Instructional Resources Center
Collaborative Workspace
Technology Summary
A collaborative workspace or shared workspace is an environment in which all the participants in
dispersed locations can access and interact with each other and with common materials regardless of
physical location.
Education Uses
 Co-creation between pairs or small groups of students or between whole class
 Brainstorming and planning for an event or group project
 Peer review
 Student demonstrations
 Revisions and commenting
 Involvement of others (community experts, family members)
 Sharing content
Product Matrix (Alphabetical Listing)
Product
Cost
Strengths
Weakness
Free*



Box
(http://box.net)
Free*
Google Groups
(http://groups.google.com)



EHHS
Easy to set up
Can see who's
collaborating,
send messages,
construct/uploa
d documents,
create tasks and
notes
Unlimited users
Basic, but has
the main
features needed
for collaboration
(sharing,
creating,
discussing)
Good
“instructor”
controls and
password
protected
Page 1


Only the lite
feature is free
Not as
intuitive as
other systems
Difficult to
track
participation
or
contributions
KUS based
support
KSU
synchronous
committee
members are
using
ET
KSU Help Desk
05/30/2012
Instructional Resources Center
Groove
(http://office.microsoft.com)
Student
pricing
available


Comprehensive
Acts like an
external hard
drive that is
shared by all
collaborators
Promotes
collaboration
and easy
scheduling,
sharing, tracking



Notifications:
Via dashboard,
email, and RSS
 No software to
download
 Unlimited users
 Uploading and
organizing files
is easy
 Task manager
helps keep
projects moving
 Can serve as a
course
management
system
 Password
protected
 Easily create
additional pages
and hyperlinks to
documents,
URLs, video
KSU’s Wiki
 Flashline login
 Custom security
 Flexibility
 Revisioning
 Inside of Vista
 Synchronous
 Has whiteboard

Huddle Free is None
limited to 1
workspace
per email
and 1 GB of
storage

Formatting
isn’t easy,
particularly
of tables and
figures, and
references
KSU users
only
None
ET
Unstable
Vista Help
Desk
ET

Free*
Huddle
(http://huddle.net)
Free*
Wikis
(http://wikispaces.com
or http://pbworks.com)
KSU Wiki
Vista Chat
EHHS
Free

Page 2



None
Cost
Windows only
Requires lots
of RAM
Synchronizing
between
computers
can be a
challenge
05/30/2012