Evaluating the effectiveness of methods for capturing meetings

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of commonly used methods to capture synchronous meetings for information and knowledge retrieval. Four methods of capture are evaluated in the form of a case study whereby a technical design meeting was captured by; (i) transcription; (ii) diagrammatic argumentation; (iii) meeting minutes; and (iv) video. The paper describes an experiment where participants undertook an information retrieval task and provided feedback on the methods. This work contributes to knowledge by presenting the relative merits and weaknesses of existing methods through the use of a mixed qualitative and quantitative experimental approach. The conclusions from this study show that there is no evidence of a single method for capturing meetings that is effective at providing an overview of the meeting, capable of containing its details and decision rationale, while remaining retrievable in a timely manner. Consequently different methods are recommended depending on retrieval requirements. Recommendations are provided for the appropriate selection of a method to capture a meeting, depending on retrieval requirements.