INTRODUCTION:
Collaborative Authoring can be defined as a creative writing process by which a group of people work together to comprise one final product such as an article, book or project. In a true collaborative environment, each team member contributes a portion of the overall project to be compiled until the final product is complete. Each contributor has an equal ability to add content to the project yet they also have the ability to comment and make edits on other team member’s contributions and the overall product. The recursive nature of this process prompts others to make changes and makes it easier for the group to reach the end goal. This writing method allows the writing process to be completed faster and more efficiently. These new writing techniques free the team to be able to focus on their individual contribution as well as working on other tasks parallel to the completion of the end product. This process is iterative in nature which eliminates the need for the end product to be completed by one person only offering content from one perspective. This method incorporates the ideas of the entire team making for more in-depth and rich content for the end product.
EXERCISES FOR COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING – There are several types, yet we will focus on 4 as seen below:
CARD SORTING / PARALLELMIND CANVAS / ALFRESCO
CAD / ECLIPSE
MICROSOFT’S ONE NOTE OR WORD / SHAREPOINT
ICAT TOOL / WRITE BOARD
SEQUENTIAL / RECIPROCAL
Collaborative Authoring Exercise – Card Sorting
CARD SORTING is an ideation method of collaborative authoring that allows users to validate numerous ideas within an existing plan – evaluating each for effectiveness. There are two types of card sorting methods: Open and Closed. For Open method card sorting the user is allowed to cluster labels for existing content into their own categories, which are later labeled and sorted by each user. For the Closed method, subjects review existing categories and are asked to sort the content into the existing categories.
There are several types of card sorting environments some of which are web based and some of which are manual in nature:
Manual Based Card Sorting -- Web Based Card Sorting
Advantages
● Simple – For participants, card sorting proves to be easy to use and follow
● Cheap – For manual applications, the cost limits itself to the cost of 3x5 index cards – Web based applications depending on whether you are a client side user or you are buying the software outright, is also a cheap option of carrying out this type of collaborative authoring and ideation technique with some applications ranging under $50.00 and basic subscriptions to an online CA Card Sorting site ranging from 18 to $45.00 dollars.
● Quick to execute – Ability to perform several sorts in a short period of time. This proves to be important in data gathering as this technique provides participants with a wealth of data in a relatively short period of time.
● Established – This technique has been in use by many different developers for over 10 years.
● Involves users – The software should be easy to use as the information structure within card sorting is based on actual user input, not just the suggestion of a developers or key stakeholder.
● Provides a good foundation – It’s not the only solution. It provides a good start for the ideation and collaborative authoring process in designing websites, products or business processes.
Disadvantages
● Does not consider users’ or tasks – Card sorting is an inherently content-centric technique. Card Sorting could lead to unstable information structures if used without the consideration of tasks, users and the project as a whole. Information needs analysis as it is necessary to ensure that the content being sorted meets user requirements and that the end result allows users to achieve tasks within the given information structure.
● Results may vary –The card sort may vary widely yet can provide fairly consistent results between participants.
● Time Consuming Analysis – The analysis of the data can be time consuming and tedious even though the actual sorting exercise was quick. This is especially possible if the participants are not consistent.
● “Surface” characteristics captured – The content type may not be considered by participants or how they can use it – ending with a sort that is only compiled of surface issues or characteristics.
Collaborative Authoring Exercise – Sequential Writing
The most prevalent CW strategies can be described as group single-author writing, sequential single writing, parallel writing, reactive writing, and mixed mode writing.
Sequential group writing is where the collaborators divide up the task so that the output of one stage is passed to the next writer for individual work. Editors which support this process are called markup tools.
Sequential Writing
Pros:
• Easy to use common tools
• Easy to understand
• Little wasted effort
Cons:
• Slow, lots of wasted time
• Only one person active at a time
• Some people miss out on final edit
• Procrastinator can halt project
From http://liquidbriefing.com/twiki/pub/Dev/RefLowry2003/using_internet-based_collab_writing_tools.pdf
(It should be noted that a) lack of parallel-partitioned writing causes groups using word processors to choose CW strategies that require more time, require more coordination, and provide less group awareness.
One typical approach in word processing groups (best suited for is to simulate parallel-partitioned writing by having each group member work on a separate word processing document. This approach causes coordination and version-control problems because when group members work on separate documents in a distributed environment, it is difficult to know what other group members are working on at any given time. This can easily lead to duplicate work, separate agendas, frustration, and confusion.
Other suboptimal approaches frequently chosen by groups that use word processors include single-scribe CW and sequential CW. Single-scribe CW involves one person writing for an entire group, an arrangement that creates obvious limits on group involvement. Sequential CW involves one person writing at one time and then relinquishing control to another person when the writer is finished writing his/her portion.
Such writing can result in coordination, productivity, and communication issues. For example, the second author can easily contradict the work of the first author, and the first author may not discover the discrepancies until the final draft is circulated. The three contrasting CW strategies are depicted in Fig. 1.
Word tends to force groups to use sequential CW strategies, which lead groups down a path of lower productivity and more coordination, resulting in more redundancy, confusion, and communication problems.
It would also be useful to further establish empirically the superiority of parallel-partitioned work by comparing sequential CW groups to parallel-partitioned CW groups.
As CW tools improve through integration with these ideas, the lines will be blurred between CW tools and knowledge-management tools, creating significant synergies for group work. For example, existing document-management tools are adept at sequential coordination but do not provide simultaneous editing on a shared group outline and lack other group awareness features found in CW tools. As these tools merge, the capabilities and utility of such tools will greatly improve.
Collaborative Authoring Exercise – Reciprocal Writing Exercise
Reciprocal Writing Exercise
What is it?
Reciprocal writing is a strategy for collaborative writing. It contrasts with parallel writing and sequential writing.
“Collaborators work together to create a common document, mutually adjusting their activities in real time to take into account each others’ edits.” [Adkins]
Why use it?
Reciprocal writing has several benefits (Ter Bush):
○ A single voice emerges for the document
○ It is fast
○ Very little effort is wasted
○ It supports a large number of potential authors
○ All collaborators feel ownership of the document
Facilitation Instructions
● Identify participants
● Select subject for document
● All participants gather information about subject
● All participants create and agree on outline for document
● Each of the participants chooses a section to check out
○ docs.google.com is an appropriate tool
■ Create a folder for the document
■ Share it with all participants
■ Ask participants to put their name next to the section they are checking out. The outline will update in real-time for everyone.
■ Participants may create a “sub-document” that will stay in the same folder and be named by the section they have checked out
● Each participant authors his/her section based on the gathered info and outline
● When all participants have completed writing their section, start Revision 1
○ break participants into diads and assign each diad a section to edit
○ no diad should edit a section that one of its own members wrote
■ AB edit D’s document
■ BC edit A’s document
■ CD edit B’s document
■ DA edit C’s document
○ send the sections back to the authors with edits so he/she can apply them
● Start Revision 2
○ Revision 2 is like Revision 1 except that you choose different diads for each document.
■ AC edit D’s document
■ CD edit A’s document
■ DA edit B’s document
■ AB edit C’s document
○ send the sections back to the authors with edits so he/she can apply them
● Do a structured walk-through as a group. Everyone participates in an out-loud reading of the document. They are trying to make sure everything makes sense with the document. For example, is it reaching the intended audience?
● Repeat steps 5 through 9 again until all the sections of the outline are complete.
Collaborative Authoring Exercise – Parallel Writing Exercise
Parallel writing occurs when a team divides Collaborative Writing (CW) work into discrete units and works in parallel (Sharples et al., 1993), as depicted in Figure 1 below. This strategy is also referred to as a separate writer strategy (Posner & Baecker, 1992) or a partitioned writing strategy (Ellis et al., 1991). The term parallel writing was chosen because it conveys work in parallel by multiple writers, and such work does not necessarily have to be partitioned into separate sections. The benefits of this strategy include more efficiency than sequential single writing and more working autonomy and anonymity (although specialized CW technologies must be used to gain the latter two benefits (Ellis et al., 1991)). In contrast, some problems that can occur with the parallel
writing strategy include oblivious writers (Ellis et al., 1991), poor communication (Ellis et al., 1991), stylistic differences, and information overload.
Parallel writing can be further divided into two main types: horizontal-division writing and stratified-division writing. Horizontal-division writing is the most common form of parallel writing in which each participant is responsible for a particular section of a document (Stratton, 1989), as depicted in Figure 1 The chief disadvantage of this approach is that divisions are often arbitrary and are not based on core competencies. The document is divided into sections and each author is assigned a section that he/she is responsible for. The completed sections are submitted to the team leader who assembles them together to form the final document. This approach is sometimes called horizontal-division writing (Lowry et al., 2004).
In contrast, stratified-division writing is a form of parallel writing in which participants play a particular role, such as editor, author, or reviewer, based on their core talents (Stratton, 1989), as depicted in Figure 2.With this strategy, a team divides the CW task into discrete units and works in parallel. This model has several variants. In one, each team member is assigned roles such as writer, reviewer, editor, and so on, depending on their expertise. Members then work on the document according to their roles.
Exercise steps (Alred et al., 2003):
1. Designate one person as the team coordinator.
2. Collectively identify the audience, purpose and project scope.
3. Create a working outline of the document.
4. Assign segments or tasks to each team member.
5. Establish a schedule: due dates for drafts, revisions, and final documents.
6. Agree on a standard reference guide for style and format.
7. Each member should research and write a draft of their assigned document segment.
8. Exchange segments for team member reviews.
9. Revise segments as needed.
OTHER TOOLS/EXERCISES FOR COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING
IMAGINATIK: A scalable, robust web based application for collaborative innovation and idea management. This application serves as an enterprise audience targeting and sourcing platform that allows organizations to receive and maximize benefits from collective intelligence. This collective intelligence may include: employees, customers, suppliers and other third parties. This application has the ability to leverage the brain power of an organization to boost revenue growth and profitability, increase collaboration, build sustainability and streamline business process improvements.
This tool has one main module offering 10 different custom features:
Main Module: Shared group intelligence emerging from the usage of various forms, encouraging mass collaboration of many individuals for a common issue.
Features: Idea Creation, Idea Central (Cross Collaboration), Idea Minder (Idea Tracker), Spotlight Ideas (Review Team Approvals & Audience Tagging), Social Networking (Tie in to popular social networking sites such as: Twitter, Facebook or Myspace), Review Space, Search | Export, Reporting Business Intelligence, Workflow and Campaign Management.
MIND CANVAS: This is a card sorting tool built as a web-based application which currently stands as a common method for completing complex data analysis using cluster analysis.
MICROSOFT’S ONE NOTE: This is a web browser enabled application that allows users to collaborate within the one note client portal to add changes, text, markups and images to existing team projects. The tool allows for full text editing, contextual picture tool editing, wiki collaboration, blog apps, auditing trails as well as mobile phone applications for change note updates. Microsoft built this tool off of the SharePoint collaboration workspace features allowing for users to utilize name recognition, document changes, and other forms of virtual team collaboration.