PowerMeeting

Search this site

Demonstration

Create a new session or join an existing session:

Access existing sessions using URL:
A demo session (with a session named "room2")

You will need to open two different Web browsers (e.g. IE/Chrome, Safari/Firefox) and login the system using two different screen names to experience the real time cooperative features of the systems (especially, when you are in a session without others).  You may log on the system as normal participant or as session chair.  By logging on the system as Session chair, you will have more access power to control the meeting process (e.g., to lead all participants from one agenda item to another in the InMeeting mode).

Introduction

The Web has been widely used as a platform for asynchronous collaboration.  However, Web based synchronous groupware are still rare, especially those based on standard Web browser and standard Web networking technology.  The objective of this work is to demonstrate such possibility and to make the creation and adoption of such groupware easier, so as to make synchronous collaboration an integral part of collaboration support on the Web. 
 
PowerMeeting is a Web-based synchronous groupware framework.  It also refers to a research prototype that demonstrates the kind of groupware built with the framework. PowerMeeting supports participants to plan and perform their group activities (using various task-specific groupware tools) in a well coordinated group process.  The key features of PowerMeeting include:
  • Using standard Web browsers, including those AJAX-enabled browsers running on mobile devices (such as iPhone and Google Android Phones), as front end. This makes the system widely available without a need for installation and therefore promotes wide participation of Web-based collaborative activities.
  • Supporting people to work together in a shared workspace, view, edit and interact with shared information artefacts (using various task-specific groupware tools) simultaneously, all while chatting by text or voice to coordinate their actions. 
  • Supporting distributed facilitation through a workspace of joint focus, direct textual or voice communication, tele-pointing, and facilitator-led meeting process (i.e. with role-based control of the group process).  This is further enhanced by the development and application of a set of computer mediated real time interaction patterns and social protocols for various cooperative activities.
  • Supporting the integration of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration activities (by enbedding the URL of a PowerMeeting session in asynchronous social media (such as Facebook or Email) and by making the session and its shared artefacts persistent).
  • Supporting rich user experience through rich graphical user interface widgets with fast response and feedback.  These are enabled by various GWT graphical interface libraries and our transactional replicated data management service.
  • Maintaining view-data dependency and data consistancy across clients and server; and maintaining data and collaborative session persistency.  These are essential for any document-based real time collaboration and for a smooth moving between synchronous and asynchronous collaboration modes.
  • Making the development and integration of task-specific groupware tools into the system easier.  This is achieved through our groupware framework and its cooperative model-view-controller programming model, as well as the software engineering support provided by GWT and Java IDE. 
Welcome to try PowerMeeting!  You may create a new session (by selecting the New Session check box) or join an existing session (if you know the session name or URL of the session). You will need to open two different Web browsers (e.g. IE/Chrome, Safari/Firefox) and login the system using two different screen names to experience the cooperative features of the systems (if you are in a session without others).  You may log on the system as normal participant or as session chair.  By logging on the system as Session chair, you will have more access power to control the meeting process (e.g., to lead all participants from one agenda item to another in the InMeeting mode). Such simple login without a password is provided for demo purpose.  You may also like to have a glance at the user guide first or reading the user guide while you are using the system.  Theoretical  frameworks, technical frameworks, and the social interaction patterns underlying the design of the system are presented in the subsequent sections.  Examples of groupware tools available in the system include a group decision support tool for brainstorming, categorisation and voting; a richtext editor; a micro blog editor; a presentation slide tool; a real time group calendar; a task diagram editor; and a shared Web page viewer.

If you have any comments or suggestions, you can contact me at mailto: weigang.wang@manchester.ac.uk