As someone who has done it both ways (in
person and remotely) I have a couple of comments.
Having the slides available early is
an advantage to BOTH in-person and remote participants.
As a remote participant I "need"
the slides available about 30 min before the session.
As a participant (in-person or remote)
it is VERY helpful to have the slides available much earlier.
So I do not think "how many remote
participants for this session" is a useful parameter for "how
important is it to get the slides out early"
On the other hand, I DO think that
the number of remote participants for a particular session IS a useful
parameter for "how important is it to have an active jabber scribe"
and "how important is it to make sure the audio streaming is working
well."
As a remote participant the list of
"working groups I am interested in" is different from the list
of "working groups I plan to participate in remotely".
There is a SMALL list of working groups
I am willing to get up at 2:30 AM (my time) to participate in (otherwise
I MIGHT look at the slides and read the minutes when they come out)
There is a much LARGER list of working
groups I will participate in remotely if they are in (my time) "normal
working hours".
There is nothing you can do about this
a priori, but if the records show that, for instance - whenever IETF
is in North America, WG abc consistently has a large number of remote participants
from Europe, and WG xyz consistently has a large number of remote participants
from Asia - that could be factored into the agenda scheduling process.
In-person participants are not asked
to list the WG they are interested in. That is accomplished by the
blue sheets. I wonder if there is a way to do something analogous
to the blue sheets for remote participants, whether through jabber,
email, doodle-poll, wiki, whatever.
I agree with your points 2 and 3.
Janet
ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx wrote on 08/12/2013 09:09:32
AM:
> From: Vinayak Hegde <vinayakh@xxxxxxxxx>
> To: IETF Discussion Mailing List <ietf@xxxxxxxx>
> Date: 08/12/2013 09:19 AM
> Subject: Data collection for remote participation
> Sent by: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx
>
> Hi,
>
> There has been a lot of discussion on the IETF mailing list regarding
> improving remote participation and improving diversity on the mailing
> lists and in the working groups. I think the two are related. I think
> everyone broadly agrees that remote participation can be better. If
> nothing else, it will tell about who the remote participants are.
I
> had proposed a few steps in this direction by improving the data
> collection for remote participation in the IAOC Sunday meeting.
> Posting them below again for discussion on the mailing lists.
>
> It can be a simple form that asks the following questions (Can be
> refined - this is just a start)
> 1. Name:
> 2. Country:
> 3. Duration of participation in IETF (either in number of years or
> number of meetings)
> 4. Employer ?
> 5. Working groups interested in.
>
> This can be voluntary and can be done pre-IETF meeting. As of now
> there is no structured way to know how many people wre active in the
> jabber room or listening on the audio stream.
>
> I can see that this has multiple benefits.
> 1. If the number of participants in a certain WG is more, it would
> push the WG chair to request for the slides/agenda available earlier.
>
> 2. If there are consistently more participation from around the world,
> the the WG chair can request for a meetecho recording so people can
> follow the group even if they cannot attend the meeting live. This
> could be useful for people who have clashing schedules as well.
>
> 3. Over a longer period of time, it can help IETF plan and encourage
> remote participation. Currently there is no hard data on number of
> remote participants. There is however a lot of hand waving so this
> will get some useful data into the system.
>
> -- Vinayak