No abstract

Universities are increasingly using advanced video-conferencing environments to interact for teaching and research purposes at a distance and in situations that combine distant participants with those face-to-face. Those who use these technologies expect professional development support to do so but we do not yet have a comprehensive research platform on which to base this support. The research described here sought to explore research protocols that could enrich our understanding of this domain, based on exploratory quantitative analyses of presenters' behaviours and participants' perceptions of presentations. It identified a number of presenter-behaviours that may predict overall participant perceptions and that may discriminate between categories of perceived presentation quality. We conclude that this research approach may be capable of producing realistic guidelines for presenters who operate in distance settings but that these do need to address the particular circumstances in which presenters find themselves. IntroductionUniversity academics are increasingly using the Access Grid and similar presentation, teaching and networking technologies over high-speed networks (collectively, but over-simply, styled as video-conferencing), to present themselves and their ideas for teaching and research purposes at a distance. The Access Grid is a set of hardware, software, tools and architecture designed to facilitate collaboration over the Internet. It is very fast and allows presentations to be broadcast simultaneously to and from many different sites or nodes. These developments build on several decades of video-conferencing use and respond to faster networking, more sophisticated software and the experiential benefits of research and development. It should now be possible for several groups or individuals to maintain multiway video and audio communication and to share documents and their development. But anyone who has communicated in this way knows that the nature, and experience, of these online presentations varies greatly. The situation for presenters was summarised by Edberg et al. (2002) following completion of a collaborative high-performance computing course, in the USA, in the early phase of the Access Grid:

Background Depression is a major risk factor for self-harm and suicide, and a leading cause of disability. Many people who experience depression do not come to the attention of health services. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) is effective in managing depression, however, few CBT therapists, limited access and high cost are significant barriers to accessing CBT. Aims/Objectives/Purpose To evaluate proven internet-based interactive and personalised CBT and depression literacy (DL) programmes from Australia in terms of their effectiveness in reducing depression, anxiety, alcohol use, and self-harm, and enhancing quality of life in the general population. Methods A national, exclusively web-based trial (http://www.otago.ac.nz/rid) was conducted with over 700 participants who were randomly assigned to a CBT, DL (interventions) or control group. After completing a baseline mental health survey, they worked through a 4-week programme (intervention or control) followed by an immediate survey on their mental health. Then they completed online mental health surveys at 6 monthly intervals until 24 months had elapsed. Results/Outcomes Many participants reported that they did not have a preference for which of the three trial groups they would be randomly assigned to and gave altruistic reasons for taking part in the trial. Results will be presented on the immediate impact of the online interventions on mental health and well-being. Significance/Contribution to the Field The initial findings are relevant to the Government's new national strategy to implement online psychological therapies in the general population and thereby provide a wide range of suitable mental health treatments for consumers.