Online collaboration encompasses real-time communication that consists of telephone and web conferencing, making use of many groupware package and other tools that help place people and engage them in solving a problem. Online meetings are set up through collaboration technologies. These technologies include phones, faxes, letters, videoconferences, e-mail, and the web. As matter of fact these technologies bring people together who are time-barred, sick, or those faced with financial constraints such that they cannot travel to do face to face meetings.Net meeting can be responsible for many other activities some of which are; An Audio and video conferencing client, A chat client similar to AOL Instant Messenger, A file transfer application for sending files. On top of this, it is capable of application sharing, where a person can choose to share an application that he or she is running with others in his or her conference room.Net meeting also makes use of a Whiteboard, that is a shared drawing space where people can converse in real-time (Netmeeting for beginners, 2008).
To set up a net meeting several other requirements are needed. A client needs to have A PC running windows variant. This will entail having Windows 95, 98, Windows 2000 or XP, and Windows NT 4.0. In addition to this, the computer also needs to have an Internet Explorer 4.0. This PC should be a current up-to-date machine, for instance, Pentium II 233 MHZ. The Ram in this computer should be 64 MB or a better one. The machine should be efficient and fast running for sound and video to perform efficiently. It is important to note that Netmeeting employs the use of Videoconferencing standard h.323.
A Microphone and Headphones are other requirements that cannot be ignored. It is mandatory to have a microphone if you are to engage in an audio conference. It is also important to have a SoundBlaster compatible microphone and a pair of headphones.
As a matter of preference, you should have a faster network connection. For instance, in video or screen sharing a Dual ISDN connection with 112 KBS may be necessary. Moreover, in special situations, one can have a Firewall installed to prevent any illegal use or stealing of the information from the site. Installation cannot take place without having net meeting software itself.
For many companies, online collaboration has got several benefits that are assessable. Some of the major benefits of online collaboration simply put are; direct cost savings and Labor and productivity savings. Direct costs can be minimized by making documents available online hence reducing the print and delivery costs. Labor and productivity costs can be lessened through having less time spent on reviewing, editing, less time spent on locating documents and there will be no duplication of efforts.
People who are not in the same setting are capable of working together on a project. If a company, for example, has branches in various parts the staff can be informed and engaged in a project. Online collaboration conserves physical space especially if the number of participants is so huge since a company will hold a meeting online. Online collaboration enhances coordination in a company. If for instance, the organization has various departments by use of online collaboration each department submits information to a centralized data storage system (Jonathan Strickland, 2008).
Online collaboration has several shortcomings especially in the application of WAI guidelines in collaboration tools. It has several accessibility barriers. These barriers can be experienced in web content accessibility, user agent accessibility, and Authorizing tools accessibility. For instance, captions for audio discussions can be missed because of this shortcoming. Explanations for Whiteboard drawings and descriptive voice for video information can be missed. Collaborative tools can sometimes prove to be insufficient when information in one media needs to be transformed into another media, like converting visual media to audio media. Online collaboration is prone to illegal use, for example, people can steal information to harm the company if there is no online security.
References
Benefits of Online Collaboration: Part 2, 2006.
Is online collaboration the future of how companies do business? 2008.
Marja-Riitta Koivunen.What is Netmeeting? 2004.
Netmeeting for Beginners. What is Netmeeting? 2004.
Robin Good, 2004. Web.