How not to do it: Videoconferencing Edition

I had the great pleasure of participating in a group study meeting on the use of videoconferencing (aka telepresence) in the justice system this past week.  One of our good friends from Texas sent me the following story from the Houston Chronicle newspaper from this past February.  While the issues presented regarding money bail release are worthy of discussion elsewhere, I must comment on the technical setup shown in the accompanying video.

New Secure and Technologically Advanced Courthouse Opened

https://goo.gl/5ymTeK

We learned via the US Federal Courts newsletter and video about the new courthouse that opened in Mobile, Alabama.

The newsletter says:

“A new federal courthouse has been formally unveiled in Mobile, Alabama, featuring improved safety and access for the public and improvements in information technology.

StateTech Magazine Recognizes the Court Technology Bulletin

We are honored to share the news that the Court Technology Bulletin has been included in the “30 Must-Read State and Local IT Blogs 2018”

The article recommends that government IT workers “(F)ollow these blogs to stay current on the latest news and trends for state government, smart cities, first responders, public libraries, courts and more.”

And we agree that there are several interesting blogs listed in the article.

Thanks go out to StateTech Magazine for the recognition. 

E-Filing/Imaging and Large Files

In a recent project, I set a system rule for e-filing file sizes not being bigger than 20-megabytes upload into the document management system. 

Why am I against these “Jumbo” files?  I explain below…

Practical Augmented Reality Appears

Available at Amazon 

We learned via my colleague, and ace support technician, Charlie Sillery along with a press release of the TeamViewer  Pilot augmented reality solution to see and guide people in remote locations to help them fix their problems.

But before we start, here is a PC Magazine article about the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality.  We discuss the later below…

Electronic Archives and Microfilm

While Block Chain, AI, and GDPR are new and exciting, sometimes we need to talk about older technology.  Most of it is paper which has its own set of challenges.  But microfilm has been the court archiving standard since at least the 1950’s in many jurisdictions.  Should it still be used?  If so, can it be made more useful?  We discuss below.

2018 NCSC Viz-A-Thon Winners Announced

The 2018 NCSC Viz-A-Thon was held last week, and the winners were announced.  The Viz-A-Thon sought to find solutions to the complex court organizational charts that are part of the State Court Organization website.

“The judges were impressed with each of the Finalists. All the solutions thoughtfully explored the structure charts and considered users who need to investigate and explore the structures to understand the courts and guide research and decision making. The solutions were refreshing and creative and demonstrated that the participants thought about the data and the complicated “story” of state court structures.”

The winning team was “Team Bosphorus: Gunhan Pikdoken, Bahadir Cankardes, Emre K. Ar, Şuayip Ekmekci” who presented their solutions from Istanbul, Turkey.

The judges were impressed with the beautiful display that used white space well and easily allowed users to explore the similarities and differences of the state courts. The solution was a full-stack development using D3 and Vue. Team Bosphorus’s experience with UI and UX best practices was clear.”

You can see and test their working solution, along with those of the second and third place teams on the Viz-A-Thon website at:

https://www.ncsc.org/vizathon

Congratulations to all for great work and event.

Video Conferencing Technology in Pretrial Services

My NCSC colleague, Ms. Jannet Lewis has published an excellent case study on the use of secure video conferencing technology to assist in improving video conferencing communication in the Tenth Judicial Circuit, Polk County, Florida.

GDPR Guidance and How to Market Your Court Website

The COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee has recently released two new resource bulletins.  Details below…

This and That in Court Tech – September 2018

eCourts Conference

News on the eCourts 2018 conference, a new ODR pilot for small claims cases in Utah, security problems with the GovPayNow.com website, the IBM Watson AI based closed captioning system, and the UK Metropolitan Police developed mobile fingerprint system.

Smart Phones as Document Scanners for E-Filing

DIY iPhone Document Scanner

We received a question the other day about how to facilitate document/evidence E-filing?  And we first wrote about the use of smartphones for document capture back in 2014.  But after reviewing the article, it is time for an update.

Leveraging the Court Component Model to Connect Business and Technology

Our friends with the IJIS Institute Courts Advisory Committee have developed a web-based tool to help court practitioners find information about technology vendors and products that align with the Court Component Model.  Jenny Bunch of ImageSoft shared the following write-up on behalf of the IJIS Courts Advisory Committee . . . 

NCSC Announces Viz-a-thon Competition

The National Center for State Courts (NCSC) is hosting a virtual, multi-week contest to create a supportable, interactive, data visualization of the state court structure charts.  The Grand Prize for the winning entry is $5,000 USD and Runners-up will receive prizes totaling $3,500 USD.

More below...

Policy Recommendations on Public Use of Cell Phones in the Courthouse

Thanks to our good friend Marc Lauritsen’s tweet, we learned of the following press release and report from the Massachusetts Appleseed Center for Law and Justice on the impact of banning cell phones in courthouses.  More below…

This and That in Court Technology – August 2018

In this edition, we share news about eCourts 2018 conference, law enforcement body cameras, the 25th anniversary of PDF, and microfilm to digital conversion technology to write up while the software is installing on my new laptop. 

Court Case Management Systems Part 20: User Interface (UI) and More

https://goo.gl/UGJioL

In this long-delayed edition in the Court Case Management Systems (CCMS) series, we will discuss some thoughts on user interfaces (UI) for court systems.  It is an exciting time to explore this area because the technology is developing quickly, and there are many new possibilities for developers to consider.  And because of all the new developments, this article has been delayed many times.

But it is summer time and so it is time to dive in...

Note: Previous work by our colleagues at the NCSC and other experts provides the list of functionality (the what). This CCMS series has been our attempt to describe “how” technologies have been and could be used in the courts.  

Click here for the previous posts in this series.

North Carolina AOC Issues ICMS RFP

As part of the long-term eCourts vision, the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (NCAOC) is seeking to procure a statewide ICMS. We request that all interested parties respond to the inquiries contained within this RFP by submitting a response by September 25, 2018.

Industry Summit, September 17-18, 2018, in St. Petersburg, Florida

We received the following conference announcement today.

The annual Industry Summit is an opportunity for industry technology leaders to engage in free-flowing discussion with leaders of COSCA, NACM, and CITOC, and representatives from the IJIS Institute, NCSC, and the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.  The objective of this two-day event is to provide the industry with insights into the current and emerging technology needs of the courts over the next two to six years.  Working side by side, court and industry technology leaders will identify business problems, brainstorm opportunities, and chart a course for future court technology.

Details below...

COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee Sets Priorities

In the recent committee meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia on July 22-23, 2018 the following priorities for 2018/2019 were set by the COSCA/NACM Joint Technology Committee.  The subjects are:

This and That in Court Tech – July 2018

Animal rescue at Rancho Del Sueno

We share news from California, a private court records access company, a huge report of technology projects from the Ohio state courts, and a commentary regarding a court in Michigan losing 3.6 million paper documents.