reengineered learning work. 5/4/98 16:16 Munir Mandviwalla: Blake, what about the ubiquitous "motivation/reward" question for scholars? 5/4/98 16:16 Blake Ives: Re: Reengenering - and, of course, we are all involved in one such initiative here today. Another was the virtual doctoral seminar held last fall with students from Harvard, MIT, Minnesota, LSU, Texas, Indiana and Western Ontario 5/4/98 16:16 Nina Tan: Re: Reengineering Learning. Hi Blake. How does this change the link to the industry? 5/4/98 16:17 Blake Ives: Re: Rewards - A big issue, but maybe it doesn't fit comfortably within this particular dialog. Still, we will have to come back to it. 5/4/98 16:18 Daniel Mittleman: Nina, something I haven't done yet but plan to is to include industry practitioners in on my asynchronous class discussions. In this manner it goes a long way toward bridging the gap between classroom and industry. 5/4/98 16:18 Blake Ives: RE: Link to Industry - I have previous students who act as consultants to my class. I talk on the phone to recruitiers and bring to their attention URL's of the work of my students. They can come to class via electronic link ups. 5/4/98 16:18 Blake Ives: Okay, I am going to move on. 5/4/98 16:18 Blake Ives: Okay, lets turn out attention to our proposal: a series of virtual shuttle's (courses) focused on particular areas of information systems education - the first on electronic commerce. 5/4/98 16:19 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slidesix.gif 5/4/98 16:19 Blake Ives: Essentially, each shuttle is a virtual course, or course support system, focused on a particular topic. This first one is on electronic commerce. Its education and research missions are summarized in the following two slides. 5/4/98 16:20 Fiona Nah: Has any study indicated the effectivenss of such an arrangement (on-line learning)? 5/4/98 16:20 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slideseven.gif 5/4/98 16:20 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slideeight.gif 5/4/98 16:22 Blake Ives: Re: Effectiveness of online learning. As I understand it the research results have been rather mixed, and many of the studies poorly done. However, I certainly do not take it as a given. 5/4/98 16:22 Janna Crews: I think the support technology can offer to cooperative and collaborative learning environments is key. This includes the collaboration of students between themselves as well as the classroom with industry as Danny mentions. 5/4/98 16:22 Blake Ives: Can I clarify any of the above bullet points before we go into the discussion questions? 5/4/98 16:22 Harald Minrath: What do you mean by multiple research themes? 5/4/98 16:24 Blake Ives: Re: Research Themes - well one obvious research theme was aluded to by Fiona - effectiveness of instructional technology. But, getting at the reward system issue - this presents publication problems in a business school. Another is the effectiveness of virtual organizations. 5/4/98 16:25 Blake Ives: Okay, we have a lot of well experienced folks out there and I have put a proposal on the table. Here's the first discussion question. This could work if .... [where you fill in the ...'s ] 5/4/98 16:26 Daniel Mittleman: Janna, as with GSS work, I think that facilitative process is far more important than technology. The technology here is an enabler, the process evolution will determine what we actually do with it. 5/4/98 16:26 Janna Crews: Re: Effectiveness of online learning. Another major issue is how to measure learning. what is learning? Although the results have been mixed re: actual improvement of learning, the research on using technologies such as group support systems, email and other technologies to support same-place or different-place learning has shown increase student satisfaction and perceived learning (even though test scores don't always reflect higher learning). 5/4/98 16:27 Joao Albino: This could work if we surpass the infrastructure problem... 5/4/98 16:27 Denise Haskins: ..industry and academia teamed up to work the solution and provide common benefits to be actualized by both. 5/4/98 16:27 Daniel Mittleman: Restated: This could work if... we don't focus so much on technology, but focus on pedagogy that is enabled by the new technologies. 5/4/98 16:27 Blake Ives: Joao, can you say a bit more about the infrastructure issue? 5/4/98 16:28 Janna Crews: To Danny's comment: ABSOLUTELY! The technology is not in itself a solution. The solution is in how we use the technology to improve the learning/educational process. 5/4/98 16:28 Blake Ives: But, the technology does permit us to do things we never could have been able to do before. 5/4/98 16:29 Fiona Nah: ... this environment was recognized by tenure committees as valuable. 5/4/98 16:30 Daniel Mittleman: Blake, yes the technology does. But I take that as a given (a moving target given). Building new technology is "relatively" easy. Figuring out how best to apply it is much harder. (And coincidently much harder to get funded to do too.) 5/4/98 16:30 Blake Ives: [a process tool that would be helpful here would be some indicator telling the facilitator if messages were being typed] 5/4/98 16:30 Joao Albino: Lets take Brazil, for instance. We are a big country, but some places are more developed than others. When I said infrastructure I mean telecomunications problems 5/4/98 16:31 Janna Crews: Fiona, I'm not sure what you meant by your last comment, ... this environment was recognized by tenure committees as valuable. Please explain. 5/4/98 16:32 Daniel Mittleman: Joao and I are in different worlds. I teach in a College of Computing where virtually everyone has web access from home and is skilled at using it. Where I am, the rest of the world will get to fairly soon. We can be planning for it now, realizing that not everyone can taste the fruit right away. 5/4/98 16:32 Blake Ives: Infrastructure is also faculty skills, student and faculty access to software/hardware/network. Take this session for instance. I wanted to use TeamWave but Munir felt that it was too unstable (which it is) and that it would be difficlt to get all of you up to speed on the tool. 5/4/98 16:33 Munir Mandviwalla: re technology; but nobody had to spend much time thinking about how spreadsheets are useful -- it was obvious! 5/4/98 16:34 Blake Ives: That's because spreadsheets automated an existing process. Easy to sell that - on the other had the early uses of IT in education replicated traditional approaches and tended to fall short. 5/4/98 16:34 Fiona Nah: In response to Janna: Many established researchers in other areas (Full Prof. in another discipline e.g.) may feel that "if its on the Web, I can't trust it", because anyone can contribute to it. It may be difficult to convince them that 'security' exists for refereed journals of high quality. 5/4/98 16:34 Fiona Nah: In response to Janna: Many established researchers in other areas (Full Prof. in another discipline e.g.) may feel that "if its on the Web, I can't trust it", because anyone can contribute to it. It may be difficult to convince them that 'security' exists for refereed journals of high quality. 5/4/98 16:35 Daniel Mittleman: Munir, groupware and GSS encompass a layer of communication tools that many lay people, I think, take for granted. They don't realize the non-verbals they use, so they don't realize the implications of having/not having those non-verbals available in tools. 5/4/98 16:35 Blake Ives: I will move us to another discussion question in a minute. 5/4/98 16:36 Janna Crews: Danny, building new technology may be "relatively" easy, but is it highly usable...meaning is it easy to use for the task at hand. We as researchers can figure out wonderful applications for technology, but to get general adoption the technology needs some level of usability for the task. 5/4/98 16:36 Blake Ives: I am surprised no one has mentioned all the coordination hassles of having faculty from different parts of the world teaching virtual classes together - time zone, hemisphere, school year, different grading schemes. 5/4/98 16:37 Daniel Mittleman: Janna, I agree. For for any domain (and lets focus on learning) we need to look at what the process is and what we want the process to be. From there, tool requirements and specifications should fall out fairly easily. 5/4/98 16:37 Denise Haskins: also the interoperability of sw and systems for instruction to work seamlessly 5/4/98 16:38 Daniel Mittleman: Blake, I agree that all those are issues. But I am presuming that once we begin to teach collaboratively over distance that new culture will naturally emerge. I don't see those issues as barrier issues. 5/4/98 16:38 Blake Ives: Okay: discussion question II - What are research questions (areas of work) that might be addressed by the virtual shuttle in electronic commerce? 5/4/98 16:39 Blake Ives: We looked at two briefly already - effectiveness of instructional technology and organization of virtual communities - though you may wish to go into more detail on either. 5/4/98 16:41 Munir Mandviwalla: the problem with "effectiveness of instructional technology" is that the sample size is often too small and biased (we are applying the technology) -- the research often degenerates into teaching tips 5/4/98 16:43 Joao Albino: Re: Question II: Some issues: Globalization and its impacts on Information Systems. 5/4/98 16:43 Blake Ives: Let me restate the question - if there were to be a virtual education shuttle (the first might be on ecomm) but that need not constrain you). Then what research issues might such a shuttle allow you to explore. 5/4/98 16:44 Janna Crews: Related to life long learning is the question of whether the access created by technology will actually increase life-long learners? 5/4/98 16:44 Blake Ives: Essentially you would have multiple faculty, multiple students, multiple learning opportunities, virtual classes consisting of students from various universities, problems to be solved, tools to be developed. 5/4/98 16:44 Daniel Mittleman: At this point, I am most interested in theory building and methods establishment. These areas are so new, I hesitate to try to validate too much before we know what it is we are interested in and how to measure it. 5/4/98 16:45 Joao Albino: Re Question II, complementing: Security and political and legal problems. 5/4/98 16:45 Harald Minrath: Do you think it would be possible to perform an empirical investigation at our school which applies the same topic and asks the same questions to students? 5/4/98 16:45 Munir Mandviwalla: cultural differences research would be interesting -- the shuttle would provide a nice capsule environment for exploring some detailed questions 5/4/98 16:45 Blake Ives: So Daniel, given those constraints, how would you proceed? 5/4/98 16:46 Blake Ives: Harald, I am not sure I follow your point - your school versus the shuttle school? Traditional versus Virtual? 5/4/98 16:47 Daniel Mittleman: I'm not sure how best to answer that as I am not exactly sure the domain of our discussion right now. In learning, I might start with Sirkka and Dorothy's paper from a few years back and try to develop a research agenda off of their model. (Gotta revisit that paper to be sure.) In general, I would try to evolve a typology of kinds of learning that can be supported by technology. 5/4/98 16:48 Astrid Lipp: It's Astrid. I'm trying not to disrupt while I catch up. 5/4/98 16:48 Blake Ives: In about a minute I am going to change direction. We have less than 15 minutes left and I would like to experiment with breakout rooms - and thus give you a bit more flexibility in choosing the topic. 5/4/98 16:48 Harald Minrath: excuse me, it was my fault. I meant "schools": all our schools 5/4/98 16:49 Blake Ives: I propose that we try out our breakout rooms for the remaining three questions. I will list below three questions, the room where these will be discussed, and the name of the moderator. You can go to one room or move among them. But please return to this room by 3 minutes before the hour. 5/4/98 16:49 Blake Ives: Padagogy: [breakout room 1, Blake] Do you know of existing pedagogical material (e.g., cases, tutorials, lectures, and so on) that could be potentially used in the virtual shuttle for electronic commerce. 5/4/98 16:50 Blake Ives: Tools: [breakout room 2, Ken Walsh] Do you know of particular tools, or classes of tools, that might be integrated into this virtual shuttle to ensure students get a rich sense of international collaboration. 5/4/98 16:50 Blake Ives: Barriers: [stay here, Munir] What are the barriers that would need to be overcome to make virtual shuttles work. 5/4/98 16:51 Blake Ives: I believe to pick a room you hit the rooms button above. We will meet in our respective rooms in 30 seconds. 5/4/98 16:52 Munir Mandviwalla: (After waiting politely for people to leave) -- I personally think that unless faculty are rewarded for such activities they are not going to happen 5/4/98 16:52 Harald Minrath: it was our first experience in the virtual shuttle. we are positively impressed. thank you 5/4/98 16:53 Joao Albino: Ok. Letīs stay here and talk about barriers. I think the principal is infrstructure. 5/4/98 16:53 Fiona Nah: Munir, I agree very much with your point. 5/4/98 16:53 Astrid Lipp: I wonder whether Coleman's criteria for success of groupware don't also apply to the virtual shuttle 5/4/98 16:53 Joao Albino: Second. We have to think in things like technology adoption and diffusion. 5/4/98 16:53 Janna Crews: re: Munir's comment: It would be interesting to investigate and compare the effectiveness of new teaching paradigms in different cultures. For example, although student participation in the classroom is quite common in the US, I have had discussions with students from other cultures in which student participation is not the norm. Such students have expressed dislike for classes which involve student interaction and discussions. Thus, the same paradigms may have different levels of effectivness in diverse cultures. 5/4/98 16:54 Munir Mandviwalla: Is reward the biggest barrier? What would be number 2, 3, and so on? 5/4/98 16:55 Munir Mandviwalla: (please feel free to sample the other rooms as we discuss this..) 5/4/98 16:55 Denise Haskins: unless there is a motivator/reward, there contributions are looked upon as bus. as usual, not as progressing the technology further 5/4/98 16:55 Munir Mandviwalla: Astrid, what are coleman's criteria? 5/4/98 16:56 Astrid Lipp: Coleman's technology, culture, economics, and politics 5/4/98 16:56 Blake Ives: The Pedagogy room did not attract anyone, so I will stay here. 5/4/98 16:56 Munir Mandviwalla: Why do you think infrastructure is some important, Joao? 5/4/98 16:56 Astrid Lipp: tech: existing infrastructure, culture = acceptance of new ways, economics=urgent need to change 5/4/98 16:57 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/virtual/slidefive.gif 5/4/98 16:58 Munir Mandviwalla: Janna; in my online class last semester, several students complained that I was too demanding in terms of participation -- I suspect these many be students from the cultures you refer to 5/4/98 16:58 Joao Albino: If we donīt have a good telecomunication infra, we can not talk across the web.. 5/4/98 16:59 Munir Mandviwalla: Now Blake: the million dollar question -- did you just create the slide :) 5/4/98 17:00 Munir Mandviwalla: One of our faculty members is from Brazil -- there is already some good telecomm infrastructure in some places -- are people doing the things suggested by Blake? 5/4/98 17:01 Blake Ives: Lots of different countries participate in the Global Virtual Team project - including Brazil. 5/4/98 17:01 Blake Ives: I have asked the other group to come back for the closing. We are about out of time. 5/4/98 17:02 Joao Albino: Yes, some students from Brazil participate in the GVT Project. They used the USP network to do so. It was a very good expeirence to us ! 5/4/98 17:02 Blake Ives: Thanks very much for attending today. Hopefully, we learned something from the process as well as the content. 5/4/98 17:03 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/vmc/feedback.htm 5/4/98 17:03 Joao Albino: Ok. bye bye. 5/4/98 17:03 Astrid Lipp: Thanks for the experience, Munir and Blake! 5/4/98 17:03 Munir Mandviwalla: Please fill in the evaluation form available from the url i just posted 5/4/98 17:04 Blake Ives: I have a few minutes if anyone wishes to hang around and follow up around the podium :) 5/4/98 17:04 Denise Haskins: great presentation Blake!!! 5/4/98 17:04 Nina Tan: Thanks for the chance to participate. Bye to all. 5/4/98 17:04 Fiona Nah: Very interesting experience and session. Thank you Blake and Munir. 5/4/98 17:04 Munir Mandviwalla: Ealuation form: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/vmc/feedback.htm 5/4/98 17:05 Janna Crews: Thanks to all! I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion. Thanks Munir and Blake for arranging this VMC and moderating. ;) 5/4/98 17:06 Fiona Nah: Thank you everyone for the interesting session too. Good bye! 5/4/98 17:07 Blake Ives: And thanks from Munir and I to all of you and to Bobby and Ken for helping with the facilitation. 5/4/98 17:07 Ken Walsh: What did you think about the use of break out rooms? Munir, had you used them before? 5/4/98 17:08 Blake Ives: They take too long - Essentially, in addition to the handoff time, you also have the start-up time - and the facilitator handoff. 5/4/98 17:09 Munir Mandviwalla: Thanks Bobby (and Ken) for setting the server in such short notice! 5/4/98 17:09 Ken Walsh: I would not say they take too long. The time is a cost and when the beneit is worth, they can be useful. 5/4/98 17:09 Blake Ives: I would say that Breakouts would require a minimum of 20 minutes and, probably more, as some kind of report back to the maingroup might be helpful. 5/4/98 17:10 Munir Mandviwalla: They worked well in one session in which there was a real interested (from the grassroots) on separating the group -- I don't think they were used much more than that (but there is another benefit) 5/4/98 17:10 Janna Crews: I think you need a longer session to effectively use the break out rooms. It seemed to be more of an interuption here due to the time limitations. Good idea though. 5/4/98 17:10 Daniel Mittleman: Breakout was very frustrating. But I think it is a learning curve and tool development issue. The concept of breaking out I think is solid. 5/4/98 17:10 Munir Mandviwalla: Agree on the time: these sessions are too short for breakout 5/4/98 17:10 Daniel Mittleman: Yes, Janna. Both sessions I've done now have ended too quickly. These should be scheduled for 90 or 120 minutes. 5/4/98 17:11 Munir Mandviwalla: Another facilitator used the idea of the "breakout room" to keep people focused (i.e., "please discuss XYZ in the breakout rooms") 5/4/98 17:12 Blake Ives: They are pretty stressful at the pitching end, so I would be reluctant to go with 120. A 50/30/10 split mightbe interesting, with breakouts in the middle. 5/4/98 17:12 Ken Walsh: I think we need to think about the process structure for a breakout. For example we need and easier way to put the dsicussion question in each room and an easy way for the moderator to wor 5/4/98 17:12 Daniel Mittleman: Also, Munir, there was some sort of cache issue with my browser. I couldn't get back to the full discussion without exiting the browswer completely. I got sent off into my own private world :o 5/4/98 17:13 Daniel Mittleman: Blake, if it were to be 120, it might be done with two facilitators handing off control. 5/4/98 17:13 Munir Mandviwalla: The other facilitators also thought that the sessions were quite tiring 5/4/98 17:13 Ken Walsh: That is - an easier way for the moderator to work on a summary point to bring back the bigger group. This would also require the big room moderator to organiza the reports. 5/4/98 17:13 Munir Mandviwalla: Daniel, talk to Ken -- his server :) 5/4/98 17:13 Blake Ives: There is a lot more for the presenter to keep track of here than in a regular room (whispers, graphics, faciliation, colors) and a lot less nonverbal feedback. How do you know when it is time to mov 5/4/98 17:13 Daniel Mittleman: I can believe that it is tiring for the facilitator. For me as a participant, the time flies by way too fast. 5/4/98 17:14 Munir Mandviwalla: One limitation is that this tool does not allow two chat windows to be open -- some people like to multitask 5/4/98 17:14 Daniel Mittleman: If I ask Ken what the problem was, he will answer, "I dunno" 5/4/98 17:14 Blake Ives: yes, and it is disconserting to watch people enter and leave a room. 5/4/98 17:15 Ken Walsh: Probably a bad browser. 5/4/98 17:15 Daniel Mittleman: Blake, I agree with you. You need better monitoring tools. 5/4/98 17:15 Munir Mandviwalla: was that his nickname at school? 5/4/98 17:15 Blake Ives: I think we should see if we can get WebBoard donated to ISWorld Net in exchange for feedback and visibility. 5/4/98 17:15 Daniel Mittleman: Yes, I tried to open a second chat window and got a java error. Hmmm, maybe that is why I had software problems.... 5/4/98 17:15 Blake Ives: we just call him Kenneth 5/4/98 17:16 Ken Walsh: When I was attempting to moderate my breakout room, I wanted a lot more tools support. I would want it to be easy to view the main room and the break out room at the same time to monitor the migration. I would also want support for moving information around more easilyt. 5/4/98 17:16 Janna Crews: Bye all. I'd love to stay and chat, but I have a paper to finish. Thanks again! 5/4/98 17:16 Blake Ives: I want a beer. 5/4/98 17:16 Robert Bond: me too 5/4/98 17:17 Daniel Mittleman: I'll buy. 5/4/98 17:17 Munir Mandviwalla: so what would be the major thing you guys would change if we did this again (before you go for beer :( 5/4/98 17:17 Ken Walsh: Merlot! 5/4/98 17:17 Munir Mandviwalla: we are going to try french burgundy in my wine club -- any tips? 5/4/98 17:18 Ken Walsh: I would leave time for the breakout room and time to summarixze the reults with the big group. This should have a pretty clear agenda to help the coriography 5/4/98 17:19 Blake Ives: http://194.196.236.19/cafe/pic/Background/logo_lezinc.gif 5/4/98 17:19 Daniel Mittleman: Munir, I would do several things. 1. I think that Blake's ppt show was good. But he might have set it up as hypertext and had explanations beneath the bullets. That way it wouldn't need any explaining during the session - people could look things up. 2. As Blake had a sequence of discussion question in mind, he might have posted them before hand so we had a detailed agenda of where we were going and could give aforethought to our points. 5/4/98 17:19 Ken Walsh: Merlot is the secret signal of the ancient louisiana educators to indicate that alchohol can be consumed at lunch. 5/4/98 17:20 Daniel Mittleman: 3. The breakout rooms might be set up ahead of time. let us know befor we begin which discussion is going where, and then seed the discussion ahead of time with the discussion question. It took Ken some time to get the discussion question copied over there. 5/4/98 17:20 Daniel Mittleman: These are all process suggestions. If you and Ken and control over software development, I have ideas in that arena as well. :) 5/4/98 17:20 Munir Mandviwalla: geee, and I thought you were cultured and talking about wine :) 5/4/98 17:21 Blake Ives: I had a pretty clear agenda - well maybe it was not clear - but I had the whole session scripted up until the breakout groups. It wasn't a very dynamic crowd. 5/4/98 17:21 Ken Walsh: Ah, Yes software development. A much maligned methodology. 5/4/98 17:21 Blake Ives: Probably a tighter task would work better. 5/4/98 17:21 Munir Mandviwalla: well the gif from blake is clear, time to go 5/4/98 17:22 Daniel Mittleman: Blake, I felt constrained by your facilitation style. (And I was probably the least constrained of the bunch :) ). It seemed as though you had enough of a plan that I didn't want to disrupt it by making points. I even opened Notepad in a window on my screen and wrote out several comments there that I never submitted as I wasn't sure they were on topic. 5/4/98 17:23 Blake Ives: In the past I have tended to err in the direction of not providing enough direction. Here there was too much structure. On the other hand, several people obviously had not done their homework. 5/4/98 17:23 Daniel Mittleman: Actually, Blake, I attended the session Paul Gray did and it had a looser task. I enjoyed that session more. I bet if we checked we would find total comment count higher there, and more balance among participants. (Can't speak to quality of discussion though) However I did leave that session much more energized than I left this one. 5/4/98 17:23 Ken Walsh: Daniel, that point is interesting in contrast to some of the commenst we just made about constraint being used to organize the session. 5/4/98 17:24 Blake Ives: I have to go. See you. 5/4/98 17:25 Ken Walsh: Daniel's comment about Paul's session suggest that break out rooms may be appropriate at all. When would they be appropriate? 5/4/98 17:25 Daniel Mittleman: re: homework. That is probably true. I read through your ppt earlier today and looked at the three paragraph abstract. But I still wasn't really sure what the domain we were discussing was. 5/4/98 17:25 Munir Mandviwalla: Probably the use of slides and the social protocol was overkill -- in watson's session we just used the protocol and it seemed to work well 5/4/98 17:26 Daniel Mittleman: What was the other tool blake wanted to use? 5/4/98 17:26 Munir Mandviwalla: bye 5/4/98 17:26 Daniel Mittleman: Is there development going on on the next generation of this tool? Who owns this tool, anyway? 5/4/98 17:28 Daniel Mittleman: Bye 5/4/98 17:28 Ken Walsh: Bye ORIENTATION SESSSION 5/4/98 15:00 Blake Ives: And thanks also to Bobby Bond my guru here at LSU and Ken Walsh who is working with me on this project. Ken is the distinguished one. http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/gator.gif http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/ken.gif 5/4/98 15:00 Blake Ives: Hello everyone! I am most pleased to have such a distinguished (and courageous) audience. http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/blake.gif 5/4/98 15:01 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/blake.gif Hello everyone! I am most pleased to have such a distinguished (and courageous) audience. 5/4/98 15:02 Blake Ives: I am hopeful that you had an opportunity to look over the abstract of the proposition we are going to discuss today. 5/4/98 15:02 Blake Ives: You can find it at: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/vmc/April98/ives/abstract.html 5/4/98 15:34 Munir Mandviwalla: hello everybody! 5/4/98 15:36 Janna Crews: Hello ;) 5/4/98 15:36 Blake Ives: Hi Janna and Muanir 5/4/98 15:36 Munir Mandviwalla: Hi bobby, Janna 5/4/98 15:37 Blake Ives: :) 5/4/98 15:37 Blake Ives: Opps, the first of many typing errors. Sorry Munir 5/4/98 15:37 Munir Mandviwalla: Janna, and others you may want to experiment with your refresh rate (see next) 5/4/98 15:38 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/images/refresh.gif 5/4/98 15:38 Janna Crews: Page 5/4/98 15:38 Blake Ives: I just changed mine to 15 seconds - not sure what the default it. The refresh button on the mac version does not work 5/4/98 15:38 Nina Tan: Hello, everybody! 5/4/98 15:38 Munir Mandviwalla: If you are just entering, we will start formally at 4 (the time you see on the screen) 5/4/98 15:39 Blake Ives: Hi Nina. Welcome to the Virtual Conference 5/4/98 15:39 Munir Mandviwalla: The best refresh rate varies for each person, it depends on your computer, network connection, and so on and personal preference 5/4/98 15:40 Nina Tan: Should I change it back to 10 sec? 5/4/98 15:41 Munir Mandviwalla: If it looks good to you now, then don't change it 5/4/98 15:43 Munir Mandviwalla: another tip coming up 5/4/98 15:43 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/images/tip.gif 5/4/98 15:44 Blake Ives: Bobby, please send a public message so that I will be able to whisper to you if necessary 5/4/98 15:44 Nina Tan: Hi Blake. I have just taken a class on collaborative design for architects. That is why I am here! 5/4/98 15:45 Munir Mandviwalla: If the screen jumps around too much, then please experiement with the refresh rate 5/4/98 15:45 Blake Ives: That sounds like a very interesting class Nina. 5/4/98 15:45 Munir Mandviwalla: Please feel free to post a quick introduction about yourself 5/4/98 15:46 Janna Crews: What is "page user" bell for? 5/4/98 15:46 Munir Mandviwalla: Hi Joao 5/4/98 15:46 Blake Ives: Be careful not to set the refresh rate for too fast a refresh as it may overload the system - also it may annoy you. 5/4/98 15:46 Munir Mandviwalla: Page user is not relevant for us -- it is used to call people from another room but only this room is being used 5/4/98 15:46 Joao Albino: Hi everybody. Is good to be here ! 5/4/98 15:47 Munir Mandviwalla: Hi Fiona 5/4/98 15:47 Fiona Nah: Hi, I'm Fiona Nah from Purdue University. 5/4/98 15:47 Nina Tan: Yes, I tried some synchronous lectures but usually with some hardware problems. 5/4/98 15:47 Munir Mandviwalla: Social protocol coming up 5/4/98 15:47 Blake Ives: If time permits we may use more than one room - in which case I will use it to get you back 5/4/98 15:47 Munir Mandviwalla: 1. Flow: Please stay within one concept of the issue currently under discussion. 5/4/98 15:48 Robert Bond: Hi 5/4/98 15:48 Munir Mandviwalla: For example, the moderator suggests we discuss "how X relates to Y." Points you raise about X, Y, and their relationship will clearly be on topic. In addition, you are also encouraged to bring in for example, "how X relates to A." Expanding the discussion in this manner often leads to new insights and makes for an interesting conversation. However, starting a discussion on "A" by itself or "how A relates to B" will make the session less coherent for everybody. 5/4/98 15:48 Blake Ives: Hi Harold and Finona 5/4/98 15:48 Joao Albino: I am Joao Albino, from UNESP, Brazil. Just testing the system, ok. 5/4/98 15:48 Harald Minrath: harald and dietrich say hello to the group 5/4/98 15:48 Blake Ives: Bobby Bond is my technical assistant. 5/4/98 15:49 Munir Mandviwalla: 2. Moderator: Please respect the moderator's wish to move to the next topic. The moderator will use a special color (blue) to highlight process messages such as "Lets set aside topic A for now and talk about topic B." If you would like to continue the topic you could try sending a private message to the moderator or inviting a subset of people to join you in one of the breakout rooms. 5/4/98 15:49 Munir Mandviwalla: last social protocol coming up 5/4/98 15:49 Munir Mandviwalla: 3. Referencing: Please use the phrase "Re topicname" to respond to specific issues or comments or people. For example, "Re topic A" or "Re Munir's point." 5/4/98 15:50 Blake Ives: Ed Watson, is one of my colleagues here at LSU. He will just be observing. He may be interested in hosting a similar series focused on enterprise information systems such as SAP. 5/4/98 15:50 Nina Tan: Hi, Harald, Joao, Fiona, Dietrich, I am Nina from Singapore. I am presently studying in Harvard University. 5/4/98 15:50 Munir Mandviwalla: I am going to repeat the technical tips now. Feel free to ignore me and send private messages (see next) :) 5/4/98 15:51 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/images/tip.gif 5/4/98 15:51 Munir Mandviwalla: More on the now famous refresh rate 5/4/98 15:51 Blake Ives: As you have seen, Munir has put together a very nice set of precanned messages, intended to make things go smoothly 5/4/98 15:51 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/images/refresh.gif 5/4/98 15:52 Fiona Nah: Hi Blake and everyone. 5/4/98 15:52 Daniel Mittleman: Hi all. Hi Nina. I am very interested in your collab design for architects course. My dissertation was on GSS for architectural planning. 5/4/98 15:52 Blake Ives: I have also preprepared a script for at least some of the session to follow - though I will likely deviate from it. Just in case you thought we were great typists. 5/4/98 15:53 Munir Mandviwalla: if you are just coming in, we will start the formal session at 4 (the time you see on the server) 5/4/98 15:53 Munir Mandviwalla: If you have technical questions, you should send them to me using the "private message" feature 5/4/98 15:54 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/blake.gif Munir is inserting these images just by including the URL for the gif image. 5/4/98 15:54 Munir Mandviwalla: A good way to catch up is to set refresh to zero so you can read all the messages without the screen jumping (looks very handsome Blake) 5/4/98 15:55 Daniel Mittleman: Nice picture, Blake. I always thought you were taller than that :-) 5/4/98 15:55 Blake Ives: I am hopeful that you had an opportunity to look over the abstract of the proposition we putting forward today. You can find it at: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/vmc/April98/ives/abstract.html 5/4/98 15:55 Harald Minrath: refresh=0 5/4/98 15:56 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/gator.gif A virtual welcome to Louisiana - where we are 95% water. 5/4/98 15:57 Blake Ives: http://www.bus.lsu.edu/isds/faculty/bives/images/ken.gif This is Ken Walsh, who is working with me on this project. He is in class, but should be joining us soon. 5/4/98 15:58 Munir Mandviwalla: http://ww2.cis.temple.edu/isworld/images/refresh.gif 5/4/98 15:58 Blake Ives: I took those pictures a few minutes ago with a Sony camera. It has a floppy disk that can be quickly transferred to my Mac. I used photoshop to clean them up and shrink them. 5/4/98 15:59 Daniel Mittleman: http://mies.cs.depaul.edu/danny/wpe1.gif If this works right, here be me 5/4/98 15:59 Janna Crews: I like the alligator, Blake! Where are you and Munir getting the little yellow smileys? 5/4/98 16:00 Daniel Mittleman: Yes, I am wearing a red x mask today 5/4/98 16:01 Munir Mandviwalla: It is over to Blake now for the formal session. 5/4/98 16:01 Daniel Mittleman: Hi Fiona. I'm looking forward to us chatting by phone. BREAKOUT SESSION 5/4/98 16:53 Daniel Mittleman: Ken, so what are we supposed to be doing? 5/4/98 16:54 Daniel Mittleman: Well Nina, its just you and me :) 5/4/98 16:54 Blake Ives: Ken is in charge of this group. 5/4/98 16:54 Nina Tan: Hi, I have observed a class in MTI in which students in MTI collaborate with students form Lisbone 5/4/98 16:55 Ken Walsh: Hi all. I guess I'm suppose to be facilitating. I tried to cut and paste our questions, but it was too combersome. 5/4/98 16:55 Daniel Mittleman: Ken, can you restate the question (and explain what this shuttle thing is)? yes, I read the abstract that Blake wrote, but am still not sure what he is getting at here. 5/4/98 16:55 Ken Walsh: What tools should be included in a vritual shuttle for ecomm? (is that right) 5/4/98 16:56 Daniel Mittleman: What kinds of tools are we talking about? GSS tools? Or at some other level? 5/4/98 16:57 Ken Walsh: I went back and read the question. It asks what tools should be used to show students about international collaboration. 5/4/98 16:57 Nina Tan: I thought we were talking about international collaboration? 5/4/98 16:58 Ken Walsh: Given what is asked in the questions I think a wide variety would be included, both GSS and interent chat and collab stuff. 5/4/98 16:58 Daniel Mittleman: We should be focusing on different time tools. 5/4/98 16:58 Daniel Mittleman: We might focus on tools that will surface cultural differences. 5/4/98 16:58 Daniel Mittleman: We might work on tools that do instantaneous translation (and show the results in both languages) 5/4/98 16:59 Ken Walsh: Daniele, I think you have a good point about the focus on different time tools. That would be the focus of international collaboration. 5/4/98 17:00 Daniel Mittleman: Yes, I can never get in synch with Canada. 5/4/98 17:00 Blake Ives: Okay, it is 5pm. Can you quickly reassemble in the other room. 5/4/98 17:00 Ken Walsh: I think trannslation would be an important category of tools. What other categories. 5/4/98 17:01 Ken Walsh: I guess we have chat, voice conf, video conf, and applications sharing. These would all have a plce. 5/4/98 17:01 Nina Tan: I think social protoccol is important too and that might have an implication on the tools.