John Heap
Leeds Metropolitan University, Leeds, UK
j.heap@leedsmet.ac.uk
Brian Kelly
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK, BA2 7AY
b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
Interest in Web-based collaboration is growing within many academic institutions. We are seeing a wide range of collaborative tools being used in many different areas, including teaching and learning, research and support. Collaborative tools appear to have tremendous potential. However the diversity of applications and application areas is raising several strategic challenges within institutions. This paper outlines barriers to widespread adoption of collaborative tools and argues for strategic thinking in this area.
Online collaboration, institutional policies, barriers
One of UCISA's current aims is to investigate the potential for use of online collaboration tools to support its working groups. In addition the experiences gained and the issues addressed will be of interest to UCISA member organisations, which are likely to be making use of online collaboration tools within their institutions, and, in many cases, be responsible for the procurement, installation, maintenance and general support of such tools.
Prior to an investigation of individual applications we are addressing some generic issues which we feel need to be addressed prior to the evaluation, recommendation and deployment of any individual application. This paper reports on our findings.
There is, currently, a range of available tools and online services with which an online community can be created, managed, supported and sustained. Broad, overlapping categories are tools concerned with:
Many of these tools are still developing and new tools emerge regularly. (How many people could have predicted the rise of the phenomenon that is 'blogging'). Often the most effective support for a particular community is achieved by adopting a number of these tools and services and using them in a co-ordinated, though not necessarily directly-linked, fashion.
However, just because appropriate tools exist does not mean that thriving communities will emerge and prosper.
If one analyses the various e-communities that exist, it becomes clear that:
This suggests that there are a number of barriers to the creation and ongoing sustainability of online communities.
Some of these barriers are basic socio-cultural barriers such as the natural conservatism of human beings. This results in:
A number of other barriers arise from what broadly may be termed 'technical' issues issues surrounding the available hardware, and especially software, that is used to support online communities.
Of course the fundamental issue relating to such tools is the level of functionality the degree to which the provided tools and services do, in fact, support community-building and development.
Many of the available tools are superficially attractive and may perform a useful role in the earlier, less sophisticated phases of a community's development. However, often the lack of 'rich functionality' is not apparent until later as demands and expectations increase. Changing the tools in use at such a time is both difficult and fraught with danger in terms of alienating the members of the community who have built up the requisite skills to use the agreed tools.
Some of the barriers are at the basic skills level, since there is a large proportion of the population that does not have sufficient technical competence to explore and gain confidence in online community tools. Even simple tasks such as registering with e-services seem to be confusing and threatening for many people. This is made worse by the fact that, as we have already observed, e-community tools are relatively new and still developing; the way in which a particular tool or service operates now may not be the same in a few days time. Similarly, new tools emerge and gain credence fairly frequently. For many people, this rate of development and change- is unnerving.
Many of the simpler tools and services are 'free' - in that they are supported by advertising. Many of them open up the user to the dreaded 'spam' avalanche. This and the variability in registration and access processes can be very disconcerting to those new to such technologies.
Even when an online community manages to overcome the above barriers and establish itself, there then becomes the problem of sustainability. There appears to be a 'life cycle' pattern for most communities which mirrors the standard product life cycle pattern of:
One contributing factor is that those who join an online community at or near its inception often develop and 'grow' together. Their interest and perhaps experience in the issue around which the community is based becomes more sophisticated but at broadly the same rate as their peers. However, a thriving online community (assuming it is a public or partially open community) tends to attract new members. They come in with perhaps a 'lower' level of expertise and understanding and naturally want to ask questions and initiate discussions which the longer-serving members probably moved on from long ago. This can result in tension between the two (or more) groups.
Another issue of longevity and growth is that large communities are more likely to have a number of 'recalcitrant' members who behave 'anti-socially' in terms of the established operating framework and values of the group. Many groups have some form of 'acceptable behaviour' policy but these are often not developed to the point where there is a workable approach to censure and sanction.
The processes of development of online communities are not yet well enough understood to be able to set down 'rules' or even firm guidance on how they should be facilitated. However, it is possible to draw some simple lessons from the above discussion.
Most online communities have an individual or a small group who facilitate the continuing development of the community. (This may not necessarily be the original creator of the community.) It is this individual or group who will have the major role in ensuring long-term sustainability, though, of course, it is the interactions between group members that drive 'value' into group membership.
These facilitators should take, or instigate, action to ensure that the barriers identified above are either removed or minimised. This means that, for example:
In many new technical areas we often see innovations taking place within research groups or in academic departments with an interest in innovative approaches to, say, teaching and learning. The World Wide Web, itself, is a good example of an application area which was typically adopted within science departments to support research activities, before being adopted more widely within institutions for more general purposes.
The migration from an application used within a department to institutional deployment raises several issues. We may discover that several departments have made use of a diverse range of applications covering similar or related areas. We may also find there is a need to address areas such as performance, scalability and security which are of great importance to IT service departments but may not be given sufficient considerations by academics.
IT Service departments will have a leading role to play in the development of an institution's IT strategy. Issues such as use of open source software may feature in an institution's IT strategy. In many institutions the need to avoid unnecessary duplication of a diverse range of applications covering the same area, and the implications this has on support costs, will also need to be addressed. From a longer term perspective there is also the need to consider the migration of data from collaborative tools. This could be to ensure that new tools which provide richer functionality, have cost advantages, etc. can be deployed; to allow personal data to be processed to comply with legal requirements (such as the Freedom of Information Act, accessibility legislation, etc) and also to ensure that the data can comply with an institution's preservation and archiving policies.
Rather than a procurement policy based simply on the functionality of the application and experiences gained from its use, we feel that there is a need to develop an institutional strategy for the procurement and deployment of online collaborative tools. Factors which need to be addressed within the policy include:
These are significant challenges which need to be addressed by any organisation which wishes to make extensive use of collaborative tools within mission-critical systems. We do not yet have answers to these questions and it may be that there are no simple answers. However we feel raising such issues will help progress the discussion concerning strategies for large-scale deployment of collaborative tools.