Tools of Collaboration
From wsuwiki
Blogs, Wikis, Discussion Boards and Collaboration Management Tools
Each one of these categories can be used in different manners for the use of collaboration. All of the tools of collaborations here have their own advantages, disadvantages and specialize in a form of collaboration. Choosing the right tool for the right job is essential, it is just as cumbersome using the wrong tool of collaboration as it is not using one at all.
Blogs:
A blog site is a webpage with regularly updated content and maintained by an individual or a small group of individuals working together to produce articles centered on a common theme. The content on a blog ranges from personal commentary to informal teachings and may contain graphics and videos. Blog postings are usually listed in reverse-chronological order (most recent post appearing first). An important feature of most web blogs is the ability for readers to comment on posts and suggest future topics for the author(s) to blog about. Blogs can teach topics, display artwork or serve as personal diary for others to read.
Wikis:
A wiki page is a webpage that allows for a community to collaboratively edit, update, maintain and post new content. A website that is made up of wiki pages is known as a wiki site. Since anyone may add information to a wiki site, it has the opportunity to grow exponentially large. Essentially a wiki site is a collaborative driven database for creating, browsing and searching information.
The difference between a blog and a wiki site is that a wiki site is a collection of informative documents interlinked together. The order of the content added to a wiki site is irrelevant while in a blog site, postings often rely on information published in previous blog posts; therefore blogs display their content in reverse chronological order. In a blog, it is usually the case that there is only one designated author with the ability to edit, maintain and post new content. On the other hand, while a wiki page does not allow readers to leave comments, they do have to opportunity to edit the article itself to correct any wrong information, appointing everyone as an author.
Discussion Boards:
A discussion board in Angel resembles a Forum on the internet. Forums are often implemented in various sites for users to ask questions or start conversations. The whole concept is based around the idea of user community, allowing interaction amongst the community without the aid of author. A user posts a forum topic, and then readers leave replies on the topic or expand upon it. Most often users will ask a question and another will answer the question or work together to come up with a solution. Discussion boards, unlike wikis or blogs are all about allowing the community to participate in conversations without needing to read an article beforehand, like the blog counterpart.
Collaboration Management Tools:
Collaboration Management Tools (CMT) are tools used to facilitate virtual or co-located meetings and manage group activities. An online document system such as MS Office Live or SharePoint are both examples of a CMT. A wiki is just an editable page where as a A CMT provides a set of tools that help enable collaboration amongst a group/team. Unlike a wiki, a CMT system is not open to anyone with internet access, it is setup by an individual to include only a selective group, relating a CMT system to an intranet as opposed to an open internet.
Working with MS Office Live:
As discussed early, MS Office Live is a Collaboration Management Tool that specializes in online document sharing. Setting up an environment is an easy process, start off by signing up for an Office live account at http://www.officelive.com/en-us/ by clicking on the "GET STARTED FREE" link. Once signed in all that needs to be done is to create a workspace, upload documents to share and organize a group to share the documents with.
Many options are available when setting up a workspace, one can either create a new blank workspace or choose from a plethora of template workspaces, each template has a brief description of what is useful. After creating a workspace new documents may be added to the workspace by clicking "Add Documents" link and selecting local documents to upload to MS Office Live. The final step is sharing the documents with a desired group. Do this by clicking on the Share icon in the upper right corner, bringing up a share view where new members can be added by email. A member can be added as either an editor with privileges to download, edit and re-upload documents or as a viewer with privileges to only view documents. At this point the setup is complete and ready to be used a Collaboration Management Tool.
Versions in MS Office Live:
Office Live allows members to view all uploaded documents, download documents to their local machine to make edits then re-upload the newly edited document back onto Office Live. A nice feature about MS Office Live is the ability to keep older version of the document around to revert back to. Clicking on a document will bring the user to an edit view where the document is displayed for viewing. Editing the document is done by clicking on the save as link on the top tool bar and saving the document to a local computer where changes can be made. After making changes go back to Office Live and click on the version drop down arrow and selecting "Add a new document Version" and selecting the changed document. Once the new document is uploaded click on the Version drop down arrow again and select "Save to Version history". That is it, a new version has now been created that one can revert back to at anytime. This is a useful feature to have when a new version has been uploaded that is does not satisfy needs as well as a previous version.
Other Features of MS Office Live:
Comment: the comment function allows for users to add comments to the paper on what they may have done to the paper and what still needs to be done, so when another member is viewing a new version they did not create they can be caught up on what has been done just by viewing comments. Comments can be applied to individual papers within the edit view or a comment can be made on the workspace view about new documents that have been uploaded or any other changes.
Activity: The activity function allows members to view recent modifications made by other users. The Activity function will give notifications on new comments added, new uploads and new versions added.
Final Note on Collaboration Management Tools:
MS Office Live is just one available CMT that specializes in online document sharing. Other popular CMTs are Google Docs and MS SharePoint. Each CMT offers a unique variety of tools for assisting in collaborative work. What makes a CMT different from blogs or wikis is that CMT setups a working community to collaborate with each other and then provides tools/functions that aid in the collaboration process. MS Office Live is an easy to use CMT that specializes in document sharing and is easily explained here but to use a more in depth CMT such as Sharepoint will take a much more extensive tutorial to learn how to use it.
Uses
How Tools of Collaboration are used by Washington State University through the Learning Management System (LMS) Angel.
Blog:
In Angel a blog can be used by instructors to post new content for students to read and comment on, the students too are able to create blog postings. An Angel blog is not a typical blog in the sense that anyone apart of the community if allowed to, including the readers, may publish new blog posts making it similar to a wiki site, though they do not have permission to edit other postings.
A blog in Angel is used to encourage interaction amongst peers and teachers to help strengthen the learning process. The use of a blog can apply to various hypothetical situations. For example, Say a group in a course needs to create a website for an assignment and receive feedback on their content. Instead of designing, programming and publishing a website and going through the process learning how to setup a database driven comments section, they can focus on just their content using a blog post to publish their findings, allowing them to forget all the technical aspects. An instructor may wish to post weekly content for students to read and analyze on how the content relates to the coursework or to the business world. The instructor can use a blog page as an assignment as well, linking a blog post to the grade book.
Wiki
The wiki section in Angel allows students and instructor to publish and edit web pages. Like a blog, a wiki section is appropriate to use when encouraging student interaction and strengthen the learning process. Use a wiki page when the whole class needs to work on a project and edit each others work.
Discussion Board
It is a great idea to use a discussion board when students need to talk amongst themselves, exchange contact information, share ideas and keep current on group projects, and collaboratively work together.
References
blog
Blog postings
web blogs
wiki
blog and a wiki
discussion board
www.officelive.com
Collaboration Management Tool
Office Live
MS Office Live