Subject: Mbone questionaire

From: Schahram Dustdar <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 12:12:09 +0200

* Sorry if you receive this mail more than once ! *

Dear colleague,

We are two researchers working with the MBone-tools since 1993 and are
interested in understanding and promoting their usage in an
organizational and international context. We would like to ask you for
20 minutes of your time to fill in this questionnaire since you are
experts in MBone videoconferencing. We will present the results and mail
them to all interested respondents.

Please send your answer to [email-masked]

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Schahram Dustdar and Gertjan Hofstede
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Videoconferencing questionnaire

Remarks:
Floor control deals with the question of who is allowed to have the
temporary monopoly to distribute signals to the other participants (such
as audio, video or shared data).
Side chatting is private communication between two or more people
involved in a videoconference.

Personalia
1. How old are you?
2. What is your nationality?
3. Are you female or male?
4. What is your job title?
5. Of how many people are you boss?
6. In what type of organization do you work? (Profit, government,
academic, other non-profit)
7. How many videoconferences have you attended within your organization?
8. How many videoconferences have you attended between organizations?
9. How many videoconferences have you initiated?

Context 
1. How well do you usually know your conference partners? (1 very well,
5 not at all)
2. How many participants are usually in the videoconference ?
3. How much time elapses between the call for the videoconference and
the actual videoconference? (hours, days, weeks, months)
4. What type of tasks do the videoconferences address ? (1 always .. 5
never)
· Group Setup
· Brainstorming
· Briefing
· Discussion
· Planning
· Negotiation
· Evaluation of Project
· Try out of technology
· Other: ........
5. Which other applications do you use during a videoconfence?
6. How many time zones does the videoconference usually span?

Preparation of a videoconference (Please give a descriptive answer)

1. When and how do you decide on the floor control of audio, video and
shared data? 
2. When and how do you decide on note taking during the
videoconference?  
3. When and how do you decide on the agenda for the meeting? 

During a videoconference 

1. Compared to face-to-face meetings, how problematic is concurrent
speaking? (1 much more so ... 5 much less so)
2. Compared to face-to-face meetings, how problematic is it to know
exactly who is talking at the moment? (1 much more so ... 5 much less
so)
3. Is screen space a limiting factor ? (1 very much ... 5 not at all)
4. What monitor size do you use (inches)?
5. Compared to face-to-face meetings, how easy is it to reach agreement
in a videoconference? (1 much easier ... 5 much more difficult) 
6. Compared to face-to-face meetings, how often have you experienced
strong "intellectual" disagreement in a videoconference ? (1 much more
often .. 5 much less often)
7. Compared to face-to-face meetings, how often have you experienced
strong "personal resentment" in a videoconference ? (1 much more often
.. 5 much less often)
8. Have you experienced culture clashes using videoconferences? (if yes
please explain)

In a hypothetical ideal videoconferencing environment, what features
would you wish to see (1 very much ... not at all 5:):
1. Would you like to have anonymous features in videoconferencing tools?
(eg. In the shared whiteboard)
2. Would you like to have a "speaking meter" in the audio tool in order
to measure
how long each participant talks?
3. Would you like to allow "side-chatting" in videoconferencing tools?
4. Would you like to have features to keep track of the meeting's
progress ? If yes which features? 

The next three questions are open ended:

5. What features would be needed in order to promote that every
participant freely expresses his/her ideas?
6. How do the videoconferencing participants signal the conference chair
that they want
to say something?  
7. Would you like to have work-related background information of your
conference participants? (such as: which projects is the other person
responsible for, to whom does he report, when is the deadline for the
project, etc.) If yes, what information ?

Conclusion 
1. Who does the documentation of the minutes? (open?)
2. Are they provided on a web-page afterwards?  
3. If yes, how long does it take until they appear on the
Intranet/Internet?
4. Do you use them after the meeting ? (1 very intensively ... 5 not at
all)
5. Reading the minutes afterwards, would you like to play back the
6. audio/video streams of the meeting?
7. In your opinion, what are the main differences between face-to-face
meetings and videoconferences? 
8. In your opinion, what are the main do's and don'ts?
9. In the future, how important will videoconferencing grow to be ? (1
crucial ...5 insignificant)

Would you like to receive the results of this questionaire?

Thank you very much for your cooperation!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Dr.Schahram Dustdar 
University of Art and Industrial Design
Center for Informatics Services (ZID)
Head of Department
Hauptplatz 8, A-4010 Linz-Austria/Europe
eMail:  [email-masked]
Home:   http://www.khs-linz.ac.at/~dustdar
WWW:    http://www.khs-linz.ac.at
Tel:    XX43-732-7898-260
Fax:    XX43-732-783508
--------------------------------------------
Austrian Multimedia National Support Centre 
for multimedia conferencing support