Writing and editing the same document in a virtual team

The virtual team project may be over, but I am left pondering some of the intricacies of the project. The two main ones that interest me the most are the team dynamics and the editing of one document. There is much literature written on team dynamics, some of which has been posted by Darina. However, for this post, I’d like to discuss the editing of one document.

For our team assignment, each member of our team submitted sections of his/her report to the Resources area of Sulis. Then I, as Editor collated the information into one Word document. Each time a new draft was created, I gave the document a new version number – 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and so on, and then submitted it to the Resources area. This is the traditional way that I have worked on documents. However, I am interested in exploring a better method.

The teams in the class used a variety of editing tools such as wikis, Google docs, and Adobe Communicate to work on the same document. Our team decided to use wikis. My initial reaction to the wiki was one of dislike. It looked like each member had to use the wiki to format and write sections of the document, perhaps synchronously, while signed into Sulis (an application that signs one out after a while perhaps without saving work). Although curious, I left it in the hands of one team member who volunteered to study it. But unfortunately, she was absent from the project so we never really got to explore its use, beyond using it to submit Word documents to the Resources area.

It was clear from the presentation on Wednesday that no team liked to use the wiki for collaboration. So, I’m unsure about exploring it further. I researched some articles and have discovered some interesting alternatives. The following is taken from The user-centered iterative design of collaborative writing software:

·        Aspect – is a collaborative conferencing system that runs on networked computers and provides writing, drawing, and painting tools.

·        GROVE – is an outlining tool designed for users at remote sites working on networked computers.

·        PREP – is a writing tool that provides asynchronous access to documents and can be thought of as a “spreadsheet for documents,” because it provides a column based interface where text is presented in columns of visually linked chunks.

·        Quilt – is a multi-user hypermedia communications and coordination tool which combines computer conferencing with multi-media email.

·        ShrEdit – is intended for simultaneous writing by several users working on networked computers in a conference room.     

If anyone in the class has used any of these tools, please let me know what you think of them.

In the past week, my business partner has purchased Network Attached Storage (NAS) and informs me that one can use this to work on the same document. Some interesting articles on NAS include:

Network attached storage architecture

Storage systems for national information assets

With NAS, one can access another's entire filing system over the Internet, by signing in with a username and password. They can also work on the same document at the same time. Although, it is perhaps not a cost-effective tool to use for small groups (according to the literature).

The concept of working on the same document synchronously interests me (I have only ever been required to work on a document independently). If, in the future, one has to work with a team of technical writers, this is certainly a skill that is desired, and therefore worth knowing.

If anyone has any other experience in this area, please let me know. Thanks.