Another goal is to identify which areas warrant more study. If they find that collectively, they are seeing a lot of patients with a particular project, then perhaps it's worth someone doing a detailed literature search.

Software

Emotional support

Referring to artifacts

Setup

Video

It wasn't clear to us how useful the video was -- it was relatively low quality, the doctors didn't look at the camera (so the eye contact was "wrong"), and it constrained the doctors' movement. (If they leaned forward, it would see the top of their head; if they leaned back, it would see their torso.) However, P3 was adamant that the video was useful. He felt that anything that added richness to the interaction was good.

If one of the major benefits is emotional support, than it might well be that video is important. A picture of someone might have a much stronger emotional resonance than simple audio.

Audio

P3 explained that every site had slightly different hardware, camera, microphone, and bandwidth. Thus quality was uneven over all the sites.

Improvements desired

Many of his frustrations centered around the hardware. He wanted a bigger screen and a wide-screen format screen. He wanted everybody to have the same (presumably high-quality) hardware/microphones/cameras. Part of the constraint was financial, but part was informational: he wanted someone to give a recommendation on which cameras/monitors/CPUs/microphones he should buy.

He felt that there were some changes to the system that would be helpful:

P3: I think it could be a little smoother to bring people in and out, dampen the mic on the non-speaker, and there is clumsiness in hooking up to various stations.

He also was very frustrated by the limitations of PowerPoint, but was unable to articulate precisely what the problem was or how it should be fixed. He expressed the opinion that that was the job of people with good communication skills to figure out.

• Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = DuckySherwood, ShermanLai

In 2003@@@, a group of doctors started meeting regularly via computer conference several times per year in order to discuss interesting -- usually difficult -- cases. There are fewer than ten doctors who participate, and all are associated with teaching hospitals in major metropolitan areas. (There are only enough patients in this subspecialty every year to support a handful of doctors.)

In addition to the doctors, a number of other medical professionals are allowed to listen in on these case discussions: fellows, residents, clerks, and researchers. Usually, they play only a passive role in the actual conference.

The conferencing software, which we will call "LectureNotes", that they use was developed by a medical devices company, and originally was intended for use training salespeople in a traditional "lecture" format: one person doing most of the talking and the rest of the people mostly listening.

The medical devices company provides LectureNotes as a promotional benefit to the doctors. The software is entirely Web-based, but requires a technical administrator at the devices company. The administrator deals with passwords, with setting up the conference, and troubleshooting technical issues. The administrator might also play an active role in turning microphones off and on during the conference.

@@@ picture of screen -- does Sherman have a better one?

LectureNotes takes up the full screen, and has the following sections:

• video: there is a small area at the upper left of the screen which projects the video of the person who is speaking or who last spoke. The video feed comes from a webcam on or near the speaker's computer, pointed at whoever is sitting at the computer. (This means that those without
• participants: a scrolling list of people who are logged in
• presenters: a scrolling list of people with special "presenter" status. Presenters have the power to manipulate or modify various things, while non-presenters can only observe/listen. In the way that Squares currently runs, all participants are also presenters, so this pane is redundant.
• agenda: not used
• slides: a large area (taking the majority of the screen) which is used to present PowerPoint slides. Those usually consist of pictures (X-rays, CT scans, MRIs) of the patients.
• toolbar: controls for many things, including "raising a hand" (i.e. requesting permission to speak), various ways of annotating the slides, advancing to the next slide or retreating to the previous one.

In the list of participants, there is an icon which represents a "hand up" that can appear next to a participant's name. Associated with that icon is a color: Red means that the person wants to speak, yellow means that they have been given permission to speak, and green means that they are speaking.

The presenters can "draw on" the slides, and have several different drawing tools to select from.

To speak, a participant holds down the Control key. That puts the "hand up" icon next to their name. We were unclear about exactly how people were cleared to speak: one person told us that they were always cleared to speak, while another said that the medical devices company's administrator pushed buttons to enable/disable microphones.

Observation

We observed a group at a local hospital the day of a Squares conference. We arrived a bit early, and observed during the setup, the Squares conference, and then for a little bit afterwards. Kelly Booth advised us not to tape the conference.

Ahead of time, we had agreed that we would divide up duties as follows:

During the Squares conference, doctors P3 and P4 each sat at a computer at their desk in their respective offices. P1 and P2 sat and watched in P3's office. P1 and P2 had told us that they expected more people, but aside from a staff surgeon who entered, stayed for about ten minutes, and left, there was nobody else in the room.

Because we had been led to believe that there would be a lot of people in the room, we stuck ourselves to the back wall of P3's office. Partway through, when it became apparent that nobody else was coming and that our position didn't let us see what was on the screen, Ducky moved up. She lodged herself just behind P3 and as close to the left wall as possible to minimize her appearance on P3's webcam.

Afterwards, we chatted with P1 and P2 briefly.

Follow-up interviews

P1 and P2

The best-laid plans of mice and man often go astray, and so did the plans of Duck and Sherman.

• Even though we had scheduled interviews with P1 and P2 at different times, they assumed that we would interview the two of them together. They wanted to be interviewed together. As they were doing us a favor, we couldn't really force them apart.
• While we know that we are supposed to interview people in their offices, P1 and P2 both resisted, and for good reason. Both offices had other peoples' desks in them and precious little space to sit. To interview P1 and P2 in either of their offices would have been very disruptive to their officemates. Thus we went down the hall to a conference room.
• We didn't have a chance to discuss how we would deal with a two-person interview, and Sherman did not write down who said what.

P3

We arrived at the hospital at 0715 (with a voice recorder this time!), and stopped at the hospital coffee shop to do last-minute coordination over coffee, only to discover P3 at the coffee shop. He was ready to go, and seeing the chance to get more time with him, we jumped at the opportunity.

That morning, we discovered that the voice recorder's batteries were dead. He was able to recharge them in the car; we realized that this was sub-optimal, but figured they would last the 15 minutes that we had. (We couldn't just stop at a convenience store and buy new batteries, as this particular recorder had a built-in battery.)

It turned out that P3 was very unhurried that morning. Apparently, he needed to be at the hospital early in case some problem cropped up in pre-op, but he didn't have any specific obligations. He generously gave us about an hour of his time, during which time our recorder died, was recharged, and died again. Hence our notes from that interview are partially a verbatim transcript and partially just recopied handwritten notes.

P4

• How does the speaker indicate to others what visual artifact he/she is referring to?
• How does the physical layout affect the collaboration?
• How do they manage screen real estate?
• How do the participants manage turn-taking?
• How do status levels affect the collaboration?

Turn-taking

Turn-taking worked well: P3 continuously scanned the list of participants to see who had their hand up, and called on people explicitly. (Unfortunately, the list of participants was longer than the participant window. P3 had to scroll through the list of participants essentially continuously in order to see who had a hand up)

We witnessed only three interruptions -- places where one person spoke over another, and it was never disruptive. In one case, it was a very quick answer to a question. In another, someone who had had the floor needed to make a quick amendment. In the third, @@@?

However, we were told that this had not always been the case -- that the participants had had to learn how to interact.

P4: "A new person can ruin a session by holding the control key down." (i.e. keeping the mic open)

P4 complained about how anybody could "move the slides around" [presumably meaning advance/go backwards].

P4: "They think it's a dialog, but it's not."

One aspect of the moderated approach is that people would sometimes have to "save up" their comments until they had the floor. A "hand up" signal doesn't convey urgency -- it's not clear if the participant wants to comment on something that was just said or about some new topic. P4 mentioned that sometimes by the time your turn came, what you had wanted to comment about was long gone.

Physical layout

Because the webcam and microphone were both pointed at the person sitting at the computer, other people in the room were essentially shut out of the discussion. P3 later commented that he wasn't sure there was a active role for the junior people in Squares: that the role of the learner in that situation was to learn, not to advise.

We did observe P2 ask a question during Squares.

Side channels

We also observed P1 and P2 whispering to each other during Squares, even moving their chairs together to be able to better communicate.

+ Witnessed marking on screen

+ Witnessed deictic reference

+ Very comfortable and collegial, several jokes

+ Setup was a PITA.

+ Since digitization, taking film home no longer an option, and home access to digitized images is not allowed.

+ Not sure how the source feed for the webcam was selected.

+ Sometimes remote voices unintelligible.

+ Only heard 3 remote people.

+ P1 and P2 seemed minimally engaged (at least part of the time)

+ P1 and P2 whispered to each other.

Camera

P2 didn't like how the camera portrayed people:

P2 (to Sherman and I during setup): "Oh, the camera is looking down. I don't like how it's looking down."

There were several jokes about the cameras. During the setup phase, P4 said to us:

P4: "I'm not as good-looking [as P3] so they won't let me have a camera."

Later, during the conference, P3 made a comment about the video:

P3 (to R1): "I'm not as good-looking as you, but we'll have to live with that."

R? [presumably R1]: "Well, as long as you understand that."

Location / participation

P4: Sometimes when it's slow, I can get other work done.

It was interesting to me how some good material surfaced during times that were not formal interviews or observations, just smalltalk.

Ducky and Sherman's CSCW Project 3

Intro

Project setting

Data collection methods

Overview of data

Methods of analysis

Findings

• Set ALLOWTOPICCHANGE = DuckySherwood

Objectives

1. How does the speaker indicate to others what visual artifact he/she is referring to?
2. How do the participants manage turn-taking?
3. How does the physical layout affect the collaboration?
4. How do status levels affect the collaboration?
5. How do they manage screen real estate?

Future work

• present recommendations to the Childrens' Hospital with our findings
• turn our class report into a tech report
• lay the groundwork for a future thesis or dissertation

Methods of data collection

This observation will take place on Friday, 4 November, and include observing setup and teardown of the teleconference equipment as well as the actual Spinal Rounds meeting. The Spinal Rounds meeting itself will probably last over an hour.

Based on information from Kelly's previous observations, we expect that three to five doctors/staff will be at the Children's Hospital site.

Sherman and Ducky will take written notes but will not record the audio or video. A video archive of the session might be available to us, but might not. We will, with consent of the participants, take a few flashless photos with Ducky's digital camera.

We plan to do two or three short (15-30 minute) followup interviews.

Research protocol

While we do not have agreements in place already for the followup interviews, Kelly assures us that the doctors are cooperative and are extremely likely to grant followup interviews.

Ducky and Sherman's CSCW Project 3: Spinal Rounds

About the conference

Sherman and Ducky will observe BC side of the conference, which meets in a doctor's office at Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

Possible Objectives:

• UBC continuing ed
• SFU
• Northwest Indian College in Bellingham (First Nations/Aboriginal)
• Greader Vancouver Distance Education School (high school)
• WWU online and CD-ROM based (emailed stranger)
• Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (3 hrs away)
• Justice Institute of BC
• BC Institute of Technology

• U Illinois (emailed Burks)

Objective 1: See if screen-capture-video of EcoPath sessions is helpful when one researcher asks a non-co-located colleague for help debugging an EcoPath model.

• Identify screen-capture-video solutions
  • MS Media Encover
  • VNC2SWF
  • Captivate (free 30-day trial)
  • CamStudio
  • tips on how to make a good demo includes some eval of different software
• Identify modellers at UBC who frequently assist others.
• Ask UBC model-helpers to request screen-capture-videos.
• Observe the resulting debugging sessions.

Objective 2: Observe researchers and see if we can figure out a way to make EcoPath more collaborative.

• Evaluate how well different tools promote collaboration between students.
• Evaluate how well different tools promote feedback from student to teacher.

First deliverable

• An existing collaborative work group setting (one to which team members do not belong)
• (Optionally) An existing NECTAR or other known CSCW technology
• Research objective(s)
• 3-5 focal points for the fieldwork (class exercise, 10/18)
• Method(s) for data collection (class material, 10/18)
• Research protocol for purposes of ethics approval
• Recruit participants so that field work can begin as soon as ethics approval is received

• Can propose ways to make Ecopath more colloborative

• high potential for a thesis work for a student

• U Illinois (emailed Burks)
• Stanford (Ducky to email her contacts)

• WWU online and CD-ROM based (emailed stranger)
• UW (emailed Alaina)
• Northwest Indian University in Bellingham (First Nations/Aboriginal)

Ducky and Sherman's CSCW Project 3

• Tell Sara what we're going to do by 25 Oct
• Write up a research protocol and consent by 1 Nov
• Do the work by 6 Dec

Idea 1: EcoPath

Pro:

• It could help Sherman with EcoPath
• Sherman might be able to find academics

Con:

• EcoPath is not intrinsicly collaborative

Idea 2: Distance learning

Pro:

• highly collaborative
• something the teachers are interested in

Con:

• need to go off-campus for fieldwork
• need to find participants

Possible participants:

• U Denver
• U Illinois
• Stanford
• UBC
• WWU online and CD-ROM based
• UW (contact Alaina)

Tools used in distance learning:

• email
• live video
• archived video
• synchronized slides
• voice chat
• IM
• newgroups / BBSes
• snailmail
• posting material for pickup (i.e. Web)