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We study videoconferencing for meetings with some co-located participants and one remote participant. A standard Skype-like interface for the remote participant is compared to a more immersive 3D interface that conveys gaze directions in a natural way. Experimental results show the 3D interface is promising: all significant differences are in favor of 3D and according to the participants the 3D interface clearly supports selective gaze and selective listening. We found some significant differences in perceived quality of cooperation and organization, and on the opinions about other group members. No significant differences were found for perceived social presence of the remote participants, but we did measure differences in social presence for co-located participants. Measured gaze frequency and duration nor perceived turn-taking behavior did differ significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past studies loosely define culturally heterogeneous group composition as any combination of mixed nationality and/or ethnicity. A case study with three project groups was conducted to investigate if culturally diverse groups composed differently in terms of nationality/ ethnicity mix will experience different types of communication problems. Communication problems of discussion dominance, reduced communication frequency and discussion exclusion were coded from taped discussions. Findings indicate that ethnicity and nationality give rise to different communication problems. Future studies should be specific when defining heterogeneous groups in terms of whether they are manipulating differences in nationality, ethnicity or both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents views on facilitation in which attention is paid to the way the facilitator of group processes may intervene as a participant in the process, at times contributing content-suggestions to the discussions. One argument is that facilitators of group processes should become self-critically aware of the way in which their interventions may impact on discussions. They can contribute to the discussions in order to enhance the level of discursive validity checking of statements made.