Methods Used To Share Information Effectively

Five Methods Used To Share Information Effectively

Sharing Diaries/Setting Up Meetings
When working in teams/groups each team member needs a diary that can be used to allocate deadlines and also schedule meeting. If ICT is used, the diaries can be shared so that all those with access can see team members’ commitments and available time. Using this type of method to share information can save a great deal of time working out when all required delegates are available to meet. Working collaboratively with many group members you can set up meetings and share diaries online, this can be done through online collaborative organisers which are basically shared journals online. Setting up meeting is another method to share information effectively. Setting up meetings can be done using Microsoft Outlook if working in groups. This can be done by setting up a distribution list; from there you can add all the people from your group and send it to them. This is an effective way of sharing information as everyone that is part of the distribution list is able to receive an email about the meeting. Examples of shared diaries are Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar. This allows users to enter details about meetings and events. This can be viewed by other members from the group and also replay back to any emails that may have been sent to them about attending a meeting or event.

MyOffice is a powerful and flexible Cloud application that allows you to share diaries/calendars online with colleagues. The program has good features which I will list them. You can add up to Multiple Diaries as there are no limit to the number of diaries you can set up and there's no charge for diaries.  Shared Diaries\Calendars as the diaries can be shared with other users in your account. Visibility of diaries and access levels such as read only or read/write are controlled on a per diary basis. Diaries can be accessed using the Windows Desktop version, the Pocket PC version or the Web Browser version. You can publish the diaries on the web, if you need to publish a schedule of any sort of events on your web site you can link the web page to a diary in MyOffice and when users open the schedule they will automatically see an up to date list of events directly from the diary. Once it's set up all you have to do is maintain the diary in MyOffice. User Defined Fields, add additional tabs and fields to the description of appointments to allow tailoring of the application to specific business requirements. Email and mobile phone notifications, you can set up automatic notifications to multiple email addresses and mobile phones to advise when appointments have been added or modified. Appointment reminders, reminders can be set for appointments. These can be set to occur at a time specified by the user, and are sent via either an on-screen message, an email, via SMS, or a combination of the three. Reminders can be sent to multiple recipients.

Wikis
Wikis are user created web pages. These often hold glossaries, research data or other crucial information for a team which is constantly being updated. The collaborative working approach means that all the members of a team can update and also access the information. This also provides a single location for the latest data which would otherwise be difficult to distribute. A wiki is a more stylish collaborative editor, it is a type of website that allows users to easily add or remove pages. It also allows current pages to be edited and also allows links to be created between pages. Some wikis allow anybody to edit what they find without the need for registration. This easiness of interaction and communication makes the wiki an effective tool for collaborative writing. Examples of wikis are, Wikipedia and The Tolkien Wiki. However because wikis are collaborative and can be amended or edited by anyone you can’t use information from Wikipedia in academic essays because it has not been peer reviewed.

Blogs
Blogs are online journals which can be used to explain the progress each team member has made. These blogs are written individually which can only be set to be read by the team. There is also the capability on most blog accesses for readers to comment on what they have read. This can be useful in a team as the blog may have given someone an idea or even sparked a discussion point. Blogging software are easy to use, and most blogs can be updated using a standard web browser for example Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. Blogs often focus explain about particular subjects, and can be useful as a form of content management system on a website. A blog can easily combine text, images, and links to other web pages and other media related to its topic. Blogs can also be used to work collaboratively in many ways. Readers can comment on single postings, several contributors can participation into one blog, and links can be made between several blogs within similar subjects. Blogs can be hosted by blog hosting services, for example Blogger and WordPress which are free. Some technical expertise will be needed to set up the software, but once done blogs can then be very easily maintained by anyone with basic computer skills.

Blogs are not edited in the browser. A web browser can also be defined as an application software or program designed to enable users to access, retrieve and view documents and other resources on the Internet. ‘www.blogger.com’ and word press are content management systems and a blog is one form of the content that they provide. Some familiarity with websites and tools but it is essentially non-technical as anyone can do a blog.

http://brickmortar.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/kaws-at-the-high-museum-in-atlanta/g
this is a link to a blog that is hosted by word press. As blogs are so commonplace and popular that Google has its own blog search engine ‘http://www.google.com/blogsearch’ blogs are collaborating because readers can leave comments and also some have widgets as part of the guided user interface. Blogs have also been used in political campaigns as Barack Obama used blogs and social media in his re-election campaign. Blogs are also used by commercial organisations. There are also many online stores that have a blog here is an example of the company ‘Self Storage’s’ blog http://www.bigyellow.co.uk/selfstorageblog/.

Collaborative Editing
Collaborative working can also be known as reviewing document and inserting comments. This is where a document is reviewed and edited by a person or group of people. This can be done by emailing the document to each other and then using software tools to enable these changes. The software Microsoft Word provides this type of ability in its Reviewing toolbar. Alterations can be tracked in many different colours to identify the reviewer. Comments can be made which are inserted next to the text without touching its layout and format. If there is more than one person that is reviewing the document, the software is able to compare the different versions of the same document and then merge them based on user requirements such as highest word count or latest amendments. For instant a document can be edited by a member of your group using this feature, they can add comments where ever. The advantage of using this tool in a team is that it can help a member of the group that all their documents are correct as also written to good standard. For example making sure that sentences are making sense, punctuation is used in correct places. The tool help collaborative working as my team is currently working on creating a pull out for a magazine called Technology Today and can review other team member’s work to increase accuracy. There are programs which will save one copy of the document and also allow several people to view and also change it. For example Google Docs provides editing and formatting tools that allows you to access through the web.

CMS (Content Management System)
A Content Management System (CMS) is a system that allows publishing, editing, and modifying content as well as site maintenance from a central page. It offers a group of processes used to manage work flow data in a collaborative environment. These events can be done by hand or by computer. People can share documents and information between team members working on a project. This can also be used to distribute documents between group members who are working collaboratively on a project. The procedures are designed to improve communication between users such as group members that have never meet before. There is one system but the system provides each person with a user name and password. Being able to share information over the internet is very useful this is useful for business if people are over different countries. For our collaborative working when a member is creating a document for the pull out section, they can upload the file to their CMS and from there other team member can view this and then add comments. This allows a document or even an image to be able to be reviewed and discussed much quicker which also allows all messages to be seen by everyone that is involved. This allows the communication between the group to be clear and more effective.

ICT Tools To Support Collaborative Working

Six Communication Methods

Email List
Email list communication has become a part of daily life for many people, receiving updates about a favourite product, reading an online newsletter or discussing new approaches. Creating an email list allows one newsletter to be sent to a group of people electronically as this minimises down on time, printing and postage. An email list is kept on the internet rather than a person's computer; this allows it to be accessible from anywhere. People from the email list are able to subscribe themselves to an email list or even unsubscribe themselves off it. Because the list is on the internet, it is easy for the newsletter to be run by a small team of editors to rotate and for the list to be used from different locations. Modern email list systems can receive messages in plain text format, or HTML format which allows images and text formatting for web pages. The benefit of email lists is that they can quickly and effectively distribute messages to a large number of people who have clearly requested to receive the information, known as subscribers. Email lists are also an essential part of commercial E-Marketing. E-Marketing is an excellent way of promoting products, services and events to customers, business prospects, members and suppliers who have explicitly requested to receive such email messages. Email list is good for collaborative working as it makes efficiency savings through sharing costs and also Share knowledge and information. Here I have added a link of an example to what an email list is.

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/subscription?ie=UTF8&intid=gft_email&pf_rd_r=0JFNEKBNHPG9G6XZPSMB&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=301&pf_rd_i=0&pf_rd_p=214724027&pf_rd_s=footer-2

Email Group
Email groups are a development of simple email lists. Creating an email group allows networks of people to contribute in a many-to-many exchange of emails. For example when one person from the group sends a message to the email address of the group, it is also automatically sent to all group members. Email groups range from small private groups to large public groups with several hundred members. For example Charity Web Forum, The Charity Web Forum is an email group originally set up to facilitate charities' sharing information and knowledge about the subject of the web. Most postings are from new or less experienced web staff. Email group is good for collaborative working for example as it is a good way for new or less experienced charity staff to get information and share learning, the instant emails allow for lively discussions. Additionally you could have set up an email group for collaborative working with automated electronic mailing lists.

Electronic mailing lists are usually fully automated through the use of special mailing list software which is set up on a server that is capable of receiving email. Incoming messages sent to the server address are processed by the software, or are distributed to all email addresses subscribed to the mailing list, depending on the software. For example businesses sending out promotional newsletters have the option of working with whitelist mail distributors, which agree to standards, should any of the opt-in subscribers complain, in exchange for their agreement and agreement to prohibitive fines, the emails sent by whitelisted companies are not blocked by spam filters, which can often reroute these legitimate, non-spam emails.

Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs)
Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) are systems which support learning and collaborating activities and usually are accessible online to registered members. They support communication between students and tutors, between students and students or across student groups through real time chat and online discussions tools. Students can use these facilities to build upon their current knowledge and create new ideas through online debate and discussion. Other communication tools contain online calendars, diaries or timetables. These can provide an overview of key events during courses and might also include submission dates; the calendar can also be linked to other areas within the VLE, such as course content. However some VLE’s may have email facilities which can be used for communicating on a one to one or one to many bases. Using an email system within the VLE has the advantage of keeping messages about the course separate from other email communications. Students can submit assignments within VLE. This can be set up to indicate the time and date of submission. Assessment marks can be released to students online. It can make a difference to students in any category may learn best by being able to watch a video, or by interacting in a virtual environment instead of in the classroom, or by repeating their learning process at their own pace. One of the disadvantages is that you would need a computer to gain access. Virtual Learning Environment (VLEs) provides a wide range of tools for allowing communication between members, including;

• Connection to the project team from any Internet enabled machine in the world 
• Sharing resources 
• Digital communications in forums and chatrooms 
• A central place for project matters

There are tools that can support collaboration within students, for example, the file upload facilities in a VLE allow tutors and students to share resources by moving learning materials such as articles, notes, images, PowerPoint files into the VLE.

 This is an image of how my college's VLE looks like.

Intranet
An internet is a network which is restricted to certain users, usually with one company. You can allow files to be shared, storing them in a central area for authorised users to access. An intranet is a computer network that uses the same technology as the internet but is restricted certain users. A business may have an internet which is only available to their employees. This is an internal, secure environment which operates using a local area network (LAN), business use intranet to help collaborative working by sharing information so that it will be read by everyone. Advantages of the intranet are that it has fast communication; you can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. It is time saving because there is no need to maintain physical documents such as manuals, application forms, and internet phone list. A disadvantage is the cost of intranet is very high but has lots of advantages after implementing. Intranets can host many websites and provide extended communications and collaboration.  The benefits are productivity, speed, communications and collaboration. When I use the student intranet it helps me as it has key information related to my course and support materials for each of my units that I am doing. This is really helpful as I can access this from anywhere from college or even from home.

This is an image of how my intranet looks like.

Instant Messaging (IM)
Instant Messaging (IM) is real time communication between two or more people which is based on typed text. The text is transmitted through computers connected over the internet. Instant messaging uses tools like Microsoft Live Messenger, AOL and Yahoo, most of which are free; many programs require users to create a screen name so that the user can be identified by others.  Instant messaging is frequently used in the workforce as a fast way for employees to communicate with each other. Instant messaging is similar to chatting in a private chatroom, although anybody can join the conversation. Instant messenger allows only people that the user has invited. People using instant messaging can create lists of groups to keep people separated keep track of welcome guests. This also sends an alert that pops up on the computer screen when a new message is received. There are some risks related with instant messaging such as computers catching viruses, personal information being stolen. However, these risks can be avoided when the proper protections are followed.  

• Security risks, such as messaging used to infect computers with spyware, virus, Trojans and worms.
• Inappropriate use. 
• Potential loss of company data.

The difference between email and instant messaging is that email is short for Electronic Mail and the mail is communicated from the sender’s computer to server and from there to the recipient’s server, where it can be viewed or downloaded. Instant messaging and needs the users to be logged in to the same server, where messages are delivered instantly. Email may be read independent of the software that was used to create it whereas the instant messaging requires the users to use the same software. Emails may only be read as and when the recipient downloads and views it whereas in with instant messaging the messages are displayed on the receiver’s computer instantly.

Online Whiteboard
Online whiteboard is like a classroom whiteboard or chalkboard, it is a blank surface or space on which to draw and write. Using your computer mouse as the chalk, you can write on the blank whiteboard for others to see. This allows users to write messages to each other, including drawing pictures which can be useful when discussing designs and ideas. An example of this is ‘http://www.scribblar.com’, which allows you to ‘scribble’. For example with this for collaborative working you can draw a design for people in your group to view or which they can use later and even edit if there is anything they might think that is wrong or even to improve, this can also be used to draw out mind maps. Other examples such as flow chart, organisation chart, network diagram, EE diagram, floor plan, comics, sports play and marked up picture. Whiteboards allow collaboration between students in a range of subjects. Disadvantage is that it can be quite expensive, online whiteboards are more expensive than traditional whiteboards and projector screens. For example if a business group have come up with a new idea for a product they can draw this using the online whiteboard then another member of the group can edit the drawing or even add new features to the product. One of the functions about online whiteboard programs is that it is frequently used by businesses and schools that manner training through online services. They allow leaders to demonstrate in the direction of remote groups just as they would in a classroom or conference setting. As there are online whiteboards that cost, however there are also some free ones that people can download and use them on their computer. I will prove a link in which where people can download these whiteboards from.

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2010/04/6-free-online-interactive-white-boards/

Online Collaborative Organiser
An online collaborative organiser is like a shared diary where users can organise all their events such as meeting s. Most diary programs will allow users to give permission for others to view their appointments. This can be useful when trying to organise meetings with several different people. Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar have this type of facility. An advantage is that it saves people having to travel to get to the meetings, in case of being late; these applications also allow the collaborators to attach file and photos. This is suitable for business as they can use these features to make their business more professional. Disadvantage can be that you may not get to see people as much face to face. An example can be that when a business is holding a meeting the person organising the meeting will can set it up through an online collaborative organiser and can ask who can be available to attend the meeting. This is great as it can save more time but users must always update their dairies. 

These are ICT tools that can be used collaboratively to carry out a range of simple project management functions. The applications allow collaborators to have a central page that holds to-do lists, implementation notes, photos and attached files. Collaborative organisers like ‘Backpack’ are available in a limited free form such as simple scheduling, share files and track people's time, without having to download any software. ICT tools use collaboratively to carry out range of simple project management functions. The applications allow collaborators to have a central page that holds to-do lists, implementation notes, photos and attached files. Collaborative organiser like Backpack is available in a limited free form. BaseCamp is a web based collaboration tool. Which makes it possible for group communication with collaborators, assign to dos and tasks, post messages and gather feedback. This also allows them to organise simple scheduling, share files and track people’s time, without having to download any other type of software.