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Participants, especially novice users, are understandably reluctant to respond to "blank" items. Thus, a useful technique is for organizers to respond to their own items just to get the ball rolling. For example, an organizer might be the first respondent to the item used for extended introductions or the one used to discuss a conference's purposes.
Keep in mind that while you may enjoy discussions and conferencing, some people do not. They may be cautious and embarrassed about stating their own opinions in public, and, quite possibly, intimidated by computers. It helps if organizers respond to participants' contributions either in the conference itself or by sending a private message acknowledging their input.
Although physically and temporally separated, regular conference participants can develop a feeling of cohesiveness. This dynamic varies according to the nature of the conference. It is more evident in longer-lasting working groups than in large open conferences, but it is usually present in all conferences to some degree.
Organizers can play an important function in nurturing cohesion. It helps to greet people when they join. Ask them questions. Encourage people who have not contributed to do so rather than just to read. Give participants feedback! Remember, as in face-to-face discussions, participants who are consistently ignored, who feel they are talking to themselves, will cease to contribute.
Humor can be an important element of discussions. If not spontaneously generated by participants themselves, consider injecting some in otherwise "serious" conferences. It helps relax people if you break the ice first.
Too many public responses by an organizer can make a conference seem moderator-dominated. Thus, organizers should consider using private e-mail to make constructive comments, to ask a participant why they haven't contributed, or to defuse an argument. Private e-mail does not interfere with conference activity.
Providing summaries is another important organizer function. This helps current participants to quickly understand what has transpired, while helping new participants catch up on discussions.
Because computer conferences can extend over long time periods, there are two important maintenance operations. One is to bring in new material to help freshen up conferences. Consider bringing in material from other sources (including from other conferences). The second is to houseclean occasionally by deleting dormant items and keeping subject categories up to date.
Some conferences have a very well-defined and detailed agenda which should be set by the organizer in advance. For example, a group working on a task (e.g., a new marketing strategy), a course conference, or a committee established to discuss a new program might have specific topics they need to discuss. In these instances the items may be known in advance and the conference structure may be rigid. However, in conferences with more general topics (e.g., office morale, micros or music), it may not be possible, or even desirable, to do this. For open conferences, it is suggested that the initial topic structure consist of a few general items. More specific items typically emerge from those general discussions, and there may be hundreds of items in conferences of a long duration.
An important moderator function deals with what is called "item drift." This occurs when people stray from the topic of an item. You might want to gently (sometimes not so gently) remind "drifters" to return to the topic. Conferences with significant item drift turn out to be "muddy" since the same topic may be discussed in many different items. Some drift is inevitable (do not be too heavy-handed), it is a matter of degree. In fact, participants sometimes signal they are drifting to make a digression (by saying "set drift on" and "set drift off"), indicating that others should not follow their lead. If the drift is significant and raises issues or covers topics not addressed in other items, a new item may be warranted.
Caucus provides the capacity for organizers to group items under subjects. This is an extremely important organizer function, especially in large, open conferences and those of long duration. Like items, these might be thought out in advance and grouped under these headings as they are added. In some conferences with no set agenda, they are likely to develop as the conference progresses. It would also be helpful for you to notify participants of the subjects' existence and explain how to access items by subject categories.
A conferencing system is designed to facilitate group discussions. Private e-mail would, therefore, seem antithetical to this purpose. Nevertheless, e-mail can serve many useful functions. As in face-to-face discussions, there are some things better said in private. Some communications are simply more appropriate for another individual or subset of the entire group. It is suggested that as much of the communication as possible be conducted in the conference itself (it would not be much of a conference otherwise), while recognizing the need for private communications. The presence of extensive private communication between some people could suggest the need for another conference for those members. For more information on e-mail, see chapter 5.
Typically, conference participants are permitted to add their own items. There are, however, circumstances in which this may be undesirable. This is especially true in newly organized conferences, when it may be beneficial for the organizer to maintain control of the topics and/or the order in which they are discussed. There may even be conferences where the organizer wants to completely control the conference items, such as in computer-mediated business meetings and, in educational settings, course conferences. Once conferences have matured, an organizer may wish to relax this restriction. Note that open conferences would probably not survive this restriction for very long.
Unless you decide otherwise, participants are permitted to change (i.e., edit, replace, or delete) material they have previously entered (items or responses). This is useful when, in retrospect, they are not content with something they have said. However, there may be circumstances when allowing such changes would be inappropriate. For example, in a group working on a sensitive topic, retrospective changes could significantly alter the context in which subsequent remarks are embedded, changing their meaning entirely. It is suggested that restricting the right to make such changes should be used with caution and only with the consent of the participants. Of course, you can always reverse the restriction. Restricting changes is ordinarily not appropriate for public conferences.
Except for duplications of names already registered, participants can select any name they desire. Thus, pseudonyms are possible and can be used creatively. For example, names can be used for role-playing, or groups of individuals can select similar names for simulations. However, under some circumstances they may be inappropriate, as in business settings or in course conferences where it is necessary to track participation. Furthermore, pseudonyms should be used responsibly and not to harm or impersonate other conference members. Remember, the identity of the author of any item or response can be discovered despite the use of pseudonyms.
Organizers of open conferences need to be especially sensitive to objectionable content. After all, participants' comments are available to anyone with access to your Caucus system. The same basic guidelines that apply to free speech using any other medium apply here as well. There are two minimal rules that should be adhered to in all public conferences: no vulgar language and no personal attacks. There are several ways to handle problems:
Confidentiality is frequently an issue any time people communicate. However, since computer conferencing creates an instant transcript, breaches of confidentiality become markedly simplified: it is relatively simple to print material, copy it to another conference, or publish it in some other fashion. Thus, computer conferencing provides a greater potential for abuse.
It is typically assumed that conference material is intended only for other participants. Reproducing that material for wider distribution would violate that assumption. However, if material in a conference is of a particularly sensitive nature, you might wish to:
Keeping a permanent record of a conference is highly recommended. This is especially true for course and special purpose conferences that you may wish to review after they have ceased to exist. One option is to print a hard copy. Another is to write the conference to a file (use the 'expand' button to make your conference into one file - then select, cut, and paste it into your word processor. A helpful hint is to name the file the same as the item name)
Open conferences run continuously but are typically restarted periodically (with much advance notification to participants) to conserve computer resources. Conferences established for specific purposes (e.g., task groups) have a definite life. In educational settings, course conferences normally terminate when the term closes. Other special conferences may be indeterminate. In each case, the organizer should notify the conferencing system coordinator when to terminate the conference.
In course conferencing, a class is provided with one or more of its own closed conferences. When used with on-campus classes, add communication possibilities beyond those which normally exists. Course conferencing also can be used to teach complete courses by computer-mediated communications (known as virtual classrooms).
By opening up additional communication channels, conferencing can increase access between instructors and students, and among students. Conferencing also has the potential to significantly increase the amount of writing by students, even in courses where writing is neither an essential nor even a minor component. Parenthetically, using conferencing helps satisfy two goals which colleges and universities typically attempt to foster among their students: familiarity with computers and increased written communication.
It is important to recognize that communicating via computer and conferencing are probably new experiences to many, if not most, students. Therefore, an introduction in class to the general principles of both is important prior to any workshops or other hands on experience. Equally important is that students understand why conferencing is being included in the course. Indicate how much you expect them to participate. Also, clarify for students the use of private e-mail.
While this information also may be presented and discussed in the conference itself, creating a context for conferencing can go a long way toward allaying anxieties that accompany this experience. As conferencing becomes more common, such introductions will probably cease to be as necessary.
An important advantage of course conferencing is the capacity to effectively evaluate students' contributions to discussions. This can be done either by scrolling through the items on your terminal or computer screen, or by printing the conference (see print commands).
The way to evaluate contributions depends on your course objectives and expectations for conference participation. Here are some typical conferencing standards:
At the very least, students might be expected to read the material in the conference. Caucus permits checking on the items and responses that students have displayed. If this is done once per week, a record could be kept and referred to at the end of the term.
A second level requires that students join the conference and contribute to some or all of the items. This could be checked by examining the conference transcript. By using the information tagged to each response one could determine whether these contributions occurred during a specific time interval, say once per week.
Levels of contribution beyond these minima can be gauged only by closer examination of the conference transcript. One criterion is response length. Although as with any other contribution this may not be the best measure, it can be used as a rough index of student participation. One suggestion is to use three levels, something like terse, average, and extensive. A one-line response may indicate the student's participation but not much else. Two or three sentences is usually enough to justify more extensive interaction, while a ten-line response may signify extensive participation.
How incisive and meaningful students' contributions to discussions are can be only determined by carefully examining an entire course transcript. How one does this depends, again, on one's course objectives. As with any grading scheme the metric can range from global to fine-grain, from acceptable vs. unacceptable to a specific letter grade (complete with + and -). The advantage of having the complete conference transcript over attempting to do this with in-class participation should be obvious. Instructors who repeat courses have the additional advantage of making between-term comparisons.
It is possible to conduct conferences in languages other than English by adopting text conventions. The creative use of punctuation marks and symbols can substitute for many accents. The greeting or first conference item should be used to establish the conventions.
Items can be selected in database fashion with the judicious use of item titles. Suppose there are several working groups producing several versions of documents in one conference. If each group's document was entered as a separate item that carried the group (e.g.,G1) and version number (e.g.,V1) the list some items link from the conference home page could be used to show all documents for group 1. Other standard information contained in item titles would be similarly searchable.
Each conference maintains a userlist which controls who has membership privileges. This list can be edited from the customize link on the conference home page (or the "Customize USERLIST" command in the text interface.)
A completely open conference should have a colon (:) followed by the word "include" as the first line in the file and no other text. The second line should contain an asterisk (*). Therefore, the file would look like this:
:include
*
To specify a list of permitted participants, the asterisk should be replaced by their username. The following userlist specifies three faculty members and a student (fox).
Participants are excluded by listing their account names, following a line which reads ":exclude." In addition, participants can be limited to only being able to read (not contribute to) material by listing their account names following a line which reads ":readonly". The following userlist would give an invited guest (gendin) permission to read the discussions, let (orloff) read messages but not respond, and exclude one department member (jjones) from accessing the conference at all.
The conference introduction may also be edited from the "customize conference" page. Modify it to suit your needs for the particular confernce. For example:
Welcome to the Music conference. Its purpose is to discuss all facets of the musical scene, both classical and contemporary. We welcome membership and participants.
The greeting appears every time a person sees the conference home page. As with the introduction, text already exists upon the conference's creation. Modify it as you see fit. An example:
Note that the items in Music are in organized by categories, according to their title. To see these categories and the items under each, click on list some items, and then pull down the menu bar to "by words in title". See item 26 for a discussion of the next assignment.
The organizer may instruct Caucus to permit or deny conference participants the right to add their own items. The default is to permit adding items.
Caucus gives the organizer the option of not permitting participants to alter, replace, or delete the text of items and responses they have entered. The default setting permits such changes.