ECO GUIDELINES

on

ELECTRONIC WORKING ARRANGEMENTS (EWA)

Part III: Remote participationin physical meetings and workshops

European Communications Office

July2014

Introduction

There is a general agreement within the ECC that the efficiency of the ECC working process can be increased by making use of the available electronic means.

These Guidelines have been developed by the European Communications Office (the Office, ECO) in support of the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) working process via electronic working arrangements (EWA).

This partof the Guidelines contains a basic description of the proposed ECO solutions for remote participation in physical meetings of ECC groups and in workshops. It does not address the regulatory nor the procedural aspects.

The proposed ECO solutions are based on the “GoToMeeting” platform ( see the system’s user interface in the picture below) which includes:

  • aGoToMeeting application suitable for remote participationin relatively small (up to ~20 physical participants) meetings where the participants are located around a table and are facing each other.
  • a GoToWebinar application suitable for remote participation in larger physical meetings as well as workshops with up to 1000 remote participants (subject to the Internet connection limitations).

The Internal ECC Report on “Implementation of Electronic Working Methods (EWM) in the ECC working process” defines remote participation in physical meetings in the following way:

“This method gives the possibility to participate in a physical meeting from a remote location. In this case, virtual participants can actually intervene in the meeting by a voice and possibly a video connection.”

The registration of remote participants takes place prior to the beginning of the meeting/workshop andis normally done via the meeting calendar of the corresponding ECC group. Registered remote participants will receive the invitation containing the link, optional password and other instructions.

  1. Remote participation in physical meetings of ECC project teams (up to ~20 people)

ECO solution for enabling remote participation in physical meetings of small groups (up to about 20 people with an “around the table” sitting arrangement) is based on the GoToMeeting application running on the chairman’s PC and a “daisy-chain” (or a cascade) connection of up to 4 speakerphone units connected to the chairman’s PC through a USB-hub[1].

This solution is illustrated in the diagram below:

  • no table microphone system is used in the meeting room;
  • speakerphones are located on the table to serve approximately equal number of physical participants;
  • the chairman’s PC is preferably connected to the Internet viaa cable;
  • a GoToMeeting application is running on the chairman’s PC;
  • the chairman’s PC is connected to the meeting room’s projector so that physical and remote participants see the same discussion document (the projector is not shown on the diagram);
  • physical participants request the floor by raising hand, remote participants - by voice;
  • the number of remote participants is normally limited to 2-3 persons.

Depending on the meeting table configuration, the connection of the speakerphones can either be done as a side-by-side arrangement or as a linear arrangement (see pictures below).

ECO can arrange remote participation in meetings of ECC project teams as described in this section at the ECO premises as well as in other meeting venues. However the sound quality will depend on the local Internet connection, in particular in cases when the chairman’s PC is connected to the Internet via WiFi rather than by a cable.

  1. Remote participation in physical meetings of ECC working groups and large project teams

Remote participation in physical meetings of relatively large groups can be either passive (when the meeting is broadcasted over the Internet to the registered remote participants) or active (when registered remote participants can intervene in the discussion).

Passive remote participation can be implemented by means of a high-resolution video camera mounted on the ceiling of the meeting room and broadcasting both the meeting room’s screen and the voice (this solution is implemented in the ECO premises). Voice can be also transmitted over a different channel but in this case synchronization with video could be an issue because of possibly different delays in transmitting voice and video.

An alternative solution of implementing passive remote participation is based on the GoToWebinar application running on the chairman’s PC and on the ECO expert’s PC present at the meeting. The connections in this case are made in the same way as in the case of active remote participation (please see the section below) except that the connection between the audio output of the assistant’s PC and the meeting room’s speakers is not needed since remote participants are not supposed to intervene in the discussions.

Accordingly, there is no need to change the “listen only” mode (i.e. to unmute) for remote participants in which they join the GoToWebinar session after the start of broadcast.

Active remote participation can be implemented by means of the GoToWebinar application and requires an assistant, preferably sitting next to the chairman, who is well familiar with the software. The audio system (speakers and table microphones) in the meeting room shall be connected to the assistant’s PC to allow for two-way audio communications between the physical meeting and remote participants.

Optionally, a web-camera can be provided either through a direct IP-address or through a GoToMeeting application in order to allow for an overview of the meeting room for remote participants.

The block-diagram below illustrates the proposed remote participation system.

The following ECO guides provide detailed instructions on how to set up and use this solution:

  • ECO guide for attendees;
  • ECO guide for chairmen;
  • ECO guide for the chairman’s assistant, and
  • ECO guide forthe hosting party (in cases when a meeting with remote participation takes place outside the ECO premises).

All questions related to the installation and use of the GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar should be addressed to the Office ().

[1]Alternatively, the ECO expert present at the meeting can serve as the enabler of remote participation. In this case his PC is used for providing two-way communication between the meeting room and the remote participants as well as for projecting the discussion document onto the screen/TV in the meeting room.