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

Motivation

• Motivation– Rewards– Benefits– Fears

http://www.despair.com

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