Collaboration Tools – Report
Recommendations:
1. Raising awareness of what tools are available, what they do and how they can be used
in a University context, provision of advice on which ones to select, terms and
conditions of use, and potential security issues should be a priority. Staff development
on best-practice in their use is essential.
2. The University should put in place a core set of tools (e.g. wiki, VLE, e-diary, meetingscheduler, room-based videoconferencing, collaborative authoring) and these should be
well-integrated with other desktop tools.
3. Measures to increase usage of existing tools such as e-diary should be introduced as a
priority – awareness-raising, training etc.
4. Any collaboration tools used for assessment must be internally hosted to ensure
security of data. If there is demand for tools not currently available which will be used for
assessment IS should be contacted for advice.
5. Priority should be given to supporting staff, especially those in Professional Services,
wishing to use online meeting tools.
Executive Summary:
1. Current Use
The most commonly tools used across the university are those for arranging meetings
(e.g. Doodle), wikis (e.g. Confluence), online meetings (e.g. Skype, teleconferencing,
videoconferencing), and collaborative authoring/document-writing (e.g. Google docs).
In addition staff involved in Teaching and Learning make significant use of VLEs, wikis
and discussion boards and there is some use of virtual classrooms, and tools which
support community building such as social networking, blogs/microblogs. Online
tutorials are used in some courses (particularly odl) – Adobe Connect, Wimba and these
might have wider usage such as synchronous internal communication and virtual
meetings. Assessment and security of assessment data is a key issue with most of this
managed through internally-hosted VLEs. If other tools such as wikis or blogs are to be
used for assessment then they should be internally hosted.
Research and Professional Services staff also make greater use of file sharing (e.g.
Dropbox, shared folders on network drives).
Usage of other tools is much lower. There is significant non-work related use of other
collaborative tools.
2. Barriers to current and future use
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Many of the collaboration tools are only really useful if there is a critical mass of staff
using them and persuading them is a challenge.
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Lack of time to become proficient in using particular tools.
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Lack of knowledge about data security issues for some tools.
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Should be common set of tools across the university and there needs to be better
integration with other desktop tools.
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Probably more cost effective to invest in staff (awareness, training etc) rather than
services.
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No evidence of value - highlights the importance of the innovators and explorers
within the University trying things out, and passing on their views & experiences.
3. Future Needs
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Strong demand from Professional Services staff for online meetings. This group are
more inclined to use tools provided and supported centrally and to take advantage
of training. This group also flagged the need for timetabling software and for more
colleagues across the University to make use of the e-diary service.
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No evidence of demand for other IS-hosted services although it could be argued
that the fact that we have a hosted and supported wiki service has stimulated wiki
use. Hosting of other tools might be better outsourced as long as any data security
issues are resolved.
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Strong demand for central services to provide advice on what is available, together
with recommendations on what might be the most suitable tools and best-practice in
use guidelines, taking into account issues in Barriers section.
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Demand for tools to support collaborative working from staff working in the
field/nomadic workers is also likely to increase.
Project Brief: establish a small working group of Information Technology Committee to
appraise the use of collaborative tools across the university in support of teaching and learning,
research, and administration. The focus will be on where we are now; where we would like to
be in an ideal world and how we get there.
Definition: In this context, "Collaboration" is work done by two or more people working
together on tasks, in an interactive manner, and "Collaboration Tools" are IT systems which
support collaboration.
Review Group: Professor David Dewhurst (CMVM; Chair); Dr Chris Adie (IS); Alex Jones
(Corporate HR); Jean Ritchie (IS); Dr Cuna Ekmekcioglu (IS); Erin Jackson (ELPP, Law); Dr
Sian Bayne (Education)
Methodology: The chosen method for gathering data was online questionnaire and three
similar but subtly different questionnaires were developed for the three groups of staff we
surveyed: professional services, research and teaching & learning.
1. Professional Services Survey (CA and AJ): 10 questions split between six sections (1.
Your job; 2. Collaborative tasks; 3. Current awareness and usage of collaboration tools;
4. Looking ahead – future demand; 5. Additional comments; 6. Further help with
survey). Most required tick-box responses.
The survey was sent to Heads of Colleges and Support Groups and to their Directors and senior
administrative staff, inviting them to distribute the survey to professional services and
administrative staff in their department. The survey opened on 1st February 2010 and closed 22nd
Feb 2010. Two reminders were sent during this period. There were 207 respondents spread over
all colleges and support groups mostly in CSE and IS.
Meetings were also held with CSE School Administrators and senior College staff and with Dr
Bruce Nelson, CSE Registrar.
2. Research staff Survey (CE and JR): 21 questions split between three sections (1.
Name, academic role, school; 2. Current usage of collaboration tools for research; 3.
Collaboration tools you would like to use).
The survey was sent to the Principal Investigators list and by email to 3210 individual
research staff and students across three colleges. The survey was open for 3 weeks
and closed on 18th March 2010. There were 152 respondents from across the university
(CHSS - 28%, MVM – 15%, CSE - 57% ), of which 44.8% were academic staff, 29.6%
were research staff and 9.9% were PhD students. The rest (15.8%) were head of units,
directors, project managers, research managers and consultants.
3. Learning and Teaching Survey (EJ, SB): 19 questions split over 3 sections (1. About
you; 2. Current use; 3. Other information (primarily non-usage).
The survey was sent to the eLearning Practitioners and Professionals (eLPP) mailing
list which had 128 members comprising both academic and academic support staff from
across the university all of whom have an interest in eLearning, and many of whom are
innovators in the use of collaboration tools and environments. The survey was open for
3 weeks and closed on 1 April 2010.
There were 32 respondents from across the university with about 50% of responses
from Law, Education, RDSVS, Divinity. 44% identified themselves as lecturers or
programme directors; 31% work in eLearning or distance learning roles; 16% are liaison
librarians; and one is a senior administrator. 50% of the sample is involved in
undergraduate teaching; nearly 60% is involved in postgraduate teaching and 34% in
postgraduate research programmes.
Results:
1. Use of Collaboration Tools by Professional Services/Administrative Staff
The survey was sent to Heads of Colleges and Support Groups and to their Directors and senior
administrative staff, inviting them to distribute the survey to professional services and administrative
staff in their department. After three weeks and two reminder messages, there were 207
respondents, spread over all Colleges and support groups – most in CSCE and ISG. Less than
30% were IT staff.
Collaborative tasks
As expected, the survey results reflected a great deal of collaborative activity among respondents.
The main collaborative tasks reported were arranging meetings, and finding and sharing
information. Significant numbers also collaborate on document writing, spreadsheets and projects.
For all of these tasks, most people felt they could save some or a lot of time if there was a better
way to collaborate – this was particularly so for arranging meetings and finding and sharing
information on the web.
The free-text responses revealed considerable interest in online meetings through
videoconferencing. Timetabling was another collaborative task for which a software tool was
wanted. Document management (including collaborative authoring) also featured strongly.
Current awareness and usage
Most of the collaborative tools mentioned in the survey were known to almost everyone, the
exceptions being file sharing sites (e.g. dropbox), online office software (e.g. Google Docs), social
bookmarking (e.g. Delicious), online project management tools, and RSS.
In many cases, people use these tools for non-work purposes. Those tools which featured more
strongly in a work context were wikis, meeting organisers and virtual worlds, and also less wellknown tools such as social bookmarking, online project management tools, and RSS. Wikis were
the most heavily-used tool, with about 65% of respondents using them, followed by meeting
organisers such as Doodle.
Looking ahead
Tools (other than wikis and meeting organisers) which many people felt would be useful to them
were virtual meeting systems, online project management systems, file sharing services, discussion
boards and instant messaging. Tools shouldn’t be ‘overengineered’, and they should link to each
other.
The main barriers to use were identified as other colleagues not using them, not knowing enough
about them, and not knowing which to use. Free-text comments emphasised a lack of confidence in
colleagues’ willingness to engage with the tools (obviating their usefulness for collaboration), and a
lack of local support and advice, particularly around acceptable use. A common question was “what
kind of data are we allowed to store on external services?”
General comments
Responses included a large number of general comments about collaboration tools, demonstrating
a rich diversity of opinion. The responses are available (along with the rest of the survey results) on
a wiki (URL provided below), and they repay study.
The common threads which emerge most clearly, reinforce the points made immediately above.
There is a strong feeling that getting people to use such tools is a real challenge, that awareness
and consistency across the University (i.e. everyone using common tools) is essential to realise the
benefits, and that promotion, advice, guidance and support are required to create a shared
understanding of what the tools can deliver and to encourage their use. There are a number of
pleas for eDiary to be used by more people. Doodle is mentioned as an alternative, both negatively
and positively.
2.
Use of Collaboration Tools by Researchers
An online survey of 21 questions was sent to the Principal Investigators list followed by
3210 emails sent to individual research staff and students across three colleges. There
were 152 respondents (CHSS - 28%, MVM – 15%, CSE - 57% ), of which 44.8% were
academic staff, 29.6% were research staff and 9.9% were PhD students. The response
rate was quite low in proportion to the number of staff and students contacted. Some
[exasperated] staff expressed their frustration with completing surveys, and some others
stated that these tools are not relevant to their work. Results of the survey are given in the
following section according to the popularity of these tools in research work.
Current usage of collaboration tools for research work
The most popular and frequently used collaboration tools in daily research work were found
to be:
- Meeting organisers (Doodle being the most popular, followed by Google Calendar,
University e-diary and Meet-o-matic).
- Electronic/virtual meeting systems (most popular one being Skype followed by
teleconferencing, video conferencing, web conferencing and desktop conferencing).
- Instant messaging (Skype followed by Windows Live Messenger and Google Talk).
Social networking sites: Facebook and LinkedIn were the two most popular social
networking sites. Academia.edu and Research Gate were also mentioned by some
researchers.
Wikis: It was interesting to note that wikis came quite low in the ranking. Among the listed
wikis, Confluence was the most popular wiki followed by MediaWiki and Twiki. The use of
other wikis such as PBWiki, PhpWiki, JSP wiki, Doku Wiki, MoinMoin, and Trac were also
identified.
Blogs and microblogging: There was some usage of blogging and microblogging for
research work. The most commonly used blogs and microblogs were WordPress, Blogger
and Twitter. There were also some others such as Posterous, scienceblogs.com, own
blogs (individual or School blog), Tumblr, status.net, and identi.ca. Collaborative writing tools: Google Docs and Spreadsheets were the most commonly
used tools by researchers. Some other tools also mentioned were: A.nnote, CVS,
Subversion, Google Wave, LaTeX (Coltex), MS Word, Open Office, and shared drives.
File sharing sites: Dropbox and YouSendIt were the two major tools used for file sharing.
Among the others there were Open Drive, Pando, DropSend, use version control
repositories (SVN, CVS, Git), Google Docs and shared drives.
Data visualisation tools: Google Maps was the most commonly used tool for data
visualisation. Some others such as Swivel, Infochimps, Map Tube, OpenStreetMap were
also listed.
Virtual research work environments: Some usage of these environments was identified,
MyExperiment, BioMed Experts, Nature Network, eCAT, Mendeley, Google Wave,
Sharepoint, shared drives were listed as the most commonly used research
environments.
Social bookmarking: It was found that social bookmarking wasn't used much by
researchers. The most frequently used tool was Del.ici.ous, Some others listed were Digg,
Connotea, CiteULike and Xmarks.
Project management and collaboration tools: Only 4 staff reported using Basecamp and 19
staff reported using other tools such as Trac, SourceForge, Microsoft Project, Google
Docs/sites, WebCollab, NVIVO.
Other tools: Among other tools that weren't listed in the survey, YouTube, email, Flickr,
Google Reader, Subversion, SourceForge were listed as the most commonly used tools by
researchers.
Barriers to take up of collaboration tools
Main barriers to take up of these tools were identified as: having time to become proficient
with these tools; knowing what a particular tool could do for them and what the University
provides/supports; having easy access to information; understanding the potential of
collaboration tools and any privacy/security issues associated with these tools;
comparative assessment of what similar tools offer, and having suitable equipment. Some
other comments were made on the reliability, and compatibility issues, the need for better
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integration of these tools with the most widely-used desktop software, having a suitable
requirement for these tools (rather than simply use them because they are there), and the
need for a wider acceptance of these tools across a network of researchers.
3. Collaboration tools in learning and teaching
The sample - using the eLPP forum mailing list we had responses from 32 colleagues – a
rate of 25%. Of those who identified their roles 44% were academics, 31% e-learning
support, and 16% liaison librarians. Responses were spread across all Colleges. This
group represents those known to be active practitioners and innovators in their Schools.
Current usage
Respondents were asked about the levels of usage of a range of environments in their
teaching and learning activities (see above).
The most-used applications were those currently supported by Information Services –
VLEs (97%), wikis (84%) and discussion boards (75%). All other services were used by
less than 50% of respondents, with the exception of social networking (59%) which has
saturation in the wider culture. The high usage of wikis, in particular, suggests that other
social applications might also be more used if they were centrally supported.
Forms of usage
The three main tools used for teaching are again those institutionally supported: VLEs,
online discussion boards, and wikis. VLEs are used extensively for assessment. The only
other tools used for assessment purposes by more than a couple of respondents are online
discussion boards, blogs and wikis. The high-stakes nature of assessment suggests a case
for institutional hosting and/or support for blogs.
The administration of teaching is done primarily via VLEs and online discussion boards.
The much wider range of tools/environments comes into play for community building.
Online discussion boards and social networking sites feature most prominently here, with
VLEs, microblogging, wikis, virtual classrooms, virtual worlds and instant messaging all
used fairly extensively too.
Reasons for usage and non-usage
Respondents are most likely to use a service because it is efficient and/or offers
pedagogical suitability. They are least likely to use a service because of pressure from
colleagues or out of any institutional expectation. The motivation to respond to student
expectations and to introduce an element of fun to teaching also feature quite strongly,
particularly in relation to microblogging, virtual worlds, social networking sites and instant
messaging.
‘Lack of time’ and ‘no evidence of value’ are the main reasons why respondents do not use
collaboration environments – a third of respondents selected these options. Encouragingly,
only small numbers of respondents selected ‘colleague resistance’,’ lack of institutional
support’ or ‘access difficulties’ as reasons for non-usage while, interestingly, no-one
identified ‘student resistance’ as a factor.
Further information about this work can be found at the following links
https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=82875320
https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/Web2wiki/Survey+Responses)