WEB CONFERENCING

A Tool for Knowledge Transfer between Universities and Business Organizations

Ana-Maria Suduc, Mihai Bizoi, Gabriel Gorghiu

Automatic Control, Informatics and Electrical Engineering Department, Valahia University, 130082, Targoviste, Romania

Laura Monica Gorghiu

Faculty of Sciences and Arts, Valahia University Targoviste, 18-24 Unirii Blvd., Targoviste, 130082, Romania

Keywords: Web collaboration, Web conferencing, Knowledge transfer.

Abstract: It is commonly accepted that universities are an important source of new knowledge, especially in the

science and technology sector. The mechanisms to transfer this new knowledge from academia to business

organizations are widely discussed by many authors. This paper presents how web collaboration

environments may help in distance knowledge transfer and also a web conferencing example meant to stress

the factors which led to a successful web meeting for knowledge diffusion. There is presented also the

positive feedback of the attendees, in the conditions of low participation rate in previous similar

experiences.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the most interesting research subjects in the

e-learning area is represented by the establishing of

new collaborative environments, important spaces

where people can share and create knowledge. In

most of cases, the universities promoted such

initiatives, even for developing specific educational

actions, but also for spreading the knowledge to the

economic environment or promoting different

applied projects together with various corporate

organizations. In this sense, a clear actual trend is

offered by the development of such networks within

collaborative environments, having as objective the

increasing of their innovation capability, where

different organizations are focused on the

development and sharing of core competences. As a

result of the practical implementation, some

networking models have been developed like

Extended Enterprises or Virtual Enterprises (Flores

et al., 2007) (Barbat & Filip, 2007). But the

collaborative environments have as basis the

collaborative technologies which consist of a range

of different tools, systems and IT platforms, all of

them having an important role to the consolidation

of the virtual collaborative communities.

2 DISTANCE KNOWLEDGE

TRANSFER

An intensive exchange of knowledge between

universities and business firms “is not a goal by

itself but a means to sizable economic benefits”

(Arvanitis et al., 2005).

Bekkers and Bodas Freitas have identified in

2007, in the scientific literature, four main channels

through which knowledge and technology is being

transferred between universities and industry: (1)

publications and patents, (2) collaborative and

contracted research activities, (3) employment of

university researchers by firms, and (4) informal

contacts (Bekkers & Bodas Freitas, 2008). Except

the first one, all the other knowledge transfer

channels require a direct interaction between

universities and industry representatives. This direct

interaction is even more important in case of tacit

knowledge transfer, because “effective transfer of

tacit knowledge generally requires extensive

personal contact and trust” (Song, 2009).

The interaction, which can be materialised

through face-to-face meetings, between the

knowledge creator and the recipient can be done

without many efforts if they are located in the same

165

Suduc A., Bizoi M., Gorghiu G. and Monica Gorghiu L. (2010).

WEB CONFERENCING - A Tool for Knowledge Transfer between Universities and Business Organizations.

In Proceedings of the Multi-Conference on Innovative Developments in ICT, pages 165-168

DOI: 10.5220/0003036301650168

 SciTePress

geographical region. The costs of interaction could

significantly increase when the two interaction parts

are, more or less, far away one from another.

Travelling and face-to-face meetings can be tiring

and stressful and interaction efficiency can be

affected. In this case, a web collaboration /

conferencing platform can allow people get in

contact without the physical limitations of distance,

time, and organizational boundaries. Web meetings

are cheaper and request less time to organize them.

The amount of resources involved in web

meetings is significantly reduced and the number of

attendees, knowledge creators and recipients, is

likely to increase as it is often easier for people to

connect online, making each meeting more efficient.

Therefore web conferencing / collaboration offers a

more efficient, flexible and dynamic approach to

meetings (Suduc et al., 2009).

3 WEB CONFERENCING AND

WEB COLLABORATION

There are two categories of conferencing

environments which support web meetings: web

conferencing and web collaboration environments.

Typically, the web conferencing environments

are designed as unidirectional tools: a member of the

group sends information to multiple locations (from

speaker to audience, from knowledge creator to

recipients). Many other web conferencing software

also offer basic bidirectional or multidimensional

communication tools (such as voting, chat, instant

messaging, whiteboards, video feed(s) and feedback

to the presenter who can share a presentation or the

display from an application on his or her desktop)

(Austin et al., 2006). These tools might be very

useful for the fourth channel - identified by Bekkers

and Bodas Freitas - for knowledge transfer: informal

contacts.

For the second channel for knowledge transfer,

collaborative and contracted research activities,

and, in some cases for the third channel, employment

of university researchers by firm, a web

collaboration environment might be the solution, in

case of distance collaboration. Web collaboration

platforms are many-to-many conferencing tools

which support activities like brainstorming, list

analyzing, evaluating, rating, categorizing, grouping,

organizing, problem solving, assessing risk, strategy

planning, consensus building, capturing knowledge,

product development (Collins, 2006). Usually web

conferencing software allows, besides visual and

audio participation, face-to-face like, shared

whiteboards, desktop application sharing, computer

access and storage, video recording to keep a

permanent record of the knowledge transfer (Suduc

et al., 2010). Therefore, web collaboration platforms

offer features not only for knowledge transfer but

also for knowledge creation.

In the following there will be used the concept of

web conferencing for both categories of web

meetings: web conferencing with basic features for

bidirectional or multidimensional communication

and for web collaboration.

4 METHOD

In the frame of the European Comenius 2.1 project

entitled “Virtual Community Collaboration Space

for Science Education - VccSSe”, a project results

dissemination web conference has been organized.

Even the main objective of this web meeting was not

the knowledge transfer from academia to business

organization but a knowledge diffusion from

creators to end users in general, the analysis of the

web conference participants’ responses to a

feedback questionnaire filled at the end of the web

meeting may show what are the factors which

influence the success or the failure of a knowledge

diffusion web meeting and what is the perception of

the users who have no or low experience in using

web conferencing environments.

The main activities included in the web

conference agenda were: the project presentation,

the demonstration and presentation of a series of

online simulating laboratories and virtual

experiments for Science education (project

outcomes), the description of the guideline of the

best practices, followed by discussions and

comments. The duration of the web conference was

one hour.

Adobe Connect Pro represented the software

solution chosen for developing the web

conferencing. The number of participants was 100,

located in 12 connection points in Finland (one was

the host of the Adobe Connect Pro server), Romania,

Greece, Spain, Poland, Turkey, Portugal and

Norway (Suduc et al., 2010).

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5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

5.1 Coordination

In web conferencing, the coordinating skills

represent a crucial aspect for having a successful

session. In this sense, the connection with the remote

sites and the testing in advance represent

compulsory activities. In addition, a reviewing of the

session plan from the technical point of view and

some practical activities with the related equipment

are good options before starting. During the session,

the projected web meeting plan has to be carried out

as it is established, with a definite period for each

activity (presentations, discussions, voting, etc.).

The facilitator (coordinator) must lead the

session in a logical sequence, ask for responses from

the audience, review the main points but offer a

proper enthusiasm and promote a friendly

atmosphere. The facilitator has also to find or create

a shared context that enables the web meeting

participants to see that they are similar in some

important aspects to others in their group, to build

familiarity among group members. Psychologists

have demonstrated that people need a common

context in order to build new relationship (Clark,

1996). The relationship building requires a

significant effort because the distance decreases the

group members’ involvement.

41%

47%

Excellent

VeryGood

Good

Sa tisfactory

Poor

Figure 1: Appreciation related to the coordinating skills of

the web meeting organized in the frame of VccSSe

project.

Taking into account all the mentioned aspects,

during the web meeting organized in the frame of

the VccSSe project, the coordinating skills were

appreciated by 88% of participants as excellent and

very good (figure 1).

Because the web conference organization was a

collective effort of the VccSSe project partners, the

participants were asked to evaluate the coherence of

the partners’ performance content with the projected

web meeting plan. A percentage of 86% of the

participants responded excellent and very good

(figure 2).

36%

50%

12%

Excellent

VeryGood

Good

Sati sfa ctory

Poor

Figure 2: Evaluation of the coherence of the partners’

performance content with the web meeting plan.

5.2 Time

A good management implies also a better allocation

of the web meeting time, especially when the

participants are numerous. In this sense, all the

participant groups need optimum periods for

presentations and discussions. The time has to be

well balanced with a maximum benefit of gathering

information from the participants’ point of view.

The web meeting organized in the frame of the

VccSSe project offered an effectiveness of the time

usage for the participant groups appreciated by 79%

of participants as excellent and very good (figure 3).

37%

42%

17%

Excell ent

VeryGood

Good

Sa tisfactory

Poor

Figure 3: Appreciation of the effectiveness of time usage

in the participant groups.

5.3 Clarity and Expectations

Achievement

Finally, two criteria linked with the success of the

web meeting are important to be presented: the

clarity of the goals and the level of the expectations

achievement. Setting the meeting’ goals mean in fact

to establish some indicators that describe the

participants’ performances.

In the case of the VccSSe project web meeting,

the presentations and the contributions to

discussions were evaluated as very positive aspects

WEB CONFERENCING - A Tool for Knowledge Transfer between Universities and Business Organizations

167

which strength the clarity of the meeting goals,

before its realization. In this case, 87% of

participants appreciated this aspect as excellent and

very good (figure 4).

38%

49%

12%

Excell ent

VeryGood

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Figure 4: Appreciation of the clarity of the web meeting

goals before the realization.

It was appreciated also that the web meeting

guests’ expectations were met at a significant level:

85% of the participants appreciated this fact as

excellent and very good (figure 5).

25%

60%

13%

Excellent

VeryGood

Good

Satisfactory

Poor

Figure 5: Evaluation of the extent to which the web

conference guests’ expectations were met.

6 CONCLUSIONS

Because knowledge transfer often involves direct

interaction between the creator - professors and

researchers and the recipient - firms, and in many

cases those two are located in different geographical

areas, web collaboration environments seem to be

the proper tools for an efficient and affordable mean

to knowledge transfer. Web conferencing can reduce

travel and facility costs, but also can improve

knowledge transfer quality.

The results presented in this paper show that the

participants to a knowledge dissemination web

conferencing can be more than satisfied of the

meeting if the meeting is properly organized and

coordinated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was funded through the Socrates-

Comenius 2.1. European project 128989-CP-1-2006-

1-RO-COMENIUS-C21: “VccSSe - Virtual

Community Collaborating Space for Science

Education”. The support offered by the European

Commission through the VccSSe project is

gratefully acknowledged.

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