Building Virtual Community through Digital Scholarship Meetups

With the launch of a newly created Digital Scholarship Program at our University Library, digital scholarship meetup events were designed and held with the intent to connect with campus stakeholders and begin to build community. This case-study paper describes the context around the development of the Digital Scholarship Program within our library and across our research institution’s community, and outlines the iterative process of identifying our core values and goals for a community-building meetup series. We discuss both the initial implementation of the series, highlighting successful strategies and the challenges we faced building community in a virtual format, as well as ways the series was modified over the course of several academic terms in response to community feedback. Our overview of the meetups includes a description of our planning, collaboration, and meeting facilitation techniques. We conclude with lessons learned and next steps to further reflect on and grow this broad-reaching virtual community of practice.

Traces of Time through Space

Technology have long been a partner of workplace meeting facilitation. The recent outbreak of COVID-19 and the cautionary measures to reduce its spread have made it more prevalent than ever before in the form of online-meetings. In this paper, we recount our experiences during weekly meetings in three modalities: using SAGE2 - a collaborative sharing software designed for large displays - for co-located meetings, using a conventional projector for co-located meetings, and using the Zoom video-conferencing tool for distributed meetings. We view these meetings through the lens of effective meeting attributes and share ethnographic observations and attitudinal survey conducted in our research lab. We discuss patterns of content sharing, either sequential, parallel, or semi-parallel, and the potential advantages of creating complex canvases of content. We see how the SAGE2 tool affords parallel content sharing to create complex canvases, which represent queues of ideas and contributions (past, present, and future) using the space on a large display to suggest the progression of time through the meeting.

Leveraging Diversity and Inclusivity in Japanese Teacher Community in an American High School District

In this modern society, a successful team is defined by how well it embraces inclusivity and diversity practices. In order to build a community in which such practice is the norm, first we must establish the environment where each team member can bring his thoughts without fear of judgement, suspension of her own perceptions, seek opportunities to stretch perspectives, and equity of voice is ensured. Such a professional learning community requires clear purpose, shared values, and mindful meeting facilitation. The success of a PLC results in the team's collective efficacy as Albert Bandura defines "a group's shared belief in its conjoint capability to organize and excute the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment" (1997). We must pay close attention to how to establish a PLC that is inclusive and seeks diverse viewpoints, and cultivates our inner selves while developing communication skills to understand and be understood.

Using Action Learning in GSS Facilitation Training

Although electronic face-to-face meetings are increasingly being used by organizations to improve the productivity of their strategic planning teams, design task forces, quality circles, sales management, and other organizational groups (Alavi, 1993; Dishman & Aytes, 1996), the rate of adoption of the technologies to support these meetings appears to be slowing (Grise & Gallupe, forthcoming). A possible reason for this reduced rate of adoption may be the difficulty in training competent electronic meeting facilitators. These facilitators play a key role in electronic meetings that use computer-based group technologies or group support systems (GSS) to assist the group in tasks such as generating ideas, evaluating alternatives and developing action plans. The purpose of this chapter is to describe how an action learning approach was used to train traditional meeting facilitators in the tools, techniques and processes of electronic meeting facilitation. This chapter begins with a description of action learning, in particular the three schools of action learning. The second section explains the nature of the “experiential” school of action learning and the GSS facilitation training program used in a research project in which 15 facilitators, already experienced in conventional meetings, were trained to become facilitators of electronic meetings. The final sections describe some lessons learned and implications for organizations training their electronic meeting facilitators.