Automated Capture and Access of Virtual Meetings in TeamSpace November 14, 2001 CNRC, Columbia University Werner Geyer, Shahrokh Daijavad, Tom Frauenhofer IBM T.J. Watson Research Heather Richter, Gregory Abowd Georgia Institute of Technology Ludwin Fuchs, Steven Poltrock The Boeing Company

TeamSpace project Tasks and work modes Automated capture and access TeamSpace system Initial experiences Agenda

Inter-Company Collaboration

TeamSpace Project Investigate how technology can enable teams to work together effectively across time and space Collaborative, task-oriented workspace system to support inter-company distributed teams (“Team Portal”) Management of shared work processes and artifacts in a project Synchronous and asynchronous team interaction Support virtual meetings as a crucial team activity

Security infrastructures prevent collaboration: - No collaboration without communication Different places, different companies, different cultures, different work processes: - Design implications Work filled with rich discussions whose details are difficult to document: - Ubiquitous capture is an opportunity! Problems and Opportunities

Boeing Studies Team members spend the majority of their time with articulation work Team members frequently shift between different work modes and perform different tasks

Work Modes

Work Modes and Tasks

People move effortlessly from one mode to another when collocated Fluidity

Motivation for Capture and Access Work filled with rich discussions whose details are difficult to document and later access Virtual meetings are a crucial communication and coordination activity of teams Ubiquitous capture and access technologies could provide inexpensive capture of these discussions (archiving) After a decade of research in capture and access systems, we still do not understand the impact on everyday work practices

Research Questions What is the best way to capture meetings? How are the users going to utilize captured information? What are the appropriate browsing and visualization mechanisms for the captured material? How do these differ depending on the task of the user? Getting answers involves putting a system into real use and capture a critical mass of meetings. User group Context knowledge Review horizon Type of information Participated HighShortDetails Not participated HighShortDetails Long-term SignificantLongDetails, experts, decisions New person Very lowLongHigh-level, finding experts, details Historical Very lowLongHigh-level, decisions, rationale

Integration of Capture and Access into a collaborative team environment Using articulation objects across synchronous and asynchronous types of collaboration Creating indices based on user interaction with these articulation objects Benefits: Automated documentation (archiving) Help build relevant knowledge of past team activities Efficient browsing of meeting records Approach

Work Modes and Tasks

Capture and Access in TeamSpace General meeting artifacts: Meetings, Agendas, Action Items, Presentations, People System Components: Web UI:Create, view, and edit any object before, during, and after a meeting MeetingClient:Conduct and automatically record and index distributed meetings MeetingViewer: Review captured meeting information and use significant events to play back desired portions Meeting- and application server

List View Detailed View Workspace Tabs Web UI

Calendar View Edit a Meeting Web UI

Search Parameters Meeting List Web UI

Overview Panel Toolbar MeetingClient Main View

MeetingClient

MeetingViewer Timelines Event Key Target icon Information Panels MeetingViewer

Location of Playback Event Event type & color Show event MeetingViewer

System Architecture

Used for weekly meetings by TeamSpace development team since November 2000 Cross firewall communication is difficult! We shared information using PowerPoint We reviewed brainstorming, presentations, and action items to some extent Still problems in awareness of what distributed members are looking at or doing Led to redesign of MeetingClient and Web Interface – the 2nd prototype was completed early July Initial Usage

Cross-Firewall Approaches (1) Sametime/NetMeeting HTTP Tunneling

Cross-Firewall Approaches(2) TeamSpace Future Solution

Conclusion Meeting capture and access needs to be integrated within the larger context of work TeamSpace is our first attempt at such an integration Using articulation objects across synchronous and asynchronous types of collaboration Create indices based on user interaction with these articulation objects TeamSpace can now serve as a platform for evaluations to understand the impact of meeting capture and access

Info Publications: ACM Ubicomp, IEEE WetIce, IBM RC, …