One underlying assumption of the ACR Hawaii project Virtual Mediation Lab – http://goo.gl/dnc0Y - is that for online mediation to work for the parties, its platform should provide video/face-to-face communication which, from their perspective, is easy and simple to use, and reliable.

As a result, when the pilot phase of VML ended (after 50 online mediation simulations with Skype run with 62 mediators from 22 countries), one question of our Final Survey – http://goo.gl/Lxyvv – was:

“Assessment of Skype – Overall, do you consider Skype a good choice for running online mediation simulations with mediators around the world? Was it easy and simple to use? Was it reliable?”

As mediator,

>> What do you think of those criteria for assessing an online mediation platform? Are there other criteria you would add or consider equally or even more important?

>> Do you know of other studies/projects/experiments (similar to VML) conducted with other video conferencing platforms (eg. GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect, Cisco Webex, Fuze Meeting, and so on) specifically for online mediation purposes?

>> Have you used any of those platforms for real or simulated online mediations? If so, what was your and the parties' overall experience?

Giuseppe Leone