About
Flashmeeting was an academic research project that ran from before 2000 to 2018, aimed at understanding the nature of online events and helping users meet and work more effectively. This work was closed after a very long lifetime.
FM Technologies historically supported a number of servers and a large number of user communities. The servers included:
FM KMi Server (replaced EA-TEL Server)
For 18 years, this server supported numerous European projects and researchers, as well as other community groups.
OUFM Server
The Open University’s own server, for its staff and students.
E2BN FM Server
A server for schools that was supported by the East of England Broadband Network.
Research
The Flashmeeting project research gave insights into how live videoconferencing could be used in novel ways, supporting online communities and creating new reusable learning objects. FM was used over four years by a great variety of communities of learners and knowledge workers across the globe. Apart from our contribution in preventing travelling for face-to-face meetings by providing alternative ways of virtual communication, our research investigated how FM was used to foster online communities, how to search and browse FM replays and use them as objects to learn as well as a number of other themes.
eWell-Being
How could we make virtual connections really work?
In the Knowledge Media Institute, we were not just mimicking physical meetings but aimed at finding new perspectives to improve virtual communication. The FM push-to-talk technology and parallel communication channels had been used successfully over four years of experimental research. Our eWell-Being research focused on conducting more effective meetings, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and saving time and travel expenses.
Virtual meetings for schools
How did live video events help change children’s classroom experiences?
FM was already being used by schools across the UK and beyond. We had schools registered in Europe and the USA. The eTwinning project included a series of events between the UK and Finland, Germany, and other EU countries. Recently, E2BN had its first FM with China. FM was ideal for pupils practicing their language or communication skills and for joint project work in many curriculum areas, bringing new opportunities for learning into the classroom.
Videoconferencing in open learning
Can videoconferencing support open learning communities?
FM has been integrated with the OpenLearn environments LearningSpace and LabSpace (Tomadaki and Scott, 2007; Tomadaki, Quick and Scott, 2008). Anyone in the world can get an account with the OpenLearn websites and use FM with their fellow open learners. The tool has been especially useful to foster open sensemaking communities (Okada, Tomadaki, Buckingham Shum and Scott, 2007; Okada, Tomadaki, Buckingham Shum and Scott, 2008).
Meeting Visualisation
Was it possible to visualise the roles of meeting participants?
The FM servers automatically generated linear representations of the meeting or polar area diagrams that indicated participant dominance in the use of chat or broadcast (Scott, Tomadaki, and Quick, 2007). These representations could, on the one hand, indicate the type of event held (seminar, interview, webcast, moderated, or peer-to-peer meeting) and, on the other, portray the different user roles (leaders and lurkers).
Meeting phases
Can we measure the quality of a meeting and its components?
At the coarse-grained level, it was already possible to see different meeting types by their characteristic polar area diagram ‘footprints.’ Nonetheless, we were still unable to fully explain what actually ‘went on’ in the meeting. To complement our linear and polar visualisations and find out what really happened in a meeting, we moved to a fine-grained analysis of speech acts, accompanied by lexical analysis and emotion identification (Binti Abdullah, 2008; Binti Abdullah, Tomadaki, Scott, and Honiden, 2008).
Attendance and reuse
How can we measure the FM Live and Memo impact?
To analyse the global impact of FM, we indicated individual attendance by using attention metadata that indicated user browser hits and plotted the geo-location of unique IPs on maps, showing in this way the participation in live events and the event replay reuse (Tomadaki, Scott, and Quick, 2007). FM replays could be used and reused as informal learning objects in formal and non-formal contexts (Castañeda, Tomadaki, and Scott, 2008)
Indexing and retrieval of learning objects
How can we search and retrieve meeting replays?
An interface to search and retrieve public meetings via keywords was implemented in the Ariadne project. The meeting title, keywords, and description added by the event owner were saved in an XML file, which could be processed for replay retrieval. At the time, only exact matches were realised.
Contextualised attention metadata
Can we use the data about what a user looks at to have more effective virtual meetings?
Contextualised attention metadata (CAM) gave insights into which tasks users focused on during an online meeting. CAM indicated the users’ context, preferences, and browsing path. Following the CAM approach in FM improved multi-tasking in virtual meetings and served as a foundation for recommender systems matching users’ behaviour (Memmel, Shirru, Wolpers, and Tomadaki, 2008)
Social media integration
How can we enhance browsing, retrieving, recommending and sharing FM replays among peers?
Enhancing a traditional digital repository with social media functionalities allowed for a richer description of the resources. The combination of machine-generated metadata with user-generated metadata improved searching, rating, and recommendation applications. Syndicated FM replays were linked with the ALOE social media platform so that users from anywhere in the world could tag and rate them (Memmel, Wolpers, and Tomadaki, 2008).
Knowledge mapping
How can we better make sense of what happens in a meeting?
Knowledge mapping was used to collaboratively brainstorm during a live virtual meeting or to reflect upon the knowledge transferred during the meeting by browsing its replay. Both the live FM and the Memo had been integrated with tools for knowledge mapping, which allowed for the creation of maps including nodes representing all FM interactions linked to specific video segments (Okada, Tomadaki, Buckingham Shum and Scott, 2007; Okada, Tomadaki, Buckingham Shum and Scott, 2008; Naeve, Palmér, Nilsson, Paulsson, Quick and Scott, 2006).
Training professionals for language teaching
What are the good practices in using videoconferencing for professional learning?
‘Proteach Italia’ was the collaborative research project, launched in 2007 by the Knowledge Media Institute and the University of Padova. The project aimed to explore the use of video conferencing innovations to enhance the learning experience of professional groups. Specifically, the project evaluated the use of FM in the teaching of Italian language teaching professionals as they learned techniques for teaching English to students.
Publications
Armakolas, S., Alimisis, D. and Panagiotakopoulos, C. (2013): The Flashmeeting digital videoconferencing system: Τhe case of the “I am not Scared” project. In proceedings of the 7th International Conference in Open and Distance Learning (ICODL 2013), November 8-10, 2013, Athens, Greece.
Hopkins, J.E. (2010). “Distance language learners’ perceptions of assessed, student-led speaking tasks via a synchronous audiographic conferencing tool”, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching Vol. 4, No. 3.
Örnberg Berglund, T. (2009). “Multimodal student interaction online: an ecological perspective”, accepted for publication in ReCALL Journal.
Binti Abdullah, N.N., Tomadaki, E., Scott, P.J. and Honiden, S. (2008, forthcoming) “What Goes on in a Meeting? Empirical Work”, To appear in the proceedings of the 30th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci08
Binti Abdullah, N.N., (2008, forthcoming) “Characterizing different communication characteristics arising in different phases of meetings”. Book of abstracts, International Conference on Language, Communication and Cognition 2008, University of Brighton
Castañeda, L. J., Tomadaki, E. and Scott, P.J. (2008, forthcoming) “New objects in Formal Professional Learning: Replaying meetings to Learn”, the European Journal for the Informatics Professional UPGRADE ISSN: 0211-2124.
Endean, M., Weidmann, G., Armstrong, A., Moffat, J., Nixon, T. and Reuben, B. (2008). “Team project work for distance learners in engineering – challenges and benefits”. Engineering Education: Journal of the Higher Education Academy Engineering Subject Centre. Abstract
Memmel, M., Shirru, R., Wolpers, M. and Tomadaki, E. (2008). “Towards the Combined Use of Metadata to Improve the Learning Experience”, To appear in the proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies – ICALT 08.
Memmel, M., Wolpers, M. and Tomadaki, E. (2008, forthcoming) “An Approach to Enable Collective Intelligence in Digital Repositories”, to appear in the proceedings of the Ed-Media 2008 conference.
Okada, A., Tomadaki, E., Buckingham Shum, S. and Scott, P.J. (2008, forthcoming) “Combining Compendium knowledge maps and FlashMeeting videoconferencing to foster Open Sensemaking Communities”, the Journal of ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática) Novática ISSN: 0211-2124.
Okada, A., M., Buckingham Shum, S., Bachler, Tomadaki, E., Scott, P.J., M., Little, A., and Eisenstadt (2008, forthcoming) “Knowledge Media Tools to Foster Social Learning in Open Sensemaking Communities”, Chapter accepted for publication at the book “Social Software & Developing Community Ontologies” IGI Global Book.
Schadewitz, N., Garner, S. and Ferreira, G. (2008). “Utilizing FlashMeeting Software in Collaborative Design-Learning”, position paper for a workshop at HCI 2008 “Culture, Creativity & Interaction”. Abstract
Scott, P.J., Castañeda, L. and Quick, K.A. (2008) “Colaboración en Red a través de Videoconferencia: Una Experiencia no Formal”. In Pixel-Bit. Revista de Medios y Educación Nº 31 January. 101-120.
Scott, P., Castañeda, L. J., Quick, K. & Linney, J. (2008, forthcoming) “Synchronous symmetrical support: a naturalistic study of live online peer-to-peer learning via software videoconferencing”, International Journal of Interactive Learning Environments.
Tomadaki, E., Quick, K.A. and Scott, P.J. (2008, forthcoming) “Videoconferencing in Open Learning”. Accepted for publication at the Journal of Interactive Media in Education ISSN 1365-893X.
Tomadaki, E., Scott, P.J. and Quick, K.A. (2008) “Online Communities: Case studies”. Technical Report.
Okada, A., Tomadaki, E., Buckingham Shum, S. and Scott, P.J. (2007). “Combining Knowledge Mapping and Videoconferencing for Open Sensemaking Communities”, Conference on Open Educational Resources 2007, Logan, Utah.
Scott, P.J, Tomadaki, E. and Quick, K.A. (2007). “The Shape of Live Online Meetings”. International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Vol 3.
Scott, P.J., Castañeda, L., Quick, K.A. and Linney, J.W. (2007). “Trialogical Learning in Public: FlashMeeting Recording and Reuse in a Peer-learning Context”. International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, Vol. 3, No 4, ISSN 1832-3669.
Scott, P.J., Tomadaki, E. and Quick, K.A. (2007). “Using Live Virtual Technologies to Support Communities of Practice: The Impact of Extended Events“, in Procs. of the EC-TEL 2007 Workshop on Technology-Enhanced Learning Communities of Practice, ceur proceedings Vol 308.
Scott, P. J., Tomadaki, E., Quick, K. & Linney, J. (2007) “Live Online Meetings in Different Communities of Practice”, Proceeding of the 3rd International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society, Cambridge.
Tomadaki, E., Scott, P.J. and Quick, K.A. (2007). “Attention Metadata Visualizations: Plotting Attendance and Reuse”. IEEE ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, 2nd International Workshop on Contextualized Attention Metadata, Vancouver, ceur proceedings Vol 266.
Tomadaki, E. and Scott, P.J. (2007). “Videoconferencing in Open Learning”. OpenLearn Conference, Milton Keynes, UK.
Naeve, A., Palmér, M., Nilsson, M., Paulsson, F., Quick, K.A. and Scott, P.J. (2006). “CoCoFlash: Conzilla, Confolio, and FlashMeeting Integration for Enhanced Professional Learning”. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’06).
