CAIRO - A SYSTEM FOR FACILITATING COMMUNICATION IN A DISTRIBUTED COLLABORATIVE ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENT

Conference management is a critical component of a collaborative engin eering effort. This paper describes CAIRO (Collaborative Agent Interac tion control and synchROnization system), a system for managing partic ipants in a distributed conference. We have drawn from various models of group interaction and social communications theory in order to deve lop CAIRO. The CAIRO system provides both media synchronization, i.e. insuring that all information conveyed from one participant to another is synchronized, and agent synchronization, i.e. insuring effective s tructuring and control of a distributed conference.