Web Conferences and Labor Education: An After-Action Report

Union officers, staff, and members attending labor education courses, union conferences, or out-of-town meetings are increasingly confronted by significant expenses: higher travel costs, travel delays, lost wages, and lost work time (Lund 2003). Labor education programs directly suffer from this cost squeeze: it impacts enrollment and cost recovery at a time when they increasingly rely on program revenue. Increasing costs also impact unions whose operating incomes are directly related to dues and per capita tax, incomes that decline as membership does.

Reacting to these cost pressures, labor educators and unions alike have responded in a variety of ways, including relying more on technology such as online courses or teleconferencing. While these alternatives are imperfect substitutes for face-to-face meetings or "live" instruction, they allow limited financial resources to be stretched further and obviate the need for travel. But both alternatives obviously fall short: online courses seldom permit real-time dialogue between participants and instructors, and teleconferencing makes it extremely difficult to present, discuss, analyze, and revise text, graphics, and data. A third alternative, web conferencing, effectively combines the strengths of both online courses and teleconferencing, and minimizes their inherent weaknesses.

This paper presents a case study of web conferencing and assesses how it was used to facilitate nationwide meetings of union officers and employees to learn about proposed changes by the U.S. Department of Labor in the LM-30, the "Union Officer/Employee Report," and to formulate suggestions for changes to the proposed form. Following a discussion defining web conferencing and how it works, the paper reviews how the web conference was set up, how the audience was selected and prepared, and how the conference materials were prepared. Then follows a brief discussion of the conference, an assessment by the participants, and some recommendations for future use of web conferencing.

Web conferencing: How does it work?

Web conferencing has two components—a teleconference and a web interface—that work in tandem. The web interface, depending upon the software platform used, allows presentation of web pages, PowerPoint slides, graphics, text, spreadsheets, text chat, and tools such as a whiteboard for illustrations. It provides question capabilities to allow participants and presenters to converse, and even includes a polling feature that allows the presenter to poll participant reactions, evaluate options, or assess the course. Finally, an "archive" of the entire conference can be generated as a Windows Media file that captures the audio portion of the conference, the polling slides and answers, and all the screen shots.

The audio portion of web conferencing is simply a full-duplex audio telephone bridge that allows participants to talk to the presenter and each other. The added dimension of the web interface allows them to focus on a variety of graphs, charts, spreadsheets, slides, and text.

At the University of Wisconsin, web conferencing is coordinated through the WisLine Web system, administered by Instructional Communications Services (ICS) of UW-Extension. ICS uses Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 web conferencing software. (See http://www.microsoft.com/office/livemeeting/ accessed January 9, 2006.) ICS "hosts" the web conference, combining its telephone bridging service and the web conferencing software. The software allows presenters to develop and store the necessary spreadsheets, web pages, PowerPoint slides, and text in a dedicated "conference center." Presenters upload all necessary materials to this conference center before the web conference.

When the web conference goes "live" at the previously advertised time(s), Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 software allows presenters to show PowerPoint slides, demonstrate software, conduct polling, use whiteboards, and even direct participants to web sites that contain streaming video. To participate in a conference, participants simply dial in to the telephone conference call and point their browser to the pre-assigned URL to enter the conference center. For University of Wisconsin departments, this service costs $0.23 per minute per participant, which includes the cost of running the conference center, presenter training, and technical assistance. WisLine Web's parent organization, ICS, offers extensive training and technical assistance for first-time presenters. Speaking from first-hand experience, I found this assistance most valuable and...