The guiding principles behind the provision of services are as follows:
The ICANN community is global and needs to have the tools to participate in the work of ICANN effectively and efficiently. Services required to facilitate a global Internet event are not the same services required for a monthly community working call. Remote participants should be able to easily understand the services to expect for each type of session and easily access them. On the links to the right you will find more details about the various remote participation services offered at typical ICANN meetings, as well as the rationale behind the way services are provisioned.
A full experience with audio, video, and presentation for high bandwidth participants or a lower bandwidth audio or video only options are available, so that those with limited connections have an equal opportunity to participate remotely using streaming audio feed. Additionally, at all ICANN meetings, in-room staff facilitates the audio and video experience to include remote participants in all aspects of the session, as if they were in the physical room.
Services and tools are available on a variety of devices and platforms, and do not require additional installations or support. Where possible, open source products and systems are utilized.
A key part of ensuring the remote participation experience works well is ensuring that services are monitored – from both a technical and operational perspective. A remote participation manager and technical staff will be connected to the chat room for meetings with chat facilities so that remote participants can identify problems they experience (for example, that audio volume is too low for certain speakers on audio streams). Look for the initials "RP" to determine who to contact in any Zoom Meeting virtual room for assistance
A Zoom Meeting virtual room is linked to each physical room at an ICANN meeting; the link to enter the virtual meeting room can be found on each ICANN Meeting session page.
Zoom Meeting rooms at an ICANN meeting will have the same names as the physical rooms at the conference site.
An ICANN staff member, known as a Remote Participation Manager, will be present in each of the "Open" ICANN Meeting Zoom sessions, to facilitate the operation of the Zoom virtual room as well as manage the remote interventions from participants not in the physical session room (questions and comments to be publicly shared in the session).
Zoom Meetings has created a Joining a Zoom Meeting tutorial to show remote participants how to utilize Zoom Meetings as a remote participation tool at each ICANN meeting. Simply follow this link: Joining a Zoom Meeting.
All Zoom Meeting 'rooms' are made up of various features that provide different types of information to be shared as well as opportunities for remote participants to engage in different ways during each ICANN meeting session.
A presentation share allows you to follow the same slides or presentation materials that are being seen in the physical room; a video share shows those that are speaking in the physical room; Participants area documents the names of others also participating in the Zoom Meeting session room; a Chat Pod is provided for constant flow of communication and questions between participants. Session information for the latest meeting can be found here: https://schedule.icann.org.
Remote Interventions' are the real-time questions and comments that may be submitted by remote participants for reading out to the physical and virtual room. These questions or comments will be read out by the Remote Participation Manager who is facilitating the chat room.
If not enough time is available for all interventions (remote and in-person) to be made orally, upon request these questions can be forwarded to the relevant person who has made the presentation and published after receipt to the record of the meeting as required.
In order to ensure that the maximum numbers of remote participants are able to have their views expressed in a session, please be aware of the following:
Zoom Meetings has created a 'Joining a Zoom Meeting' tutorial to show remote participants how to utilize Zoom Meetings as a remote participation tool at each ICANN meeting. Simply follow this link: Joining a Zoom Meeting.
Streaming video is available as a standard for all general sessions at an ICANN meeting. Livestream.com will stream high definition (HD) quality video for high interest sessions such as the Opening Session, Public Forum, and the Public Board meeting. When provided, it will be indicated on the remote participation session details in the ICANN meeting schedule. Standard streaming video can be viewed through the Zoom Meeting virtual room. HD Video streams can be followed here: https://livestream.com/icannmeeting
Audio streaming is available in a 64kbps stream, as shown in the remote participation session details in the meeting schedule https://schedule.icann.org, where a session features interpretation, audio streaming will be available in all languages available to in-room participants.
Live scribing in English will be available for sessions in the select meeting rooms only and will be seen in the Zoom Meeting virtual room. To the extent that it is technically possible to deliver, a low-bandwidth simultaneous text-based scribe feed will be indicated on session agenda pages and on the remote participation schedule as 'Scribe Stream Text'.
All "Open" session transcripts will be posted within seven days of the end of the session. When noted as a service to be provided in the session agenda for "Closed - Members Only", transcripts will be posted within seven days of the end of the session. If that session had interpretation, transcripts will be posted in all available languages.
For some sessions, a telephonic conference bridge will be connected through the public address system in the room, allowing remote participants to listen to anything said in the room through a microphone, and allowing anything said by remote participants on the conference bridge to be heard by the in-room participants.
Where a presenter is not physically present at the conference, Zoom Meeting video will be used to connect the presenter to the in-room audio system with a bidirectional connection, and video will be projected onscreen. This is a special, limited availability service.
Video recordings will be available the same day the session ends as a part of Zoom Meeting session recordings. After the meeting concludes, recordings may be made available independently of Zoom Meeting recordings on ICANN's hosted video channels https://livestream.com/icannmeeting.
Audio recordings will be posted within 24 hours of the session's conclusion, in every language that was available during the session.
Please be advised that all participants are subject to the Community Anti-Harassment Policy and Terms of Participation and Complaint Procedure and the Expected Standards of Behavior which is documented in the Accountability and Transparency Frameworks and Principles adopted by the ICANN Board on 6th May 2012 and revised on 26 June 2016.
All participants who behave in a manner that is clearly in breach of these standards may be removed from the virtual or physical room without warning, depending upon the seriousness of the breach, as perceived by those staff attending the session.If you are excluded or asked to desist in making certain comments and believe the treatment you received was unreasonable, you are entitled to ask the ICANN Ombudsman to review the matter. You may find more information about the Ombudsman at http://www.icann.org/ombudsman/.
There have been many improvements to remote participant services over the years and will continue to review services on a regular basis as our global community grows. ICANN is very interested in your thoughts and hope you'll take the time to share your remote participation experience by sending any comments to engagement@icann.org.
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