Mediating electronic meetings

Electronic meeting control has been the focus of many research efforts; however, extensively adopted standards are still unavailable. In this paper, we present a generic model for electronic meeting control. Our model is based on the formal meeting protocol commonly known as the parliamentary procedure or Robert´s Rules of Order (RRO). Capturing the essential features of traditional RRO, we suggest extension mechanisms in order to exploit the capabilities of electronic media. Centered on the concept of a discussion thread, our extended RRO model can handle concurrent meeting activities, multiple floors, amendment nesting, and discussion hierarchies. M-Net, an electronic meeting system, is introduced as an example supported by our model.