<Team to Add More Content Here>

I. INTRODUCTION

Given the globalization of business and the rise of the Internet, the need has been steadily growing for virtual collaboration and tools to facilitate the process. Rarely are essential company documents and deliverables authored by one individual. Rather, they are authored by various employees and consultants from locations across the country or globe. Collaborative authoring is the process by which multiple users employ a virtual medium to create a written document, or deliverable.

<Team to add more content here>

II. AN OVERVIEW OF COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING

Background

Collaborative authoring didn’t begin with the Internet or even with the PC, but it certainly has improved with online technologies. Authors worked collaboratively before the advent of the Internet but the process was much slower and more inefficient. Work was more iterative and less collaborative. Authors in dispersed locations exchanged printed documents and hand-written revisions by mail or fax. When desktop computing became widespread, authors could swap floppy disks with files in progress. In the early days of the Internet, authors shared documents via email or FTP (file transfer protocol). In each of these stages, there were limitations on the authors’ flexibility and productivity. These early methods of collaborative authoring created significant delays in sharing and incorporating information in a timely and efficient way. Authors could only work sequentially, and they had to wait until one person’s work was done before either starting theirs or correcting, modifying or building on the work of others. There was significant downtime where no work occurred, as the document transfer took place. There were version control issues, as changes had to be accurately recorded or reflected for others to review. Even when web publishing became available, team projects were authored and published online in read-only format. Once the document was published, it became frozen in time and space; no further collaborative was possible unless the whole process began anew.

That changed with the advent of the a new Internet protocol called WebDAV, or Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol. WebDAV is a set of extensions to HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol [create link to: that allow computer-users to edit and manage files on remote servers. WebDAV gave multiple members in different geographic locations the ability to edit a published document directly on the HTTP server. Thus, the web moved beyond being a read-only interface that facilitated information delivery and exchange to serving as a writeable collaborative medium. “HTTP gave [users] read access, while DAV gives them write access,” according to George Stein and Jim Whitehead, who founded the developers community WebDAV Resources. [create link to:

In 1995, War Cunningham invented a group communication mechanism called a wiki, which allowed users to create and edit web documents using a web browser. In a wiki environment, all users are potential authors or editors. Some wikis require registration, some don’t. In either case, users can make changes simply by clicking an “edit” link and submitting their changes, which are converted to HTML by the wiki system. One key feature of a wiki is that it keeps a list of all changes and who made them so that it is easy to revert to an old version if necessary (“Collaborative Authoring on the Web: A Genre Analysis of Online Encyclopedias,” 2005).

The software behind wikis is often used to create collaborative wiki websites, to power community websites, for personal note-taking, in corporate Intranets, and in knowledge management systems. All of these uses incorporate some form of collaborative authoring. (

Benefits and Challenges

Authoring a document on one’s own can necessitate a highly complex thought and work process. With multiple authors, the complexity increases exponentially.Collaborative authoring can bring numerous benefits, such as diversity of viewpoints and knowledge sharing; increased creativity; efficient use of a team’s time, skills and expertise; dispersed risk; and potential cost savings. However, collaboration can also bring its share of challenges: miscommunication; difficulty in arriving at common goals and shared understanding; conflict, lack of engagement, trust-building in a virtual setting and other social issues; and significant technical hurdles, such as lack of training on complex tools, tools that don’t fit with the project, etc.

<Team to add more content here - preferably some first-hand observations on benefits/challenges.

Workflow Overview

Collaborative authoring is not simply the process of authoring a document from start to finish; it’s a holistic approach to completing a document. Collaborative authoring can be broken down into three phases: pre-collaborative authoring, collaborative authoring, and post-collaborative authoring. Each stage of the process is essential to the success of the project. Tasks carried out during each phase are outlined in Figure 1 (below). Notice the numerous activities that occur before the documentation production stage even starts.

[Note: I could not find citations or sources for this section, still looking]

Source: PM 440 Lecture Notes

The first phase (pre-collaborative authoring) focuses on planning: review of tasks, assembling documentation, identifying team components, selecting tools, etc.

The second phase (collaborative authoring) contains the majority of teamwork and content creation: team formation and bonding, setting goals and objectives, creating work plans and milestones, brainstorming, outlining, writing, editing and review and approval.

The final phase (post-collaborative authoring) revolves around project archiving: finalizing documentation, reviewing lessons learned, and planning any remaining steps.

These phases are present during all types of collaborative authoring, but they may be ordered somewhat differently, depending on the type.

III. FOUR TYPES OF COLLABORATIVE AUTHORING

<Team to add more content here - Give real-world examples, disciplines

Collaborative authoring can be broken into four essential types, which we will describe in detail in this section:

1.Single author environment

2.Single author sequential

3.Parallel Work

4.Reactive Writing

The type of collaborative authoring required depends upon the nature and goals of the project. Each type has advantages and disadvantages, and care should be given by team members in selecting the type best suited to a project.

Single author environment
In this setting, a group of collaborators discusses and makes decisions on all aspects of a document or project, and one person authors the entire document. The content discussions may take place in person or via a virtual medium, but the final deliverable is written by just one individual, who incorporates all the feedback, structure, suggestions and ideas of the group. This is considered collaborative authoring since multiple authors are influencing decisions.

Single author sequential
In this collaborative authoring scheme, each author works on a different part of a document in sequential stages. For example, author No. 1 completes one-quarter of the document, then passes it to author No. 2, who completes the second quarter of the document and passes it to the third collaborator, and so on (see Figure 2, below). However, one disadvantage with this authoring structure is that not all authors may share the same objectives for the project, and consensus as to the overall goal may be difficult to achieve. In addition, the voice and tone of each section will vary by author, which can be confusing or off-putting to the reader.

Source: PM 440 Lecture Notes

Parallel work
In this collaborative authoring scheme, work can be divided into sections or competencies, and authors work concurrently on their sections or activities. There are two types of parallel work: horizontal-division writing and stratified-division writing (“Building a Taxonomy and Nomenclature of Collaborative Writing,” Lowry, Curtis and Lowry, Brigham Young University, 2004). In horizontal-division writing, authors are assigned subject areas and work concurrently on their sections (see Figure 3, below). This approach works well if an author has an expertise or passion for their assigned subject area, but less well if an author is unfamiliar with or lacks enthusiasm for his or her subject area. In the second type, stratified-division writing, work is divided by tasks, or competencies. For example, one author is responsible for research, one for authoring, one for formatting, one for team coordination, etc. As with the first tupe, this structure requires good communication and works best when authors are assigned tasks with which they have experience or an affinity.

Source: PM 440 Lecture Notes

Reactive Writing
In this writing structure. all authors work synchronously in real time on all sections of a project (Figure 4, below). This structure allows for increased input by team members, as well as expanded give and take during the writing process – the writing process, in fact, could almost be considered a brainstorming session. There are sensitivities to be considered when editing others’ work – one author may prefer a certain sentence structure or style, whereas another author might not. The ability to edit – and re-edit – can result in hours spent on relatively minor issues and can impact trust among team members. As with any collaborative effort, dealing with other human beings and their idiosyncrasies can be more challenging then the substance of the work itself. Reactive writing is useful for small to medium groups that need a lot of creativity and discussion, such as in creative writing efforts and marketing documents (“Using the ThinkLet Framework to Improve Distributed Collaborative Writing,” Lowry and Nunamaker, Jr., 2002).

Source: PM 440 Lecture Notes
<Team to update graphics – Clarify author as human being, clarify applicable actions

5.UnderstandingThe User Experience
For this part of the chapter, we’ll follow the definition that user experience represents how a person feels about using a system based on their perceptions and responses measured against their individual anticipated use of software. User experience as a whole is both subjective and dynamic by nature. Subjective because it’s tied to the individual’s perception and dynamic because it’s constantly changing based on the individuals personal exposure to more and more information. We’ll attempt to show that user experience must be informed by outside factors and the software, in this case virtual collaboration software, needs to accommodate all the user’s needs, including the one’s they don’t actively recognize. Finally, we’ll look at this through the lens of co-authoring tools with an understanding that the methodology outlined can be applied across toolsets.

6.Human Factors
Software is built by people, and for people to make people’s lives better. Software is merely an intermediary that people generally don’t want. It’s important to keep this mindset at all times when choosing, developing or using a co-authoring tool. We need to understand the real problems people face and the situation they are in prior first when it come to this type of software – both in and outside of the defined process.
In any co-authoring process there are a series of things that people or participants bring to the table called human factors. Human factors can be defined loosely as the sum of an individual’s perceptions at the time. These include feelings, prior knowledge, prior experience and positions of a given factor both in and outside the process.
Inside the process a participant may have pre-conceived notions of what a successful co-authoring process looks like. There may be expectations that aren’t necessary or bias against the process in general. All things that need to be considered. Outside the process the participant may have particular feelings or motives against another author, the idea or the process itself again. It’s not always the responsibility of the software or the process to address these factors directly, but they are a reality in the process and need to be considered and risk of them needs to be mitigated.

Mitigating risk with human factors:
Currently there are a series of things that can make the co-authoring experience better for the user. Things that build trust and limit emotional attachment and discourage bias. Generally they start with simple communication around a series of areas that include:

1.Defining roles - Roles on a project draw a line in the sand and create a level of expectation for each participant.

2.Defining objectives - Objectives work on both the individual and group level. There are group objectives that must be attained by all and individual objectives that give each participant a sense of accomplishment or a measure of failure.

3.Setting rules and expectations - Rules and expectations create a boundary for accepted behavior, whatever that may be. Rules and expectations vary by project and by role.

4.Accountability - Accountability is the measure of how a participant performed based on objectives and expectations.

<Team to add additional information and examples>

7.The collaboration process
<Insert revised collaboration graphic from presentation here>
There are established patterns in the co-authoring process that can easily be identified and understood – consisting of ideation, researching, verification, documenting, drafting, editing, approving, and versioning and finally publishing. Each of these parts of the process then has a set of controls put in place to govern it in a liner fashion so that it can easily be understood and managed by people as well as automated by software. Simply understanding and documenting the process and patterns is easy, but finding the right controls to put in place to make sure the process works is where the magic happens.

8.We’ve already discussed some of the controls that can be put in place to mitigate the risk associated with any of the given human factors and we now need to look at controls that govern the process itself.

Controls exist at all levels of co-authoring starting from the top and working their way down. Controls are be broken up into two categories, primary and secondary:

●Primary controls govern the entire process as a whole and consist of thing such as project management, document management, people management and workflow management.

●Secondary controls exist at the individual process level and are put in place to govern individual components. If we look at one of the standard patterns in process such as research we can append a mix of secondary controls to that based on the needs of the exercise itself. Some examples of controls on research are standard annotations, sources, timeframes, and vetting.

In order to better understand controls and human factors in collaboration tools, lets look at how the following standard processed and how they are addressed in existing applications:

9.Authoring/creating content

10.Review and feedback

11.Revising and synthesizing

12.Quality control/voice

13.Change management

<Team to add general tie-in to tools and intro>

A Brief History of Web-Based Collaborative Authoring tools

In the past, collaborative authors in dispersed geographically location had to collaborate on group projects by sending documents via email, and other methods such as uploading and downloading of files via FTP (file transfer protocol). This meant that authors had to take turns making changes. Due to this, team projects were authored and published online at specific locations, usually the geographical location that it was originally uploaded to the web. These early methods of collaborative authoring promote delays in the supply of efficient and timely information.

As we have already established the land scape has changed and people engaging in collaborative authoring have a myriad options available to them. Collaborative authoring software has evolved over time and many applications now include functions to support project management, ideation, authortng, editing, commenting and change tracking. With all of the functions now available it can be a daunting task to choose the one that does what you will require for your collaborative authoring projects. The following section will look at several of the tools available as well as discuss how they relate to detailed design requirements list.

To begin our discussion it is important to have singular definition of what collaborative authoring tools are. For the purposes of our discussion we will define collaborative authoring tools as primarily web-based authoring applications that allow instantaneous, and real time virtual collaboration on a project by multiple members in a group. The goal of this section is not to provide an exhaustive list of products but rather to give you a way to compare and evaluate collaborative authoring tools when you are choosing which tool or tools to utilize.

The list of collaborative authoring software design requirements pictured below was proposed in the paper “The User-centered Iterative Design Of Collaborative Writing Software” Baecker et. al. 1993. The researchers completed a study on how people write together and the information gathered was used to develop the design requirements.

In order for the requirements to be useful for evaluation and comparison we must first define the terms used so we have a shared understanding of meaning. The following are the Requirement terms as they are defined in the Baecker et. al. paper.

Requirements Concepts Defined

General Requirements for Individual Writing

14.Basic word-processing. A collaborative writing system must provide basic word-processing mechanisms.

15.Seamlessness with other work media. Users must be able to move smoothly between new groupware technology and existing single-user software. Minimally, there must be a way to exchange documents with single-user applications.