evaluating web conferencing tool effectiveness
Web conferencing is a collaborative tool that allows for synchronous communication. This collaboration encompasses audio and visual interactions. The tool also allows for annotation on the presented material and the ability to use a chat facility amongst participants. Effective communication is essential within virtual teams and web conferencing systems create a platform for communication for geographically dispersed teams. The purpose of this study was to ascertain how to evaluate the effectiveness of web conferencing tools. The DeLone and McLean [8] Information Systems (IS) Success Model was used as the theoretical lens by which to examine effectiveness, which was taken to be synonymous with success, in line with much IS literature. A qualitative approach was used to uncover richness through the process of interviews with users of one web conferencing system. A total of 8 individuals were interviewed, seven of them from the user company and the eighth individual was a client of that company. The majority of respondents agreed that web conferencing improved productivity within the virtual team environment. The participants identified that the issue of sound quality might be a barrier to the use of web conferencing. All the interviewees saw web conferencing as a valuable tool, stating that the beneficial nature of the technology outweighed the few technical problems that were experienced.
web conferencing delone and mclean is success