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<font face="Arial">Roland, thanks for bringing up this very important
topic. First, the Egypt host country did a great job!!!<br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial">The Remote Participation Working Group </font><font
face="Arial">is collecting responses from the 11 registered hubs. I
suspect not all of them had active participation due to time zone
problems. There were also several "virtual hubs"-- individuals in
widely ranging geographic spaces who were watching online, and
discussing among the group, as well as individuals all over the world.
Other data will be available soon. However, RP was an effective tool to
include many people who otherwise would have been unable to
participate, myself included. We learned a lot at this IGF, and I think
there will be a big advance in RP implementation next year.<br>
<br>
A quick approximate overview of Remote Participation tools available -
(information on tools was available on the IGF 2009 page):<br>
The tools offered were very good. WebEx was available usually in 4 of
the workshop rooms, sometimes more, and some main sessions.<br>
<br>
The main sessions accepted questions by email and actively solicited
remote participants to intervene, particularly on the final day. This
channel, implemented and monitored by the IGF Secretariat seemed
effective and responsive.<br>
<br>
The UN webcast was available on audio in 10 rooms, video in about 4 of
those. <br>
<br>
The captioning script was available online for the main session, and
for all DCAD sessions.<br>
<br>
Remote presenters were live or recorded. In my case, my video back-up
was used because my Internet connection from Venezuela was not reliable.<br>
<br>
Twitter and YouTube were excellent tools as well--thanks to everyone
who contributed!<br>
<br>
Skype and WebEx discussions helped integrate the "conference" feeling
to the sessions.<br>
<br>
I know that Elluminate was used, facilitated by Derrick Cogburn, but do
not have any details on that. Perhaps Derrick can give us more
information.<br>
<br>
Marilia and Bernard offered onsite help, and I was always available on
Skype.<br>
<br>
Problems to be worked on, because "better" is never good enough:<br>
My personal first impression is that the interface between the remote
tools and the actual sessions needs restructuring. Some remote
moderators were excellent, embedding the UN webcast and captioning in
the WebEx window, meaning that all tools, including private and public
(remote) chat were available together. However, not all on site remote
moderators were sufficiently prepared: there was not always adequate
"real" communication between the remote participants and the sessions.
Marilia Maciel and Bernard Sadaka did an amazing job of learning the
ropes and recruiting onsite volunteers for the job, who did very well,
given the constraints. (Congratulations and thanks!). The Egypt hosts
were truly incredible.<br>
<br>
The Remote Participation Working Group guidelines were not implemented
for this IGF, and will be re-worked and re-negotiated with the
Secretariat for the IGF 2010. We hope to include some guidelines for
the design of the workshops to help the panels themselves to include
Remote Participation so that it can be included appropriately. A big
problem the RPWG faced was the loss of our website (igfremote.org)
through an unknown, not understood process, to an unknown party, and
our difficulty in getting a new one (Igfremote.info) up. <br>
<br>
With this experience, we are sure next year will be even better. We
will post a link to the RPWG report when it is ready. Any input or
comments are welcome, if appropriate, by offlist email to me.<br>
<br>
RP is an important resource for participation and inclusion. I hope the
IGC and its individual members will continue to support and implement
it.<br>
<br>
Suggestions and collaboration welcome!<br>
Best,<br>
Ginger<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</font><br>
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:30E8BCAF0FC845F9BB085056BF008101@GIH.CO.UK"
type="cite">
<blockquote type="cite">Personally I feel that while there is still a
long way to go, remote
<br>
participation was much more effective this year than in the previous
<br>
IGFs.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
The thing was that video and audio streaming was implemented as
standard in all sessions, and it worked really well. However, no
standard feedback channel was implemented and it was up to each
workshop organiser to think of a system, be it Elluminate, Adobe,
Marratech, Webex or other. It caught some session organisers off-guard.
<br>
So that leaves room for improvement next year.
<br>
Warm regards,
<br>
<br>
Olivier
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
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