Collaboration

tools at Newcastle

Caleb Racey Caleb.Racey@ncl.ac.uk

Collaboration past/present practices

Email As Communication platform Distributed File system Versioning repository Calendaring suite (without a calendar) Task manager Backup/archive system

Maybe a website failed CMS experiment failed forum experiment

Past/present problems

Email is “source of all evil” Massively over utilized Co-opted (corrupted) to many causes

The 100meg file problem The file type problem “I want my .exe”

No identity assurance = Spam Phishing More spam False positives

Websites “Hard to write” Out of date Abandoned One way communication

Past/present Positives

Email “gets job done” Very low barrier to participation

setup = get address Usability is good

Websites Visible Searchable Durable

Enormous demand for collaborative tools Low expectation = easy to exceed

What we use/want

What we presently use• Blogs• Mailing lists• Wikis

What we want• Calendaring (CalDAV??)• WebDAV community file spaces

• Mod_dav_svn?

• Suites: Sakai, Mindquarry? • IM??

Group Blogs

Sympa mailings list

Mediawiki

Does it work?

Benefits: Simple User interface Good technology

versioning, recent changes, notification Trendy Understandable Federatability Easy joining process

Problems:• Interface not simple enough• Group info locked away• Yet more email

What we need

Approach• Generic platform• Loosely coupled collaborative tools• Allow behaviour to emerge

Group management•Reusable across platform• Scalable (not .htaccess)• Federation aware

Group Management User interface• Self service •By invite•By manager with delegation

What we are doing

Looking at Grouper to admin collaborative suite

Gfivo project:

• “Grouper to support Federated Identity for Virtual Organizations”

• JISC funded 2 years• National demonstrator• Outputs free to HE + FE • http://gfivo.ncl.ac.uk

Questions

Can we wean people off email?• Are they aware of their own problems?• Do they care about real identity?

Is loose coupling something users “get”?

Do people only care about access control when it bites them?

Good Collaboration is “emergent” from behavior• do the tools really matter?• Is it just attitude that counts?