Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
conferencing (n.)
is relatively recent jargon or argot, turning up first in the field of education and now in computers. In the former, conferencing and conferencing techniques were names for holding educational conferences; their use outside the bounds of educationese might have withered with other slang had not computer conferencing suddenly become a jargon term used by a still-larger constituency. Like conference calls on the telephone, computer conferencing permits computers to communicate among themselves. Thus in neither use does conferencing mean the same thing as conferring, but in its two specialized senses it appears to be approaching Standard status.
