{"id":7199,"date":"2018-07-11T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T08:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/?p=7199"},"modified":"2018-07-27T08:16:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T07:16:34","slug":"a-collaborative-editing-workshop-with-virtual-and-face-to-face-rooms-madness-or-brilliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2018\/07\/a-collaborative-editing-workshop-with-virtual-and-face-to-face-rooms-madness-or-brilliance\/","title":{"rendered":"A collaborative editing workshop with virtual and face-to-face rooms. Madness or Brilliance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

If you are asking me the question: Can I run a collaborative editing session with 2 face-to-face rooms and 6 online rooms? The answer is yes. You can. I did.<\/p>\n

If you are asking me the question: Should I run a collaborative editing session with 2 face-to-face rooms and 6 online rooms? The answer is no\u2026 that is insane.<\/p>\n

What follows is a story of what I did, why and what I learned.<\/p>\n

The Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

As part of the Implement Project <\/a>we are building a site to simplify the decision process around using technology in higher education delivery. We will have a site which dynamically collects different technologies used in teaching from the community which are then linked to different delivery methods to help educators make those decisions. A big part of the project is generating that content so what better way to start collecting case studies and tools than running a collaborative editing session?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The requirements<\/strong><\/p>\n

To plan a collaborative editing session you need to know what you are editing, who is doing it and where they will be.<\/p>\n

WHAT<\/strong> – A google sheet containing all of the technologies we have so far.<\/p>\n

WHO<\/strong> – As many people as are interested from Imperial College London and University of Brighton as well as people from our extended network.<\/p>\n

WHERE<\/strong> \u2013 This is where it gets interesting. Imperial College has 5 campuses, University of Brighton has 4 and then there are random colleagues and friends in other countries.<\/p>\n

How did we do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the geographical limitations we felt very strongly that there needed to be an \u2018analogue\u2019 face-to-face component to the session to include people who are less comfortable with technology. So we booked 2 teaching rooms on the main Imperial College London campus. Then after careful consideration and testing we decided that the best tool to facilitate the online component was Big Blue Button (BBB)<\/a>, this was chosen for the simplicity of use, the cost (free) and the WordPress integration which meant it could be incorporated within our existing site. There are other options, for those with a license Blackboard Collaborate would do the job well (in fact the idea for this came from the #ALTC online winter conference where I ran an edit-a-thon session <\/a>using the Blackboard Collaborate platform), google hangouts also has potential but was discounted because of the need for a google account which may have been prohibitive to some users.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may be wondering at this point how we ended up with 6 virtual rooms (actually 7 but one was a welcome room). The content\/potential content for the site is currently held in a single google sheet with over 280 lines (we hope to make this into a database that automatically populates the site but at the moment it is a manual process). Editing this would be a daunting prospect for anyone so we split it into 6 smaller sheets under the headings:<\/p>\n