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From: kevinc@cs.athabascau.ca (Kevin Crocker)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware
Subject: Re: Audio & Video Needed for Group Support?
Message-ID: <616@aupair.cs.athabascau.ca>
Date: 21 Jan 91 17:32:38 GMT
References: <14533@uswat.UUCP> <20965@crg5.UUCP>
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 52

szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:

>In article <14533@uswat.UUCP> markabel@uswat.uswest.com (Mark Abel) writes:
>>This is a followup to a discussion between Nick Szabo, Mark Shepherd (& later
>>Alan Wexelblat).
>>Social scientists claim that two types of communication are taking place in
>>any interaction: 1. "information transfer," and 2. social or emotional
>>info. 

>This is a good distinction, and allows me to state my position 
>succinctly: category (2) is more harmful than helpful to technical 
>communications.  

>Allocating technical workgroup bandwidth for (2) will lead to a poorer 
>solution of that group's technical task.  The best evidence is scientific 
>journals, which can communicate so much technical information
>precisely because they are totally devoid of category (2) bandwidth.
>Similarly, source code control systems lack category (2) content and have 
>proved very useful in coordinating the work of software engineering teams.

Nick, I agree that for discussions of technical information the
reductions of side band noise, in this case emotion, is beneficial.
However, not all groupware discussions are technical in nature.  At
this university we use groupware on a very primitive level but little
of it is used for technical discussions.  My job is to design and
develop courseware in my chosen field (Financial Management) for
consumption by students.  I work closely with an editor, an
Istructional designer and a visual designer.  Our discussions generally
have little to do with the technical aspects of either the content (my
area), the instructional paradigm (the ID's area), or the visual
presentation (the Visual Designer's area).  We assume, perhaps in
error, that each of us are proficient in our field of study.  What we
use groupware for is to communicate ideas in a brainstorming session to
determine new ways to apply already known concepts in an attempt to
provide a learning experience that is more applicable to the learner.
In this sense, we attempt to provide learning materials in a format
that is suitable to the learners dominant learning mode with the
addition of some standard presentation formats.  In our courses we use
print, graphics, video, audio, TV, radio, computers and any other media
that we think would benefit the learner.  Not that we use every media
for every course but many of our courses are multimedia.  In order to
develop this type of material I need access to developmental resources
to make this available.  Therefore, having groupware capabilitites that
permit multimedia communication is very important to me and our group.
At the moment we are attempting to develop a multimedia workstation for
a proposed M.B.A. degree.

Kevin
-- 
Kevin "auric" Crocker Athabasca University 
UUCP: ...!{alberta,ncc}!atha!kevinc
Inet: kevinc@cs.AthabascaU.CA