Preface

IN 1977, an article described computer conferences as “a new telecommunications technology that may eventually become as omnipresent and influential as the telephone in offices, laboratories, and homes.” (Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, “Meeting through your computer,” IEEE Spectrum, May, 1977). Today, computer conferences are ubiquitous and important to engineers, scientists, educators, and businessmen. Computer conferences have become formal structures for exchanging and disseminating information, as well as for formulating policy. Indeed, the October, 1985, issue of Computer magazine on multimedia communications notes the need for “Computer-Based Real-Time Conferring Systems” to handle crises. (Sunil Sarin).