A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

1. A Presentation Management Systemfor Collaborative Meetings ZEUS Electronic Meeting Management System – ZEMS Krzysztof Wrona (ZEUS) DESY Hamburg 24March, 2003

2. Outline K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

3. Motivation • Electronic slides presentation havebecome a standard • Remote participation at meetings are indispensable in HEP community • However: • Too much time and people resources spent formeeting organization • Sharing documents between all meeting participants is not simple and often creates unexpected problems K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

4. Requirements • Integrated system for meetings management • Deals with different organization aspects • Implements procedure for slides collecting • Allows for slides presentation • Should be easy-to-use, reliable and secure • Support for different kind of meetings • Collaboration meetings • Working group meeting • Meetings based on video-conference system • Seminars K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

5. Requirements – details • Presentation • Excellent slides reproduction for hundreds of listeners • Support for people at other labs who cannot attend the meeting in person • Access to remote resources in auditorium • Meeting organization • Simple, comfortable interface for agenda generation • Sub-tasks delegation (e.g. sessions chairmen) • Slides submission • Easy, fast method for slides submission • Last-minute changes, additional materials for discussion • Access control list • Interaction between presentations • Summary speakerscollect material from previous presentations K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

6. ZEMS System • Integrated system based on web technology • Widely available • Well known components – easy-to-operate • Long experience running web server • Access to external resources via web K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

7. repository disk Components Client 1 APACHE Document Root Client 2 Client 3 Client N K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

8. Manager Speaker Meeting participant System Structure • Different functionalities and privileges • Manager – write access to disk repository and database • Speaker – write access to selected directories in repository and only one table in database • Meeting participant – read only access • Small number of managers • Sizeable group of speakers, authorized to upload a file for a particular presentation • Huge number of passive meeting participants K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

9. Security • File upload potentially a “risky” business • Secure connection using SSL module • Web server authentication mechanism does not give us enough flexibility • We maintain access control list in database • Access to the system is possible only via well defined web interface • System runs on separate web service • Appropriate file-system permissions • Repository outside “web directory tree” – no direct access to files via URL • PHP session management – all requests sent from web pages prepared by possible attacker are refused • Minimum privileges to database, only local access • All variables sent to web server need special treatment (post method, quotation for database queries, no global variables) K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

10. Weekly Jan/2002 Collaboration Meeting Sep/2002 Collaboration Meeting Collaboration meeting Parallel session Parallel session Plenary session May/2002 Collaboration Meeting Detector status Analysis tools Introduction image.gif Slides.ppt Computing video MC production Hierarchy • Meeting classes (groups) • Meeting • Session • Presentation • File containing slides K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

11. Delegation of privileges K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

12. Manager view • ZEMS administrator creates “group”, assigns manager • Group manager creates meeting • Group manager may grant privileges to other manager (meeting or session chairman) K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

13. Agenda Generation • Manager prepares an agenda using comfortable web forms K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

14. Speaker view • Speaker opens a browser • Authenticates to the system • Uploads slides • Slides may be re-ordered or hidden • Only speaker is involved, can be done at any time before the talk • Immediately after uploading the slides are available for other participants • Last minute updates possible K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

15. In auditorium, speaker shows slides • Documents accessible through orderly placed web links • The same hardware is used for all presentations • No need to reconnect notebooks • Connection to internet • Possibility of using external resources Slide show K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

16. Remote Participation • People on remote sites can view slides in exactly the same way • Coexistence with online video • Displaying slides on desktop PC • Displaying meeting agenda web browser RealPlayer slides viewer K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

17. Summary Speaker • Summary speaker may use all slides from a session to preparea talk • Slides available for all participants • May be downloaded • Selected results or plots may be copied to summary presentation K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

18. Experience • 4 collaboration meetings ( 3 in Hamburg + 1 in London) • Access via wide area network for London meeting • In total 30 meetings, 90 sessions, ~500 presentations • Typically slides upload procedure takes 1-2 minutes • includes navigation to a proper talk, speaker authentication and slides upload • System highly popular in ZEUS • Very positiveresponse from meeting participants(speakers, listeners and people on remote sites) • Usage of the system is straight forward • Summary speakers could finish and upload slides even during the ongoing session (via WLAN) • Further improvements in preparation: • Automated registration for a meeting • Templates for agenda generation – useful for periodic meetings K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings

19. Summary • Integrated, web based meeting management system has been developed • Straight-forward usage • Significant improvement of document collecting procedure • Considerable improvement of remote participation • Elaborate security management, well defined privileges for each meeting participant • Reliability – no single failure over more than one year K. Wrona, A Presentation Management System for Collaborative Meetings