Hello Pat,
Just to make it clear what we are talking about, there are logically three types of meeting:
1. Purely face-to-face
2. Purely electronic
3. A mixture of the above
Assuming we are talking only about 3…
Some of the possible advantages of remote participation are:
· Allow participation for those for whom travel is not possible (e.g. visa problems, health issues, family needs, lack of funds)
· Allow participation on specific topics for those who wouldn’t attend a whole session (e.g. subject matter expects who are not normally involved)
· Encourage participation from those who are initially unsure as to whether they want to participate
Some of the possible disadvantages of remote participation are:
· Logistical difficulties of equal access to debate (e.g., difficult to hear people in the room, more difficult to form a queue)
· Increased time overhead (e.g. bridge setup issues, increased dependency on often-fragile infrastructure, interruption from joining and leaving announcements “who joined the bridge?”)
· Logistical difficulties of finding good meeting times for remote participants
· Lack of transparency as to who is attending a meeting
· Reduction of control of things like audio recording
· Logistical difficulty of recording votes (if allowed) and checking voting status
· Procedural questions related to paying meeting fee and allowing to vote
I believe the requirements should be stated so as to maximise the advantages and minimize the disadvantages.
The questions to be resolved, in my mind, are:
1. Does the participant pay a meeting fee, and can they vote?
2. Is this a member’s right? – i.e. can a member demand remote access, or is it in the gift of the chair?
Best Regards,
Adrian P STEPHENS
Tel: +44 (1793) 404825 (office)
Tel: +1 (971) 330 6025 (mobile)
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Dear Colleagues,
One of my action times resulting from the discussion of remote attendance was to begin a discussion of our objectives for enabling remote participation in face-to-face meetings. Having a clear idea of the objectives should help us in deciding on how to support remote participation.
To kick off discussion, some possible objectives are:
- Enable remote participation from subject matter experts - especially when they are needed for a targeted discussion that isn't long enough to justify travel For example:
- Consideration maintenance item where people who worked on that portion of the standard aren't attending.
- A topic that needs coordination with experts from an other organization
- Participation by those who can attend some but not all meetings.
- Participation in off-cycle interims - sometimes subgroups hold an extra interim to do comment resolution of recirculations or to get extra meeting time.
- Outreach to people who can't attend meetings - e.g. to the developing world, to academics, etc. (this is one of the reasons that IETF does remote participation.
Please suggest objectives I've missed and comment on which objectives are most important.
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