Software

Use Memetic

Use ScreenStreamer

There are three stages in using Memetic: book, record and replay. These are all accessed via a web-based user interface.

The recording stage involves not only the pressing of the record button (much the same as on a VCR), but also the opportunity of annotating the session whilst in progress. This involves the use of two integrated applications: Compendium and ScreenStreamer. Compendium is a concept-mapping tool, which exists as standalone software in its own right and has an international, highly active user community. Compendium can be used in a variety of ways to annotate the session, from simple use by a participant marking index points in the session which will benefit from later review, to a replacement for meeting minutes, in which are captured many elements of a discussion, such as details of questions raised, ideas proposed, pros and cons of those ideas, decisions, action items, and so on. Compendium makes use of graphical icons to identify the nature of these different elements in a session, such as a question mark for a question and a light bulb for an idea.

ScreenStreamer was a tool developed by the project to allow a session participant to broadcast the contents of their computer screen to other participants. This is particularly useful for displaying the Compendium map, presentation slides, or other documents or software used during the session. The particular value of ScreenStreamer over other methods of sharing the screen, such as VNC or Microsoft NetMeeting, is that the media stream from ScreenStreamer is recordable by Memetic alongside other video and audio from the session. During the latter stages of the project, ScreenStreamer was enhanced to become an additional source of automated session annotations based on the contents of the screen being streamed, for example slide changes during a seminar presentation.

The replay stage of Memetic is for users who wish to review sessions. This was developed from the Meeting Replay tool. The replay shows every video and audio stream that was present in the original session, together with the ScreenStreamer stream(s) and relevant Compendium map. The replay is accessible either in an Access Grid virtual venue, or on a user's desktop. The session is navigable by VCR-type functionality, such as play, fast forward, rewind and pause; by dragging the 'now bar' across the session timeline; and by session annotation, such as Compendium icon, agenda item, presentation slide, and person speaking (although the last requires manual annotation after the session). During the replay, the user can make further annotations using Compendium.