IT Staff Convention 2008:Collaboration Technologies
From Provider Notes
Collaboration Technologies
Moderator: Eric Stern, School of Nursing
Notes: Cynthia Compere, Information Systems and Computing
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External Tools
- Microsoft SharePoint
- MS SharePoint: provision safe, brand it, set permissions, can do wiki, blogs and announcements an have document libraries to store your data. It is possible to authenticate using various manners; via your internal LAN or through .NET. All data is local and create farms. All data is stored in MSSQL. The application can be setup in three tiers, personal via the MySite feature, group, and universal.
- Works really well in pure Microsoft IT organizations. Has some failings when integrating with other systems, and isn't very cross-platform friendly.
- MediWiki, which is the software that this wiki uses.
- Web based, cross platform, but not as diverse as other options. Not really geared to be a content management system like SharePoint or Drupal.
- Google Docs
- For Google Docs, it is easier to bookmark items, group does not worry about security, because they do not add confidential information. Users/Administrators may want to consider the type of data that is added to this site, concerns on confidentiality and private data. Google does index and crawl this content, so you have to be very cautious what you put there.
- In Google Docs, multiple users can be editing different sections simultaneously without having to "check out" a document. Versioning is done pretty smoothly.
- Google Spreadsheets
- Good for basics, easier to share than many other tools, but not as robust as Excel for more complex tasks
- Bulletin Boards/forums
- Blogs
- Instant Messaging Tools
- XMPP, Microsoft Live, and others. Some tools are built right into the document management software, sometimes it is hard to keep track of which IM client to use for which purpose.
- Wiki's (Definition: are an interactive, constantly edited document). It was difficult to get users to edit and manage. It is also difficult to create tables in wiki's, suggested to use Google Spreadsheets. (e.g., The Provider Wiki)
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University Based Tools
- SAS is using Drupal
- Zimbra an ISC tool (http://www.upenn.edu/computing/email/non-email-alternatives.html)
- Blackboard, PennLive/Window Live are student based tools
- Jabber
- The Library is currently experimenting with Sakai
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End-User Support Issues
- Use of the products is dependent on the structure of the department, school and center. In some cases, sites or tools are maintained by staff, student or faculty.
- It is essential for groups thinking about using a collaboration tool to first discuss the need and reason for getting a these tools, to ensure that the right one is created or a purchased.
Link to article within Provider Notes IT Staff Convention 2008: Session Overviews
Link to article on a website external to Provider Notes External Link
