[AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing tool?

[Jay Beavers]

Perhaps this would be a great topic of discussion at the AG Retreat?

For me, the events of September 11th have strongly motivated me to
ensure our research in these areas ends up producing a more generally
useful conferencing tool.  With the reduction in travel and the
potential for travel to remain dangerous, I think people are going to be
much more motivated to use teleconferencing in the future.

I would love to hear all the experiences of people on the AG and what
are the critical areas of improvement.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: Roberts, Ian E [mailto:ian.roberts at pnl.gov] 
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2002 7:22 AM
To: 'bernholdtde at ornl.gov'
Cc: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing tool?

When we have meetings that use the more unstable and collaborative
tools, I
usually stay in the room. Sometimes I bring a laptop in to do other work
during
the meeting. I also have about four other people I can call upon to run
the node
if I'm not available to do it. It helps that we have a second node
across the
street in the EMSL now so there are more of us around who know how to
run it.
~~ian

	----------
	From: 	David E. Bernholdt
	Reply To: 	bernholdtde at ornl.gov
	Sent: 	Thursday, February 14, 2002 6:08 AM
	To: 	Roberts, Ian E
	Cc: 	ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov; bernholdtde at ornl.gov
	Subject: 	Re: [AG-TECH] AG as general teleconferencing
tool?

	> We are still working on a pricing system to be able to afford
upgrades, etc.
	> For now, our staff pay for an operator's time to get the
meeting
scheduled
	> and started. For most meetings, I charge one hour of time to
their
project;
	> enough to get it going and then be on call if they need me.

	Ian,

	I would be very interested in the model you come up with --
something
	similar might be useful here.  

	It sounds like you pretty much get things started and then leave
	people on their own.  Is this always the case, even when they're
using
	DPPT, VNC, etc.?  I've taken a similar approach so far here --
asking
	users to nominate someone from the group to learn how to run ths
node.
	My "day job" is research -- building and running the AG is
something I
	did on the side, so I'm unwilling to spend all my time running
the
	node for other peoples' meetings.  Our usage isn't very high
yet, but
	today and tomorrow will be a good test of this approach.

	David
	--
	David E. Bernholdt                   |   Email:
bernholdtde at ornl.gov 
	Oak Ridge National Laboratory        |   Phone: +1 (865) 574
3147    
	http://www.csm.ornl.gov/~bernhold/   |   Fax:   +1 (865) 574
0680