Welcome to the Caucus tutorial!

The next few pages will take you on a short tour of conferencing with Caucus -- what it is, what it's good for, how it's structured, and how to use it. 

What is Caucus Conferencing?  What Good Is It?

Organizations thrive on information.  The group and team projects that determine organizational success work best when people can easily exchange information -- and create new information in that exchange.

Caucus conferencing provides a "virtual space" where people can do just that -- easily share information and create new information.  We call this virtual space a Conference Center.  A conference is an online discussion among a group of people about some topic, process, or project.

A conference may be devoted to

• policy discussions and decision-making,
• managing a project, department or team,
• providing technical support,
• building community through feedback,
• distance education,

among other purposes.  The participants in such a conference may be

• an executive committee,
• a project team,
• the employees of one department of an enterprise
• the citizens of a community.

How & When Does a Conference Happen?

Caucus allows conference participants to attend the conference "meetings" at their own convenience.  You don't have to be in one place; you don't even have to be on a computer at the same time as anyone else.

So, a conference can supplement or replace traditional meetings.  Conference members can be scattered across a building or around the world.

Caucus allows conference participants to enter not only text, but also graphics, HTML, links to files and other information, audio, video -- any information compatible with the Web.

The computer which hosts Caucus keeps a complete record of everything that takes place in the conference.  It also keeps a personal record of what you've seen, what's new, and what you're interested in.

(Next section: Caucus Structure and Navigation.)

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