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Virtual Collaboration
Rebecca Frost DavisAMICAL Conference
May 28, 2008
Agenda
• Introductions (9:00)• Defining terms• Collaboration and Culture (10:15)
– Social presence and survey tools
• Project Management (13:00)– Collaborative Documents and Project
Management tools
• Technology (14:45)– Live communication tools
• Conclusion
Introductions
• Name• Institution• Title / role• Preferred mode of communication• Interest and Experience in virtual
collaboration
Defining Terms
• Virtual Collaboration– What does this term mean? – Give examples.
Realms of Virtual Collaboration• Business
– Distributed teams– Communities of practice– Organizational theory
• Higher Education– NSF Virtual Organizations;
Cyberinfrastructure– Consortia– Research collaboration– Grant collaboration
• Online communities
Characteristics of Virtual Collaboration
• Sharing of something • Geographically dispersed• Cuts across existing boundaries of
institutions, disciplines, departments, etc.
• Technology-enhanced• Synchronous and asynchronous• Dynamic / emergent
Illustrating Virtual Collaboration
Planning 2008 AMICAL Conference
What are the benefits?
•Sunoikisis– Community– Pooling expertise– Improved academic offerings– Stimulus to change pedagogy– See Sunoikisis Evaluation report
What are the benefits?
•National Science Foundation– An Enabler of System-Level
Science– Facilitator of Access– Enhancer of problem-solving
processes– Key to Competitiveness
What are the benefits?
• NITLE– Advance liberal education– Share resources and infrastructure– Build community– Share expertise– Compete with larger institutions– Improve opportunities for faculty and
students– Get grant money
Why Virtual?
• Distance• Costs
– Time– Money– Carbon footprint
• Culture
Experience Virtual Collaboration
An Exercise
Challenges to Collaboration?• What are the challenges to virtual
collaboration?• Three types
– Cultural or Social– Project management– Technology
Challenges: Cultural & Social• Proving expertise to other collaborators• Equal access• Commitment to common goal• Willingness to
– Accept new technologies– Work Virtually– Work together
• Language, terms, vocabulary• Priorities
Challenges: Project Management• Being Productive• Inefficiency—using time well• Organization• Clear goals• Scheduling• Resources• Geographic and time differences• Monitoring progress
Challenges: Technology
• Technology discomfort• Distraction by technology• Technology barriers, e.g., low
bandwidth• Training users• Availability, access and cost• Time consuming
Collaboration and Culture
Social Science
How Collaboration Happens• Social science approach
– Emergent organizations– Trust: dynamic; affective vs. cognitive;
role of cultural differences– Transactive Memory Systems: knowing
who knows what and putting them in the right role
– Legitimate peripheral participation
Emergent organizations
• Self-organizing, e.g., disaster response
• Challenges– Interoperability– Reconciling different goals– Shifting composition
• Privacy and security• Authority• Establishing trust
How well does this model work?
• Think about your virtual collaboration
• Which of these issues are relevant for you?
Building trust
• Dynamic (proved in action)• Cognitive (based on knowledge and
logic)• Affective (based on emotion and
social relations)• Shared identity
– May have conflicts with established organizational identity
– Shared goals
Working in Teams
• Transactive Memory: knowing who knows what in a group– Leads to efficient action
• How do you build transactive memory?– Assumptions?– Interactions– Surveys– Legitimate peripheral participation
(lurking)
Cultural Difference
• Geert Hofstede™ Cultural Dimensions: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/ – Power Distance Index– Individualism – Masculinity – Uncertainty Avoidance Index – Long-Term Orientation
Technology Tools
Finding times and places for interaction
Social Presence
• Twitter: twitter.com– http://del.icio.us/rebeccadavis/twitter– Twitter in plain English– Twittervision
• Facebook – social networking– www.facebook.com
• Virtual Worlds
Surveys, polls and schedules• SurveyMonkey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com• Doodle:
http://www.doodle.ch/main.html• Dopplr: http://www.dopplr.com/• Google Calendar
Asynchronous Communication
• Email• Discussion boards / threaded
discussion– http://moodle.nitle.org/course/
view.php?id=122
• Blogs• Wikis • Snail Mail
Allocating Space & Time
• What work is best to do with my real-world immediate presence?
• What work is best to do without my real-world immediate presence?
• How can my students connect with this work when I'm not with them between classes so they can continue their projects?
• How can this work then be connected back to the classroom process? – Trent Batson, "Paper-Based Materials Distorted
Ways of Learning," Campus Technology, 5/21/2008, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=62916
Meta-Collaborators
• Someone who will keep the collaboration moving
• Attention to social aspects• Project management• Who is that person for you?
Project Management
Organization
Project Management Vocabulary• NITLE Research wiki on Project
Management– Bryan Alexander, NITLE Director of Research
• Project Manager• Project plan or project charter
– “A Real Charge for Faculty Service”• Responsibility Matrix• Project Context
– Two Cultures: A Social History of the Distributed Library Initiative at MIT
Project Management Software• What does a Project Manager look
for in an application? • Support for
– documentation– visualization– communication – collaboration
PM Software Types
• PMware • Repurposed office productivity tools • Blogs• Wikis• Multipurpose tools
– Course Management Systems: Moodle– Google suite
• Digital Repository: DSpace
Practice
• Use tool to produce responsibility matrix– http://www.quest-pipelines.com/
newsletter-v6/0105_E.htm
Technology Tools and Practices
Practical Collaboration
Live communication
• Telephone• Multipoint Interactive
Videoconferencing (MIV)• Skype• IM / chat
– Whiteboards
Live Communication
• MIV vs. Face to Face
Some Tools to Help
• Choosing Tools – Goal/function of tool– Ease of use– Comfort-level of users– Cost– Sustainability– Accessibility / availability
Tools Matrix
Practice
• Choose your tools and explain why using MIV, Google Docs or Moodle
• Make your project charter– the participants, background,
institutional context, charge, scope statement, assumptions, constraints, deliverables, communication plan, budget, and timeline
Best Practices
• Thinking ahead– Common vocabulary– Cultural issues
• Project management rules• Designing collaboration in from the
beginning• Collaboration champions• Use face-to-face wisely
