Suggestions for remote participation Re: [governance] IGF2012, Remote Connection

Ray Pelletier rpelletier at isoc.org
Fri Nov 9 11:28:31 EST 2012 

All;

I just want to invite your attention to some work in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to establish requirements for want we are calling Remote Participation Services.  The IETF is quite keen to provide for non-attendees to our three meetings per year and multiple interim meetings to participate in our Internet Standards Development efforts.

That draft can be found here:  <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-genarea-rps-reqs/?include_text=1>

We have used WebEx and lately have been experimenting with Meetecho, which has endeavored to incorporate the IETF requrements.

We are now concluding IETF 85 in Atlanta.  At this site you can find recordings of some of the sessions:
<http://ietf85.conf.meetecho.com>.

Also: <https://www.ietf.org/edu/process-oriented-tutorials.html>

I hope this is useful.

Ray


On Nov 9, 2012, at 9:16 AM, Ginger Paque wrote:

> Yes, Marilia, this is very important. We will be working on this document before posting to the IGC list and Secretariat. If you--or anyone else-- would like to join us, please let me know offlist. 
> 
> We will be actively working to join forces with the DCAD, Tim Davies, and others to work towards a compilation of guidelines, principles and standards for remote participation, in particular to avoid (as noted by Norbert in the session) repeating the same mistakes. We expect to be actively involved in the next open consultation to provide this support to the RP efforts of the IGF Secretariat (Chengetai and Bernard).
> 
> This is an evolving, maturing process, which cannot be sustained by tech preparation alone. My first impression is that we now have a lot of information that we need, to put together the bigger picture, involving the strategies and awareness-raising of panel design, workshop structure and event planning. We need an organizational structure that counts remote participants as 'real' participants from the beginning. We need not only trained remote moderators, but aware and inclusive panels and panel moderators who consider remote participation to be part of the meeting.
> 
> Thanks to everyone for their efforts and energy to include the rest of the world, isolated and/or excluded by distance and different access from the meetings in Baku.
> 
> Best regards,
> Ginger
> 
> 
> On 9 November 2012 05:15, Marilia Maciel <mariliamaciel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback Ginger. The times zones were difficult to reconcile, but I will look for the transcripts online.
> Maybe we could send the result of the discussions of the workshop today and the suggestions for improvement that will be made on the list as a contribution to the next Open Consultation.
> 
> Marília
> 
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 3:37 PM, Ginger Paque <ginger at paque.net> wrote:
> These are excellent points, Marilia. We have been discussing similar ideas, including Pranesh's suggestion that as remote participants we must 'make ourselves be noticed'. I think we do need to raise our concerns in a dynamic, strong, constructive way to make this possible. I ask that you join us tomorrow at WS 52 Remote Participation: Reality and Principles, at 11:00 a.m. Baku time, conference room 9, where we will discuss these issues and the way forward. We will continue collaborative work on the Remote Participation principles, started last year in Nairobi, on an open etherpad document. The url and password will be published tomorrow morning. If you cannot join us, we will add your points to the document. We invite others to make their voices heard, so we can include your points in our final document. We hope to see you there, or to include you with our work. This is an important issue of access, and must be addressed.
> Obrigada, saludos,
> Ginger
> 
> 
> 
> On 8 November 2012 10:28, Marilia Maciel <mariliamaciel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I would like to start a thread of concrete suggestions for improving RP. I know all of us who participated remotely have our impressions of what could be better, so why not share them?
> 
> My personal views about being a remote participant today - for the first time in the IGF - is that the webcast of all sessions and the captioning are tremendous tools, the existence of hubs multiplies IGF discussions, and the fact that RP is available to any individual in the world is a remarkable sign of openness. But, in spite of all the undeniable achievements, progress needs to be made to ensure inclusion of views of remote participants into the IGF debate.
> 
> That difficulty, in my opinion, has to do with one main reason: In spite of the huge number of remote participants (47 hubs, more than 800 people last year), the methodology of most workshop sessions remains unchanged. We have not adjust to the new reality and the sessions are planned exclusively for those who are physically in the IGF. One possible reason for that could be that we have too many sessions on the schedule and too many issues to discuss. My feeling was that session moderators were so under pressure that, on the heat of the debate, they tended to see remote participants as an obstacle to "moving the discussion forward", not as IGF participants. 
> 
> Maybe less and longer sessions on IGF schedule would reduce pressure. Time pressure makes people impatient with the difficulties that non-native English speakers may have, or with occasional technical glitches, which we need to cope with, if we really want to include remote participants. It is up to us to decide what we value the most as a community: Speed of discussions? Inclusion? Sometimes they are in a trade-off.
> 
> It would be important to reduce the distance between remote participants and the session moderator. Most session moderators don't remember to look at the screen and check if questions are popping up in Webex. So remote participants lose the "timing" of making interventions. Maybe we could establish a procedure so remote participants could send questions to the session moderator before the IGF, so he could incorporate some of them into his own set of questions to the panelists. For the "live" questions, the remote participation moderator should have a clear visual way to sign to the session moderator that a remote question has been asked, like raising a red flag. Of course, audio interventions need to be more encouraged, even if their moment needs to be carefully planned and agreed upon between the session moderators and the technical team.  
> 
> There should not be a session without a remote moderator. Imagine someone who blocked her agenda to participate in a workshop and then, surprise: you stay in a room talking to the walls. If remote participation is an integral part of the IGF, this is unacceptable. Workshops without remote moderators should not be approved (for real), and those physically present in the room should confirm if the moderator is indeed there. As a last resort, anyone could take the role of being a moderator in case the person is missing.   
> 
> My main point is that, in spite of the technical improvements that should always be made, making remote participation inclusive is up to the community, especially of those who plan the sessions. Some organizers did a great job in linking up with remote hubs, planing for the participation of remote speakers and participants. But I seems they were still a minority. 
> 
> To mention the technical aspects, to me the greater problem was lack of integration between webex, webcast and captioning. Going back and forth in different windows was not practical. On a positive side, the quality of the image of the webcast seemed to be better, and the cameras were placed in a better position inside the room. It helped to read facial and body expressions.
> 
> One last point: some time ago, it was proposed that a task force would be created to exchange knowledge and best practices regarding RP with other organizations that have also been struggling and making progress at it, such as ITU (and many others as a matter of fact) in the UN. I don't know why it did not fly. I hope that political sensitivities do not hamper what could be a fruitful dialogue about a topic that is a common challenge. 
> 
> Best wishes and a safe journey to all returning from Baku!
> 
> Marília 
>  
> 
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 9:38 AM, Imran Ahmed Shah <ias_pk at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi all, 
> I was logged into Room #10 remotely, webex but there was no other attendee.
> The webex Schedule (as on 6th and 7th) has single first day pre-meeting of 5th Nov but after refreshing promt appear for login and after login it connected me Room #  7th Nov meeting.
> 
> I keep trying to obtain response from Moderator (Ms Nina), but could not established interactive response, and I do not know that have she read my text input or not. I think Moderator was too busy in the meeting physically and given zero importance to single Remote Participant. So, RP was useless.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Imran
> (for IGFPAK)
> 
> 
> 
> From: Jean-Yves GATETE <gate.one205 at yahoo.fr>
> To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>; Rudi Vansnick <rudi.vansnick at isoc.be> 
> Sent: Thursday, 8 November 2012, 3:18
> Subject: Re: [governance] IGF2012, Remote Connection
> 
> Hi all,
> as Mr Rudi, I ve been following via that webcast tool too. I have the same problem too and the Room10 is not working either.
>  
> Wishing you all the best,
>  
> Jean-Yves GATETE
> 
> De : Rudi Vansnick <rudi.vansnick at isoc.be>
> À : Crepin-Leblond Olivier <ocl at gih.com> 
> Cc : governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
> Envoyé le : Jeudi 8 novembre 2012 10h54
> Objet : Re: [governance] IGF2012, Remote Connection
> 
> I've used the remote participation tools daily (till today). The webex allows to participate through the chat and the Q&A windows, but the webcast is always giving me the same error.
> If I want to see the room I have to use the webcast tool (http://webcast.igf2012.com/) , which is of course not fully synchronised with the webex session. From room 6 till room 9 the audio in the webcast is very low. With the volume on the max here I can hardly understand the speakers.
> 
> The descriptions of the rooms workshops in the webcast window is not updated and gives sometimes wrong session information.
> 
> Rudi Vansnick
> ------------------ Internet Society Belgium  ---------------------
> President - CEO                            Tel +32/(0)9/329.39.16
> rudi.vansnick at isoc.be            Mobile +32/(0)475/28.16.32
> Dendermondesteenweg 143            B-9070 Destelbergen
> www.internetsociety.be        "The Internet is for everyone"
> 
> Op 8-nov-2012, om 04:29 heeft Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond het volgende geschreven:
> 
> > I suppose rp has probably been flooded with enquiries.
> > Since the beginning of the week, I saw Bernard run around trying to fix
> > things.
> > The remote participation computers running Webex are all wired in and
> > appear to work well but the network sometimes goes through some periods
> > of being very slow. This is when the WIFI works and guess what, the WIFI
> > does not work well at all. In fact, I have spent complete afternoons
> > without WIFI. (not enough IPv4 addresses to allocate -- and no IPv6
> > connectivity at all in case you ask)
> > 
> > Whilst so far, I have been super impressed with the host country, this
> > is, in my opinion, the poorest Internet connectivity we've had at the
> > venue in recent IGFs. <sigh>
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > 
> > Olivier
> > 
> > On 07/11/2012 00:04, Norbert Bollow wrote:
> >> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 8:16 PM, shaila mistry <shailam at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >>> Hi everyone
> >>> I too have tried several times to participate. Each time I am sent a
> >>> different route of downloads and logins , finally leading to a dead end.
> >>> Please advise what can be done ?
> >>> Shaila Rao Mistry
> >> Have you tried contacting
> >> 
> >> "Remote Participation general help" <rp at intgovforum.org>
> >> 
> >> ?
> >> 
> >> Do they respond?
> >> 
> >> If yes, what are they saying?
> >> 
> >> If no, let us know, so that we can push locally for those help email
> >> addresses to be handled in a meaningful way.
> >> 
> >> In the long run, what we need is funding to put a competent person in
> >> charge of ensuring in an ongoing manner (year after year) that IGF
> >> remote participation is made available in a way that can be expected
> >> to work (which presupposes learning from what went wrong in earlier
> >> years, and it presupposes serious testing well before the first day of
> >> the IGF). It is simply unacceptable for an entirely new technical team
> >> to put in charge of remote participation every year, and the remote
> >> participation infrastructure again and again being so absurdly
> >> unreliable.)
> >> 
> >> Greetings,
> >> Norbert
> >> 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
> > http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
> > 
> > 
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