Developing and managing online projects and collaborations

This blog was developed for those people that work in project teams but realize that new collaboration technologies exist that could improve productivity. The application of ICT is fraught with choice and many people are forced to make technology choice decisions when they are potentially under-skilled to do so. Although many people understand that there is a role for online collaboration environments in projects, few project leaders or managers have sufficient ICT know-how on the role, selection and application of them in their work. It may seem strange for technologists (i.e. the author) to be more concerned about the human element of project teams than the technology itself, but it isn’t. Project teams rely on solid and managed interactions within the team and also for those resources outside of the team (e.g. project partners). This has always been the case, and as past research shows, the human element has often been missed which has led to failed project collaborations.

There are numerous approaches that can be applied to understand the dimension of online collaboration development. Use cases force the would-be developer to look at the requirements of the collaboration system. Use cases are written pieces about a human process in the project (e.g. workflow or communication among team participants) that highlights the human condition needing to be fixed by the collaboration environment. By drawing up use cases, it forces you to think about the processes that are presently used by your people and also helps you identify how collaboration tools could benefit them. There are a considerable number of tools available to support online collaboration (e.g. forums, chat tools, document stores and video conferencing), but some may suit your project team when others do not.

There are several keys to successful deployment of any ICT based technology but none more important than understanding the needs of your people in the work you’d like them to accomplish. Teams are about harnessing knowledge that they then turn into novel innovations. Whether the innovation is an idea, concept or a produced product, collaboration environments can make readily knowledge readily available to your people and help them work more effectively. How you move from A to B is a critical question. A is the starting point on wanting to learn about deploying collaboration tools into your team environment, as evidenced by reading of this blog, B is your intended destination where you have functioning tools in use. Travelling from A to B can be a challenging project in itself, but nothing is more rewarding than watching your people produce output in front of your eyes!

People thrive on collaboration. Collaboration is the bringing together of minds to solve problems of the day, to provide a platform for developing novel innovations. People have been working collaboratively since man first began hunting animals in a team-like way; perhaps longer. Many example of humankind's collaborative ways exist. For example, during the industrial revolution new approaches to the production of harder metals took place by people travelling to other countries and seeing for their own eyes how other cultures had dealt with pre-existing problems. Word of mouth was key to their ability to determine if processes were available elsewhere they could take advantage from. Innovators take their lead from current practice then tweak it with their own knowledge, until something even better emerges. The process of collaboration allows innovation to occur and it should be actively encouraged. The human race learns from itself, from both mistakes and wins. Although today’s cataloguing of web material makes it much simpler to find out how ‘stuff’ is done, and who produces innovative knowledge; Google is about quickening resource discovery, but it still takes thought intervention to create novel knowledge from it. Google is simply a service platform that quickens our information find and publishing capabilities. Collaboration is about providing a people orientated platform where like-minded people of similar interest, but with unique specialism’s, can share knowledge to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Six months of changes in Sakai...

Six months can be a long time in technology markets, and I have created this blog to provide you insite on changes we have made to out Sakai service. Only six month ago we moved over to Sakai 2.7. Bringing in new social networking features, it opened a door to new ways of thinking that make Sakai a warmer place to work in. By allowing Sakai users to form Connections among work colleagues (a bit like friends in Facebook) it allows groups of similar minded individuals to form up without the requirement of a worksite. The standard social networking kit in 2.7 is pretty basic and although people hooked up quite quickly, it soon became apparent that something else was needed to help it make better sense.

Adrian Fish had already begun developing the floating chat tool that would take advantage of Connections and it was launched just last month. This tool allows users to chat with Connections that are already logged into Sakai. It's been a great hit with our users. We noticed that even in the wee hours of the morning that people were still hooked into Sakai chatting away. We think this tool is an essential ingrediant to any collaboration platform, even for asking simple questions like, 'Time for a coffee?' or 'Have you seen this link?'. Not content with getting the core chat running, Adrian then set about some newer features, such as the ability to 'ping' connections that are not already logged into Sakai. This feature emails recipients an invite to chat with you providing them an additional opportunity to stay in the loop. We think that floating chat will become available in Sakai 2.9, but stuff doesn't always go to plan :(

Then Dan Robinson and Stevo Swinsberg decided to expand out the Profile2 feature set. Building a place to post to your own or your connections profiles, this is a space to share information among your social sakai contacts; we only launched it 10 days ago so we are still looking at user issues. To date, nothing dramatic has emerged and that is usually a good sign. The current publishing space is a bit limited in scope and we'll be adding new features throughout the year based on user requests. Dan also tidied up the people search facility within Profile so that presentation of results is much better making it easier read.

So, in six months we went from Sakai CLE to Sakai CLE with social connectivity. Last year some of my eBusiness students complained that Sakai was hard to get into (being the second VLE at Lancaster); since deploying 'boosted' Sakai users tell me they really like the experience for the additional functions we have added. We note also that the addition of social tools has improved Sakai 'Stickiness'; a term used to describe how long people stay logged in for. I guess this is what we should expect. Importantly also, due to implementation of Profile2 with our additional features, our latest clients tell us that profile2 was one of the strongest choice factors for choosing to use our technology. Moreover, discussions are now underway with central uni services to roll out Sakai across campus later this year. Watch this space!

During the next 6 months we'll be evaluating user data in various ways. For example, we have collected Connection formation data and can link this aggregately to other data arrays (e.g. propensity to chat, complete profile, activity in worksites etc) plus user survey data. With this information we'll be able to determine segments of user's and track back user acceptance issues from it. After all, the new ways of working won't be to everyone's taste, but it'd be nice to be able to find out who they are and tailor a service about them too.

What happens when the cloud bursts? Skype shows the risks...

I beleive that the recent failure of Skype shows how dependant some businesses are becoming on cloud based services. Although Skype isn't a true Cloud technology, as you need to install its software locally, the service uses the WWW in a 'cloud like way' to transport data. Skype's recent system failure (click here for BBC news story) have left businesses that are reliant on its services wide open to problems; especially those that have no alternative solutions in place. There are likely to be many more events like this over the coming years and the lessons learnt for some organisations may be terminal. The Cloud places risks into any adopting organisation and each risk needs to be evaluated with mitigaton strategies in place should specific 'critical' events occur. I question how many organisations, particularly smaller businesses, undertake this level of contingency planning however.

Leveraging technology to raise productivity in academia

University life is diverse and multicultural by design and underlying these attributes are key roles that support learning and research. Most institutions have an elearning strategy but something more over-arching in technology strategy terms is be useful in that it should capture more academic/administration activity. By thinking in this way, the silos of learning, research and administration merge into a single seamless environment. In such an environment knowledge flows between areas of the organization seamlessly. Information is made readily available to those that need it and this leads to greater operational efficiency overall.

As technology is leveraged to this end and people become accustomed to its presence whole new ways of working emerge that simply could not be done before. For example, linking departments or even other institutions becomes a real possibility with relatively minor software adjustments. This alone fosters conditions for easier collaborations that lead to increases in the knowledge base. Cloud technology provides us the conduit to make this a reality at a relatively low cost. For example, there is a project in the US called Kuali. This is an open-source modular architecture designed for universities by universities (e.g. Indiana and Michigan). It contains modules on finance and web-based student management (among others modules). It is free software with solid open-source support mechanisms. Kuali is now gaining traction. It also ties into other open-source platforms, like the Sakai collaboration framework, which is useful because people can move about the environment but not feel or see the barriers between the various tools they use. And why should they? After all web conferencing (e.g. BigBlueButton)is useful for academics to communicate with co-researcher but also administration and students. So the tools should be accessible in all aspects of the environment.

Underlying any technology deployment are people's activities. A key learning in the academic domain of Information Systems is that people are the key resources in any organization. This means technology serves a particular purpose, that is, to help people do better than they could do before. So, in terms of an overall strategy institutions should focus on understanding human processes in the organisation and then develop new technological approaches that raise productivity, improve the flow of knowledge (across students/academics/partners/admin/alumni) and simplify the human-computer interface of the technology; that is, make the technology more seamless.

Orange mobile services sucks. Failing customers on clarity of pricing plans

There are times when we must stand up for the rights of people, and fight improper business practice and those organisations whose ethics are suspect. At the Centre for eScience we look at new emerging mobile technologies with a view to delivering our services across them. Recently, we took delivery of a new HTC Wildfire, to evaluate how our Sakai based technologies could be delivered. And here begins the story on a complete lack of clarity on call charges that is likely to affect many 1,000s of Orange customers in the UK...

I am a low usage Orange pay as you go customer. Low usage means that I use less than £5 of credit per month. At present I am a Dolphin user which the Orange website tells me means: free internet and texts (see here to view the price plan for Dolphin). I was curious about what 'Free Internet' means, after all it does cost money to provide data, and services must be limited in some way to reflect this cost. On reviewing detailed Dolphin charges it soon became clear that Orange were not happy to divulge the true cost of internet usage on this Pay as You Go contract type. The only detail it has on costs and internet is the statement, "Maximum daily charge for mobile Internet browsing £2". Surely, if I download a 0.5 gigabyte movie file it won't be capped at £2? I checked for small print documentation and could not find any on the orange site. Next step, call customer services for clarification...

On my first attempt I was put through to customer services and I asked 2 things. First, please clarify what internet use means. Secondly, please guide me to documentation on your website explaining in detail internet charging structures. The person on the other end of the phone explained that for Orange, free internet is not free internet, only free Facebook. What? I don't even use Facebook (see my earlier blog on the risks associated with use of social networks)! How can Orange equate internet use with just Facebook? Surely this is mis-advertising? Isn't that illegal in the UK? So, the question became, how much do you charge for non-Facebook internet? Aha, the real story begins to emerge! The lady explained that for non-Facebook internet, users on Dolphin are charged £4 per megabyte transferred. Not a cheap deal as it is advertised. I probed deeper and asked where this information was stored on the Orange website, she was unable to show me. I explained this this position was not satisfactory and that Orange were likely to be breaking the law by advertising their product in this way. The phone went dead...

Now, phone lines can go dead for various reasons. This call was probably directed to customer services in Middle Asia, and I'm guessing that the recent Perseid meteor shower knocked out communication between Middle Asia and Europe momentarily...

I dialled again. I was put through to customers services again. I requested all of the information a second time. The customer service representative was exemplary and knew her plans and charges by heart. Service was with a smile also. She explained concisely that internet equals Facebook only, not internet per ce? Again she explained that I would be charged a fee £4 for every non-Facebook megabyte downloaded. She could not explain clearly what the £2 maximum daily charge was however. Again I asked her to locate on the Orange website clear data charge structures that would be available to all customers. She tried and tried and could not locate the information for me. At this point I decided to blog the event in the hope of reaching out to users to make them aware of Orange's less than ethical approach to dealing with customer charging. In view of this activity I have decided to veto any use of Orange services and would recommend that you all do so.

Does this sound a bit like sour grapes? I bet your thinking this guys come back from holiday with a £200 unexpected data charge. Nope, I've spend about £6 on data before realising the real cost. I feel quite smug that I checked. What is important is that we have a place to go where we can complain. My blog is my conduit for complaining. When this blog becomes Google searchable, maybe Orange will find it and get back to me.

A final element to the puzzle. Why do most countries have Telecoms Regulators? In the UK we have OFCOM. OFCOM adjudicates telecom market pricing and networks and forces changes if imbalances are found. Unfortunately, they are always chasing their own tails as the telcos employ teams of people strategising how to get more money from consumers. During a Telco conference I attended about 8 years ago, one CEO proudly exclaimed that they (the Telco industry) now had a high profit instrument that would keep shareholders happy for the years to come. This was text messaging. During the presentation he was proud to announce that for every text send the consumer was charged 20 pence, but it only cost 0.0001 pence to send via their networks. The question that OFCOM must now address, is what is the real cost of sending 1MB of data across mobile networks. I bet it's really cheap to do so...given that I can buy 30Gb of download from British Telecom for £25 on a broadband service. So, data is now the money spinner of the mobile telcos, I'll be looking forward to see how OFCOM deal with this, but I am also concerned that funding cuts will limit their ability to control them.

Ok, I'm off to buy a non-Orange pay monthly sim. I can't wait to get into the new HTC phone, so far I am really impressed.

Developing Government Policy via Facebook - who will have their say?

Published on the BBC news website is an article on how the new government intends to use Facebook to get the UK electorate to vote on where spending cuts should be applied. An initial thinking suggests that this is a novel approach to driving new government policy. For example, it will be inexpensive to apply as the social network is already in place. BUT: who's voice will be heard most as a result of this policy? Facebook advises that there are now 23 million Facebook accounts in the UK. In the UK there are approximately 61 million people of which approximately 75% are of voting age implying that about 40 million people should be polled on the direction of anticipated cuts (data reviewed at the Office of National Statistics). Earlier research shows that users of Facebook are characteristically different from those that do not use its service. For example, studies find that Facebook users tend to be younger and better educated. Research that I have undertaken at Lancaster University highlights very clearly that non-IT adopters, as measured by comparison of households with and without access to computers, are on average older and/or less wealthy; this pattern of digital exclusion will be directly implemented in the governments initiative. What this means is that any vote via Facebook will be biased towards those that are younger and wealthier. There will be other distortions that will be unmeasurable. Biasness aside, what of our much more experienced seniors that have a wealth of experience having lived through both good and bad times? Surely, we should pay special attention to their voice? What of the needs of those less wealthy households without decent IT access? They too should have a voice. Moreover, by shifting policy development onto social networks the government is forcing those that wish to abstain from social nets (and this is your right!) to become online active; even if they do not wish to share their data and lives online. Earlier this year I published a blog titled Rejecting Social Networks as a Good Idea Poorly Executed. In the blog I highlighted why it is a highly risky practice to submit personal data on social networks. For example, where is your data stored? How will privacy policies be changed? Who has access to your data? If Facebook is sold in 1, 5 or 10 years time how may the company use your data and could the data be physically moved to a geographic location with few data protection regulations in place? These are valid criticisms of why we should not use social networks until the market for personal data is better defined.

In terms of what the government is hoping to achieve with the present Facebook initiative, it will not be certain that the results it views are representative of the UK voting population for the reasons given above. Crucially also, we cannot be certain that those that vote are actually UK voters. Just because a Facebook account was created in the UK does not mean the account holder is actually a registered UK voter. Clearly, there is no easy solution to the problem of getting closer to the electorates way of thinking on important country matters. I do accept that we need a communication platform for people to become part of the decision making process; but the plan needs to be better thought out than the one that has been proposed.

On Microsoft and anticompetitive positioning in e-learning environments

During the early stage of world ICT adoption growth Microsoft was very much influential in providing the operating systems that simplified computer use. This simplification allowed users to navigate complex computers more simply by providing a neater graphic interface. This was a major break though and very welcomed. During its time as a major software producer it has had to deal with significant complaints of anti-competitive behaviour. At eScience we see with great surprise that Microsoft are again more then willing to enter new and emerging markets using what can best best described as 'anti-competitive' behaviour that will limit innovation in the e-learning and course management market. In the US Microsoft has launched its new educational support service called live@edu. It is a service that devolves information system responsibility to Microsoft by use of its cloud centres. On the face of it the service looks quite good (although we haven't had an opportunity to evaluate tools). The service offers educational establishments the opportunity to move information systems into the cloud yet maintain branding. Institutions that run with the service will be provided free branded email services, free online storage and backup (25Gb per user), free class worksites, free collaboration tools, free access to Office 2010 and free support. Our problem is nothing to do with the products or services, which on the face of it look OK, our problem lies in the disruptive way it is entering the market.

Our objection is that they are entering a fairly mature industry disruptively that will eventually limit competition they face. There is no such thing as free software solution on this scale and there is already very little profit left in the VLE market. If all UK universities where to adopt their model, Microsoft would need to account for approximately 100,000 terabytes of storage space. This will cost something somewhere down the line and that is impossible to refute. The issue, however, is that during times of financial crisis institutions may be tempted to take on this technology to minimise budgetary problems. Come the next economic up wave they'd be locked into a corporate technology where they have no influence on future technology developments. Welcome to a world where Microsoft guides how you research and teach; whereas those institutions with open source developers embedded into their e-Learning/research frameworks can ask for tools to be developed to meet specific institutional needs... to the benefit of all universities using the open source technology. In the long run, the open source opportunity will cost much less than the corporate version as an investment of, say, £100,000 could raise productivity for millions of people globally. We firmly believe that software for universities should be designed by universities that understand the dimensions of academia; not by external profit making agencies seeking to capture human market share. One cannot help but think the long term plan for Microsoft, similarly banks that offer special incentives to students, is to establish a large scale market of well qualified, high earning graduates that it can use to make money from later on. Whatever the business model they have in mind, we must not allow Microsoft to become dominant in this field. Given the recent bad press relating to how large organisations can abuse our online data (e.g. Facebook, Google) we should be quite fearful of storing so much academic material with any commercial organisation that can change privacy and cost settings as it likes and has unlimited financial might to fight the courts.

We hope that you share our concerns regarding Microsoft's aggressive launch; maybe it is too new for people to see the real long term impact of the offering. As far as we are aware live@edu is not yet available in the UK, possibly as the necessary hardware in Aberdeen (the cloud centre) is not complete. It will come online next year however, and we hope resulting cloud services are priced fairly to reflect real operating costs.