That's a good idea, I am all for it!!
Let's talk more about the practicalities of this in this thread here:
forum.susana.org/198-wikipedia/21779-exa...orld-toilet-day-2017

What would be good timing for this, i.e. when and for how long? We were thinking of offering a virtual work room where people could arrange to meet for discussions at specific times perhaps.

If we used Adobe Connect then we can use this room as mentioned here (it's not currently open):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/S...nect_work_room_hours

If "Jitsi Meet" meet is better, I am also fine with giving it a go. I guess either way it's a matter of advertising the date and time well? I find that the advertising is really important, as we all get bombarded with lots of webinar options these days so picking and chosing what the attend and when is not easy.

Regards,
Elisabeth

muench wrote: (At this stage, I think we quite like Adobe Connect (SEI has a licence for it to host it, and participants in meetings don't have to pay anything)).

If we had another open microphone session, is there anything in particular that you'd like to talk about?

I guess it is just me who has always issues connecting to Adobe Connect
But the advantage of the Jitsi Meet is that anyone can easily share a link to a room, thus the needed preparations are minimal.

My impression about the open sessions was that there wasn't a need for a specific topic, but I guess right now we could talk about the Wikipedia editing drive and maybe brainstorm about article improvements together?

Dear Kris,

No plans for another "open microphone" session with SuSanA members at this stage. We are currently a bit bogged down with still ongoing work to get the website up to scratch, populate the project database and to revitalise the working groups...
Will keep your suggestion in mind though and see if others are starting to use that, too. So thanks!
(At this stage, I think we quite like Adobe Connect (SEI has a licence for it to host it, and participants in meetings don't have to pay anything)).

If we had another open microphone session, is there anything in particular that you'd like to talk about?

Regards,
Elisabeth

Any plans to have this again some time?

I suggest using Jitsi-Meet though, as it works completely hassle free in any modern browser:
jitsi.org/jitsi-meet/

Edit: or mobile, see: jitsi.org/news/jitsi-meet-now-on-mobile/

Hi Krischan
We use various predetermined layouts during presentations. We have used breakout rooms. And recently we set up a dial-in account. This will be used later this month.

Maybe you would like to hold a webinar on a relevant topic?
Regards

I stand corrected on the usability with mobile then I assumed given the general lack of flash on most mobile devices that it would not work, but of course with a dedicated app it is a different story.

My main concern is that most modern operating systems and browsers are discouraging the use of flash or even disabling it outright. The chrome browser even has it's own cut down version that as far as I have heard will be soon disabled all together, so it is only a matter of time before only older Windows systems will be still able to connect from a desktop PC.

I understand that Adobe connect also has a lot of advantages and additional features, but which of those are really used in the SuSanA sessions? Has anyone ever actually tried to call in using a land-line for example?

Hi Krischan
Thanks for asking about Adobe Connect. We looked at the alternatives (and so did many universities, institutes and businesses around the world). There is no perfect video-conference system but Adobe Connect does still stand up to the competition - based on perfromance features, stability, capacity re numbers of participants, ability to control the software, etc.

Adobe Connect came out on top in this review from last year:
www.werockyourweb.com/gotomeeting-vs-web...ewer-vs-google-plus/
Its critique that there are no toll free telephone numbers to call is incorrect. Adobe offers dial-in and dial-out and free numbers in many countries. It is however weak in providing numbers in Africa to call - only Egypt and South Africa. But Adobe Connect can dial out to any phone number around the world.

Yes Flash has been around for a while but that doesn't mean it should chucked out. WebRTC - a Google experiment like many others, is still being developed.

Adobe Connect works on all major browsers seamlessly and requires no added software that needs clearing through virus control. For people using old machines that have never been updated, I would insist on using Chrome which updates Flash player automatically (for Windows, Mac or Linux).

On mobiles, Adobe Connect works extremely well - Android and IOS - very stable. I have hosted meetings from an Iphone 5.

There are ways of cutting down on bandwidth use from source by decreasing resolution and size of video windows. When using only audio and one speaker at a time Adobe Connect will use less bandwidth than Skype. Regarding dial-in and dial out this is a very powerful function to allow those without Internet to participate.

A proper license costs about 1500 USD per year for rooms with 100 people. The dial-in account is free but costs per minute for each user connected.

We can do some testing if you like from slow internet connections to see how it will perform.

Sorry for resurrecting this old topic, but it seems that the idea to switch to a more compatible video-conferencing solution than Adobe Connect never really got traction.

Having fought last time again with this horribly outdated flash based system that only runs properly on certain versions of windows, with certain specific browsers and flash-plugins (i.e. I don't think anyone has gotten it to work on Android, Mac or Linux), am am here to propose yet another alternative:

www.spreed.me/

It's a very modern WebRTC powered solution supported by a German company, so maybe that would be easy for the SuSanA secretariat to get working (at least easier than previous suggestions)? No need to buy the advertised box itself, as the software is also installable on a regular web-server.

Dear members,

Trevor Surridge's presentation about SuSanA and Elisabeth von Muench's presentation of the statistics report, both given during the webinar, are now also available as mp3-audio files. This might be of help especially for those members without access to YouTube, and also for those who like to listen to podcasts on their mobile phones.

• For Trevor's presentation about SuSanA, and Madeleine's words about the 19th SuSanA meeting in Dakar last month click here (presentation starts after 20 seconds of silence)
• for Elisabeth's input about the forum statistics report click here (the sound starts after 8 seconds of silence)

Best regards,
Lasse, on behalf of the SuSanA secretariat

Good news: We now have some selected pieces from the open webinar available for a general audience.

I am posting here the links to videos on Youtube, but for people without Youtube access we will also make them available as sound files (mp3 files) later today or tomorrow.

This video here shows Trevor's presentation about SuSanA (which he also gave at the 19th SuSanA meeting in Dakar, Senegal in May), followed by some words from Madeleine Fogde providing her views of the 19th SuSanA meeting:



Madeleine's input starts here:


The slides that Trevor used are available here:
www.susana.org/images/documents/04-meeti...tions/1-Overview.pdf


And this video shows the part in the webinar where I spoke about the forum statistics report, just highlighting some important trends (which I had also mentioned here on the forum ):



Another video clip about the 5000th member announcement, I will post in another thread here .

We have selected these three segments of the webinar for "general consumption". If you have a particular interest in the entire open webinar - and this applies particularly to those people who had registered but couldn't attend due to sound problems; but also to others with a special interest in SuSanA - we can make the sound file of the entire hour available to you on request.

Please send such a request for the mp3 file link to the SuSanA secretariat at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

(we decided not to post the entire sound file here, as it was an open, free discussion and as such probably not so relevant for non-SuSanA members)

Regards,
Elisabeth

Dear all,

Thanks for your valuable feedback and all the great suggestions that have come in so far! Very interesting.

I have to apologise to Dorothee and Sowmya, who made great suggestions on what we should discuss in the webinar (scrol up to access their posts), but we were only able to scratch the surface on some of them. One hour is very short, although on the other hand it's amazing how much came up in just this one hour of focused time in an energetic group. (I reckon we might need to move their suggestions into dedicated threads in order to not lose them)

Some people had problems with the sound or even getting into the virtual room (which was a real pity but had to do with non-updated flash players apparently) but also very many didn't have technical problems. It seems that the video quality from our participants in Mexico was even so good that they could read the name on the shirt of my son who was far behind me at the end of the webinar when he was getting bored with waiting....
They wrote in the chat:
Team WTR: (17:18) Elisabeth we can see Lionel Messi jumping on a bed behind you


I have attached the log from the chat field which gives a good overview of topics that came up (note that the webinar officially ended at 17:00 but some people continued chatting for a while longer - like in real life):



And here is also a screenshot to give you a visual impression (I took it at the beginning of the webinar when only few people had entered the room so far). In the end we had about 35 participants.



I think we succeeded in providing an open space for active participation from the floor - something which I have missed in many other webinars which consist of 90% presentations and 10% discussions. Ours was more like 20% presentation and 80% discussion (maybe the inputs by Trevor and myself should have been even shorter, in fact).

I really like Trevor's suggestion of coming up with a format for an open SuSanA webinar that can become a regular feature in our diaries and does not take up much time for setting up and advertising (for this particular webinar, I did a lot of advertising upfront via twitter, Sanitation Updates and e-mails; which took up quite a bit of my time in the days leading up to the webinar).

Personally, I really like the user experience that Adobe Connect gives. However, perhaps indeed something simpler which works with slower internet connections is needed. Mind you, I do find having webcams or at least sound quite important for the experience. If it was all just typing in the chat field it wouldn't be the same...
What do people think about Google Hangout? I have never used that but perhaps others have made good experiences with it? Let's keep on exploring and testing until we find the tool that suits us best.

Greetings,
Elisabeth

P.S. I like Madeleine's idea to make the next SuSanA meeting in Stockholm into a parallel e-meeting as much as possible. That would really be good and should be planned and advertised well in advance. One needs to block out one's Saturday if one wants to attend though (21-22 Aug.).

I was just experimenting with Dorothee in the Big Blue Button demo, it seems to work quite well - although there are some technical issues - it seems to use a server, so we'd have to set that up. Also I have not yet worked out how to phone in to it. But as an idea it seems to be a good one.