Collaboration and Conferencing at Johns Hopkins

There are a range of conferencing tools available to Hopkins users. This web page provides details on the options available including:

• Which conferencing tools are available within Johns Hopkins

• The costs, benefits, and potential risks of using each conferencing tool

• How to select the appropriate conferencing venue for specific applications

• Exactly how to access and use each conferencing medium

Each conferencing type provides its own level of interactivity, or “connectedness” ranging from low with instant messaging to very high with videoconferencing. Each conferencing type occupies different cost and complexity levels.

Audio conferencing is the mostly widely used, and best understood conferencing solution. Audio conferencing is easy to use (requires only a telephone), comfortable for the users, and relatively inexpensive.

Audio conferencing is available as either automated or attended. In an automated audio conference, the host manages all aspects of the meeting. An attended audio conference meeting is managed by one or more operators providing meet and greet, dial-out, and problem resolution services.

Attended audio calls are more expensive than automated meetings. Audio conferencing occurs in both conference rooms and individual offices.

Web conferencing is the newest and fastest growing segment of the conferencing industry.  Web conferencing allows users to share computer based content through the public Internet, intranet, or other IP network through a browser.

Basic web conferencing solutions provide the ability to view another person’s computer screen, while function-heavy offerings allow document sharing and real-time collaboration. The most common use of web-conferencing is to host and distribute web-based presentations and software demonstrations. Web conferences are usually combined with audio conferences to provide content and voice sharing capabilities. Some solutions include audio conferencing and limited video conferencing.

Videoconferencing has been around for approximately 20 years and provides the highest level of conferencing intimacy and “connectedness.” The basic videoconference is a point-to-point session between two different locations, however specialized bridging equipment enables multi-point meetings between three or more video systems.

Because videoconferencing enables participants to see each other’s faces, videoconferencing is often viewed as a replacement for travel. Videoconferencing has traditionally been implemented on a specialized digital telephone network called ISDN, but in recent years a trend to migrate videoconferencing over to IP networks has surfaced. IP videoconferencing is becoming the norm.