Paperless Collaboration in Education
By admin On December 16th, 2009Paperless/Virtual Collaboration is a hot topic in the software development world and there are many new products available to help with your initiatives. I guess that the point I’d like to begin this article with is that the amount of effort you put into the tool should match the complexity of the collaboration required for the project. All of the biggest names in software are betting on collaboration software this year so there are some exciting developments in the works…
My Recommendations (these are all BCIT specific, but could apply to any educational institution) -
1. if you care about security and want documents housed on BCIT servers / maintained by ITS - contact Allistair Calder and request to have PMO blog created on our commons server.
2. if you just want a quick and dirty location to provide central access to a series of documents that you are refining to a final; version, share a drive, or create a shared workspace (On Campus+Quickplace COP; Third-party = drop.io, MS Office Live, MS Groove)
3. If you want real-time collaboration, filesharing and communication from any browser enabled computer, check out my description of Google Wave below (or watch the brief video) and see if it has the potential to change the way corporations communicate.
Back to the details including contact information and website examples:
****************************************************************************
We are faced with collaboration challenges often at BCIT and I’ve seen a few different attempts to help the issue (going beyond emailing files to large distribution lists for feedback). The most common internal tools are (in order of complexity):
set up a shared directory and assign security rights - this is a simple, secure file sharing solution, but doesn’t solve communication / document management issues. You would have to map this drive with a WebDav client to access offsite (helpdesk can help sort this out or view: https://helpdesk.bcit.ca/sr/network/734.html). We now have MS Groove to help set-up shared file repositories aswell.
set up a Document library on lotus notes = clunky collaboration, but not hard to set up and because they are held on BCIT servers, you can set up appropriate security and they are accessible to our internal community. These are becoming less common…
set up a blog on the BCIT commons server. You can make the blog private (through a secure login screen) and can post articles and files under categories or projects. You can also comment on blog entries or files and introduce other widgets (polls or surveys) for feedback - Allistair Calder is the blogs/my.bcit.ca contact and can discuss whether this would work for you.
note: The institute successfully used this type of a blog in its communication plan when completing our 5Forward Strategic planning process. (http://www.bcit.ca/fiveforward/) The format got far less traffic when I implemented a similar blog for our School level strategic planning (http://blogs.bcit.ca/businessblog/) - but it did provide an open and transparent repository for our documents.
set up an actual PMO / Community of Practice through Lotus Quickplace - I sit on the BAAC (Business Applications Advisory Committee) and we use this kind of a set up…becomes a file repository accessible from anywhere with a my.bcit login. The solution doesn’t seem to allow commenting, but lets you upload and download documents. We still use email for much of our communication with this solution, but security and the servers are maintained by BCIT. The helpdesk can forward your request to have a quickplace created (techhelp@bcit.ca).
None of the solutions above are really an example of a well integrated PMO tool so I have been researching other options for our recent Task force minutes. It turns out that there are many inexpensive and simple to set-up tools out there that are far superior when it comes to file management, sharing and collaboration.
The challenge with all of the above options is that it takes a project manager/champion, administrative support and a strong communication plan (and some training) to make them successful…ei there is no solution that you can just set up and it will become the holy grail to solve all of our PM and internal communication needs.
Well…actually there are a few third party solutions with a mandate to make these tools more accessible:
Google Wave (limited view beta) . They are creating an intuitive tool that combines all of Google’s collaboration tools (email, chat, docs, spreadhseets, presentation, communities, groups, document management etc) and packages it so that you can access from anywhere (though keep in mind that files are most likely hosted on a cloud computing network in the states). The key with google wave is that all collaboration updates their database in realtime….whether it is uploading a file or sending an instant message or email, new communication happens as you do it.
Microsoft Office Live Workspace (beta) - I have an account for the School of Business, but we haven’t yet let Mr. Gates manage our files off site. Really slick site though that lets you share your workspace with whatever list you feel like creating (ie you manage the files, communication and security) and works well with all MS Office products - I haven’t really spent too much time testing the technology yet though. The beta version offers 5gig’s of free storage, and I would wager that your files are probably stored in the states
Adobe Connect Pro works with Adobe Captivate and Acrobat to create a streamlined document collaboration / communication tool. Connect Pro is a presentation / conference tool with real time interactivity, while captivate lets you create elearning content that could be used to help with project communication. Acrobat doesn’t only create PDFs; you can use it to organize, create forms, collect information, allow for document sharing and feedback and more. Doesn’t seem as integrated as the MS and Google Wave solutions, but we successfully run our Virtual Business hub downtown with the software.
I’ve set up a drop.io collaboration site at Drop.io/business - really slick file management and sharing, but I’m not sold on housing mission critical files off site. Given the two solutions from Google Wave and MS Live, maybe I need to get over that…
I haven’t even gone into some of the functionality available with Open Source tools or MS Project Server, but those solutions require too much training (in my opinion) for widespread adoption…
As far as collaborating over Virtual Meeting Environments, check out gotomeeting.com (powered by citrix) and we have used Bell’s Virtual conferencing software along with Elluminiate Live in the past. The School of Business also had a Premiere Global account which was a well-featured conferencing package, but please feel free to contact me if you would like to know more about why we no longer use it.
Lots and lots of - paperless - options for you to evaluate!
