Remote moderators guidelines

Remote moderators guideline for IGF 2013

1.    Roles and responsibility: The remote moderator is the advocate of the remote participants. S/he helps the remote participants to actively participate during the IGF workshops and focus sessions. A basic knowledge of IGF and its process is desirable. Remote moderator also helps the remote panelists to give their presentation. If you need information about IGF 2013 and its workshops and sessions please go to www.intgovforum.org



2.    How to start: when you enter the workshop room, please go and sit behind the PC designated by the remote moderator nameplate. The WebEX room is already set up, and you are already logged in as the “remote moderator”. If you face any problem contact the remote participation team. The contact details will be available on the remote participant desk and will be sent to you by email.



3.    Introduce yourself: You can introduce yourself to the remote participants by saying “ Hello, my name is …” and “I am your remote moderator today”.



4.    Information about the workshop: Let the remote participants know which workshop is going to be held in the room by saying: “welcome to workshop #… entitled … (replace the dots with the workshop no and title). You can find the title on the schedule here.



5.    People with disabilities: This is of great importance. Make sure you identify people with disabilities ( visual or auditory difficulties). You can say



“If you have any difficulty or disability I should know about, please let me know here, or in a private chat message.”



6.    Ask the remote participants to join the audio conference: In chat, ask the remote participants to join the audio conference. Try to do a test with the microphone and test the video and audio by asking the remote participants if everything is working. If not, please contact the remote participation team as soon as possible.



7.    Keep the remote participants informed: Let the remote participants know when the session starts: “The session is scheduled to start in 5 minute”. If the session starts late or if there are any changes in the agenda of the workshop, let the remote participants know.



8.    Approaching the workshop moderator before the session: If the workshop moderator does not know you, please approach her/him, introduce yourself and let them know that you will read the comments and questions on behalf of the remote participants, during the question and answer part of the session. You could also ask if, during the question and answer part, the moderator could kindly give the round to one remote participant and one present participant.



9.    Inform participants about the remote participation etiquette: Encourage the remote participants to send their comments and questions and let them know that you will read them out during the question and answer part. Avoid reading out the irrelevant questions, comments, those comments that contain foul language and ad hominem attacks.  



You can say:



“Feel free to ask any questions and/or to comment on any topic related to the current session. I will make sure to forward it to the panel as soon as the floor is opened for questions (Note: Not all questions would be asked and/or answered due to time restrictions; please refrain from ad hominem attacks as well as irrelevant questions).”





10.    Tell the remote participants how to send their comments and questions: Ask the participants to intervene and ask their questions and make their comments in this format:



For intervention from individuals: Name- affiliation – City-comment “…” or question “…”

For remote hubs: Location- number of hub participants-comment “…” or

question “ ….”.



11.    Ask the remote participants to be brief:  In order to allow as many interventions as possible, please ask the remote participants to keep their comments to maximum 4 chat lines. Explain that this is due to the fact that the remote participants are not present in the room and it is difficult to keep the people in the room focused when reading comments and questions.



12.    Read the comment: Once you have a remote participation comment and/or question, raise the “REMOTE PARTICIPATION” name plate in order to signal a remote participant intervention to the moderator of the panel.

13.    Read the comments at a medium pace: Try not to read the comments too quickly, remember that the transcribers are transcribing the session and you need to keep the audience focused.  



14.    Give priority to people with disabilities to make their comments and ask their questions





15.    Remote panelists presentation: if a panelist will attend remotely, the remote participation team will inform you before the session. The presentation of the panelist is saved on the computer in the folder named by the workshop number. The presentation name is the name of the panelist. Ask the person responsible for the host computer to give the microphone to the remote presenter. The technical moderator is also in charge of displaying the presentation in WebEX. If there is any other presentation slides, please hand it to the technical moderator.



16.    Keep in close contact with the remote panelist: Send the remote panelist a private message on WebEx and send them your email address and ask to contact you if they face any problem.



17.    Keep a record of the number of remote hubs and the number of remote participants: we will provide you with a sheet for stats, please fill it in after the session and hand it to the remote participation coordinator, Farzaneh  Badii.



18.    Technical assistance: Each room has at least one technical assistant; if they are not available, please contact the remote participation team.



19.    Report the abnormal activity: Report any spam attack, ad hominem attack to the remote participation team.



20.     When leaving: Thank the remote participants and leave the room without closing any window on the computer or anything else.

21. Contact us at [email protected]