The VITI program: Final Report

In this report we present our findings and results from the VITI program in 2000. The focus of the research work undertaken by VITI has been to provide electronic meeting environments that are easy to use and afford as natural a collaboration experience as possible. This final report is structured into three parts. Part one concerns the VITI infrastructure and consists of two sections. The first section describes the process of establishing the infrastructure, concentrating on how the work was done. The second section presents the actual infrastructure that is in place today, concentrating on what has been put in place. Part two examines the use the VITI infrastructure has been put to, giving examples of activities it has supported and discussing strengths and weaknesses that have emerged through this use. Finally part three considers the future of distributed electronic meeting environments. It is recommended that the report be read in the order in which it is presented. However, each section has been written as a standalone document and can be read independently of the others

Video Conferencing: Infrastructures, Practices, Aesthetics

The COVID-19 pandemic has reorganized existing methods of exchange, turning comparatively marginal technologies into the new normal. Multipoint videoconferencing in particular has become a favored means for web-based forms of remote communication and collaboration without physical copresence. Taking the recent mainstreaming of videoconferencing as its point of departure, this anthology examines the complex mediality of this new form of social interaction. Connecting theoretical reflection with material case studies, the contributors question practices, politics and aesthetics of videoconferencing and the specific meanings it acquires in different historical, cultural and social contexts

Assessing the quality of audio and video components in desktop multimedia conferencing

This thesis seeks to address the HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) research problem of how to establish the level of audio and video quality that end users require to successfully perform tasks via networked desktop videoconferencing. There are currently no established HCI methods of assessing the perceived quality of audio and video delivered in desktop videoconferencing. The transport of real-time speech and video information across new digital networks causes novel and different degradations, problems and issues to those common in the traditional telecommunications areas (telephone and television). Traditional assessment methods involve the use of very short test samples, are traditionally conducted outside a task-based environment, and focus on whether a degradation is noticed or not. But these methods cannot help establish what audio-visual quality is required by users to perform tasks successfully with the minimum of user cost, in interactive conferencing environments. This thesis addresses this research gap by investigating and developing a battery of assessment methods for networked videoconferencing, suitable for use in both field trials and laboratory-based studies. The development and use of these new methods helps identify the most critical variables (and levels of these variables) that affect perceived quality, and means by which network designers and HCI practitioners can address these problems are suggested. The output of the thesis therefore contributes both methodological (i.e. new rating scales and data-gathering methods) and substantive (i.e. explicit knowledge about quality requirements for certain tasks) knowledge to the HCI and networking research communities on the subjective quality requirements of real-time interaction in networked videoconferencing environments. Exploratory research is carried out through an interleaved series of field trials and controlled studies, advancing substantive and methodological knowledge in an incremental fashion. Initial studies use the ITU-recommended assessment methods, but these are found to be unsuitable for assessing networked speech and video quality for a number of reasons. Therefore later studies investigate and establish a novel polar rating scale, which can be used both as a static rating scale and as a dynamic continuous slider. These and further developments of the methods in future lab- based and real conferencing environments will enable subjective quality requirements and guidelines for different videoconferencing tasks to be established

Social presence in online multimodal communication: A framework to analyse online interactions between language learners

New technologies permeate every aspect of life, not least human communication. Collaboration and social interaction have become buzz words in online communication and education mediated by Web 2.0 technologies and inspired by socio-constructivist theories of learning. Social presence theory explores this mediation through which individuals project themselves socially and emotionally into the community (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 1999). Understanding the experience of social presence is crucial for its strategic use in online learning, while the pivotal role of communication makes social presence an indispensable component of language teaching. Although social presence theory has evolved from a media richness view as a quality of the media (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976) to a relational view as a quality of relational aspects of communication (Kehrwald, 2008), the multimodal nature of new technologies has not previously been explored. Social presence research has also largely ignored the role of language (verbal or nonverbal, native or foreign) on the mediation process. This exploratory case study investigates social presence in dyadic online foreign language interaction via desktop videoconferencing (DVC) between trainee language teachers. Multiple data sources (DVC recordings, interviews, questionnaires) are qualitatively analysed, drawing on principles of thematic analysis, interactional linguistics and social semiotics. The findings highlight the need for workable methods, tools and theories to research and analyse multimodal online communication. Social presence theory is revised to accommodate multi modal foreign-language interactions, and to incorporate potential differences between the ways individuals intend to project themselves and the ways this projection might be perceived by others in the community. An original approach to analysing and classifying language-learner interactions is demonstrated. Pedagogical implications stress the skills required to support rewarding educational experiences for both learners and teachers. Despite the specific features of the case study; the findings--can be extrapolated to virtually all areas of online communication