ACTWAN - Aligning Collaboration Tools With Academic Needs

Next Steps and Recommendations

Near-Term Suggestions

We offer the following near-term suggestions to continue the momentum of interest in examining collaborative tools:

Evaluate existing face-to-face collaborative spaces

Evaluating collaborative spaces includes identifying spaces both on and off campus, talking with students about their use of these spaces, and how we can enhance these environments for collaboration.

Continue to strengthen partnerships with campus stakeholders

Strengthening relations with other campus organizations who oversee learning spaces where collaborative activities take place. This would include the Campus Libraries, Facilities Planning and Management (especially the Classroom Media Specialists) and Residence Halls.

Formation of focus groups

In these groups, TAs and lecturers should be included as a specific audience in order to address the changing demographic of the faculty community. Freshmen should be targeted with specific surveys and/or focus groups since that demographic group will be driving future demands for academic technology. A focus group targeting UW staff supporting or implementing instructional technology could reveal faculty technology requests and challenges. It is possible that ComETS (Community of Educational Technology Support) could act as a vehicle for the latter.

Work with instructors already using collaborative technologies

Contact should be made with instructors using collaborative technologies both to learn from their experiences and to generate interest in the tools. Existing resources may be used to achieve this goal. For example, if the ENGAGE grant program utilizes collaborative technologies for an upcoming cycle, this contact and evaluative follow-up could be completed as part of the grant project and would help increase our understanding of how collaborative technologies can be effectively used in instruction. This, along with the e-Pedagogy Sessions, could also function as a mechanism for documenting activities using collaborative technologies to share with instructors.

An immediate resource will be the ComETS Collaborative Tools event to be held iAugust 1, 2007 at the Pyle Center. Further work and discussion within ComETS, including the possibility of establishing a collaborative tools SIG, would also lend useful results.

Continued Monitoring of IT Surveys

Surveys including those named in the methodology section of this report are a way to keep current with trends in interests and expectations for faculty and student technology use.

We also recommend that Judy Caruso compare the ACTWAN study with the national trends to see where UW-Madison stands in relation to other institutions to aid planning.

Near-Term and the 1-3 Year Term Recommendations

We have several recommendations based on the data we collected and reviewed:

Enhance and Extend Face-to-Face Collaborative Activities

Our survey indicates a tension between collaborative activities and collaborative tools on this campus. Many faculty include group activities in their courses; however, far fewer appear to use collaborative tools. Thus, in the near term we strongly feel that the most effective use of collaborative technologies is to enhance and extend face-to-face collaborative activities. The survey results clearly indicate that on this campus, face-to-face collaboration is preferred.

Physical enhancements for face-to-face collaboration would likely include space for students to meet, shared viewing through large screens or monitors, and shared or portable audio experiences. Online enhancements may include a wide variety of applications, from resource sharing through tagging, to shared content creation through a wiki, to connecting online to forming face-to-face study groups through social networking tools.

Provide Technologies That Offer a Wide Breadth of Flexibility and Customization

Every academic discipline has a different culture and approach to learning. A collaborative activity is best when structured within the framework of the discipline to be successful. This framework includes function, visuals, terminology, language, and appearance. Any tool that does not offer this flexibility may appear unpractical.

Embrace the Blended Nature of Collaborative Tools

Pedagogically, a collaborative technologies service needs to address a variety of collaborative activities. It cannot be limited to mature tools, like discussion forums, but rather should embrace a blend of proven tools and newer technologies with a focus on effective pedagogy strategies and ease of use.

Granular Access

Technically, an online service needs to provide granular access, accommodating public and private interactions. Examples of access levels could include public, UW, college, course, section, internal assigned group, student organized group, or student/teacher. The service needs to be integrated with WebISO (web initial sign on) to remove the barrier of another username/password and increase application security. The service should have an open architecture so it can be easily integrated with other campus services.

Strong communication network and marketing plan

Building knowledge about new technologies is always a challenge. This service would be greatly enhanced by the creation of a strong communication network, perhaps within disciplines which already emphasize collaborative activities, and a marketing plan for both faculty and support staff. Raising awareness of emerging technologies to bring them into the mainstream will increase instructors' understanding and adoption. This could be achieved through existing mechanisms such as Engage grants, a ComETS SIG (Special Interest Group), or by visible and easy-to-access case studies, and a conversation with Campus Communicators on this issue. Instructors should be reached by very visible means, such as links in My-UW or other high-traffic UW-Madison websites.

Annual Review of IT needs

In addition, an annual review of IT needs should be conducted by the entity managing any future service. This review might be an extension of the ideas presented in the Future Review section of this report. Ideally the review might be handed off to another entity - perhaps included on the DoIT IT Survey or addressed by a ComETS SIG. For the 1-3 year timeframe, the steps above should be used to refine and adapt the collaborative tools service. At best, any future service should continually offer a toolbox of the most used collaborative applications, incorporating an interface that integrates pedagogy and discipline-specific customizations.