![]() |
![]() |
CAUCUS (Conferencing System) is a University of Arizona conference system utilized to improve the communication process among Faculty and Staff and Students. To find out more about WWW electronic conferencing and why you should consider using it in your college, department, office or classroom, please investigate conferencing USES. Faculty can get ideas for their classroom by looking at Instructional Uses.
This guide is intended for new organizers of Caucus conferences. Prospective organizers may be familiar with conferencing in general, and Caucus in particular; however, there are certain features and issues with which organizers need to be familiar and which deserve special emphasis. These are examined in the following sections.
Each conferencing application will have a variety of conferences suited to that environment. In general there are two types.
In an open conference, membership is available to anybody with access to the Caucus conferencing system. Open conferences cover general topics open to all. These can include anything from restaurant reviews and company picnics to office policies, vacation schedules, music, politics, and literature.
Restricted conferences impose some limitation on membership. The organizer can specifically designate persons who may become full or read-only members and/or exclude others. Examples of restricted conferences are:
In an academic setting one of the major uses is in connection with classes. In the typical course conference, membership is restricted to students and their instructor. Additional non-course participants, such as other faculty members or experts, are sometimes included (see Course Conferencing, section 7).
There are many types of special conferences whose membership may be partially or fully restricted. Examples in an academic setting are: thesis committees, faculty committees, student and faculty organizations and research groups. Business examples are: Boards of Directors, research and development groups, holiday party committees, and sales support groups.
Using Caucus requires some kind of computer account or "id". Typically these ids will either be assigned by your organization, or else can be selected by the users themselves. If you as an organizer are running a restricted conference, you will need to know your members id's so that you can identify them.
In some applications, users are free to start their own conferences. In other settings, a conferencing system coordinator may restrict the number and type of conferences. Restrictions prevent duplication of discussions and conserve system resources. (For information on how to start new conferences, see the Caucus Conference Organizer's "How To".)
It is very important that participants know how to use the system before engaging in any "serious" conferencing. Introductory training sessions led by experienced users, practice (fun!) conferences, and provision of quick reference guides to users are suggested.