Jeremy Lelean, Staff Engagement j.lelean@reading.ac.uk
Context
Soil Security Programme (SSP), School of Agriculture, Planning and Development
PhD students, external institutions and organisations
Description
The Soil Security Programme is a PhD Student research network that includes a number of
other institutions and external bodies. Students are dispersed around the country and
sometimes abroad.
The ability for the dispersed members of the network to join seminars held at Reading by PhD
students would help facilitate increased communications and information sharing.
Two face-to-face seminar events have been held at which members have been able to join
remotely via Collaborate.
Members were sent a ‘guest link’ and joining instructions and were able to watch the
presentations given in the physical room.
The initial seminar had 11 participants, 9 in the room and 3 joined remotely.
A USB speakerphone was attached to the laptop in the room to provide the audio and a
webcam was used to show what was happening. Presentations were delivered using
‘Application Share’ in Collaborate.
Jeremy facilitated the session to ensure the remote participants were kept informed of what
was happening in the physical space.
Impact
Using Collaborate was a success and participants found the experience was very good. There
were some minor points raised but this did not detract from usability.
Remote participants could easily join in sessions that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to
attend.
Recordings of the seminars were made available to members of the network.
SSP plan to deliver an online conference using Collaborate to help build a community of early
career researchers and PhD students in the field of soil science.
Thoughts and reflections
Remote participants weren’t able to see where the speakers were pointing to on the slides. Ask
speakers to use the inbuilt Pen and Laser Pointer tools when PowerPoint is used in Presenter
View to highlight slides.
It was necessary to restart application share when moving between different PowerPoint
presentations.
Remind participants in the physical space to remember that there are remote participants.
Participants in the physical space can’t see the chat taking place in Collaborate.
Chat was particularly useful for communication between the facilitators and remote users
without disturbing the seminar speakers.
Ensure that remote users can hear those speaking in the room clearly. It may be necessary for
the facilitators to repeat questions or ask people to speak more loudly.