Case studies - ICT tools to support collaborative working

DirectSupport: Extranet
DirectSupport is a free guidance and mentoring service for UK online centres, focusing mainly on community and voluntary UK online centres. DirectSupport uses an extranet for web based collaboration.
Charity Web Forum: Email group
Charity Web Forum is an email group set up by the Royal National Institute for the Blind to facilitate charities sharing information and knowledge about the web.
CAN-Online: Online database
Community Action Network (CAN) is a UK organisation for social entrepreneurs. CAN uses an internet-based contacts database which is managed by all its staff and partners.
Leicestershire County Council: Content Management System
has been building up an ICT community to help address rural isolation by providing information and services electronically. It uses a Content Management System to allow communities to manage their own information.
ruralnet|uk: Blogging
is a rural regeneration charity that promotes a living and working countryside and finds new ways to help rural communities improve and strengthen their local economies. ruralnet|uk distributes its daily online digest of development news in the form of a blog.
ladder4learning: Wiki
promotes learning for people and organisations in the community and voluntary in South East England. It uses a wiki to provide a regularly updated jargon buster for the voluntary and community sector.
VolResource: RSS feeds
aims to provide practical resources for people involved in the voluntary sector, making use of communications technology. It uses an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed to disseminate news items for the voluntary sector.

Case Study: Extranet - DirectSupport

DirectSupport is a free guidance and mentoring service for UK online centres, focusing mainly on community and voluntary UK online centres. UK online centres are community based centres giving local access to computers, internet and email to those who would not otherwise be able to get online.

The DirectSupport Extranet is a web based collaboration system. There are collaboration areas which function like a set of shared email boxes. Messages can be sent in, read, forwarded and replied to and files downloaded by all subscribers to the extranet. This means that information can be received and responded to in a way that gives complete visibility of all the shared information with all the subscribers. Information security is by login ID and password. Additionally, there are Calendar and Diary facilities which allow sharing information on whereabouts of people or availability of resources etc.

Advantages:

It provides a cost effective solution by bringing together a complete package of solutions for communication and information sharing needs for a dispersed group of people.
It allows a number of people to share information quickly.
It is responsive and flexible as its structure can be changed very quickly.
Individuals do not need to maintain mailing groups etc. This is all managed centrally.
All support costs are included in the subscription with no further software or hardware expense needed.

Disadvantages:

Discipline and training are required to ensure that all extranet users (subscribers) use the system in a way that will not inconvenience other users.
There can be a problem with people accessing the information and not realising how much information and functionality is available, especially if they access the system without training.
As the extranet is an off the shelf product, users may have to be flexible in their expectations.

More information: www.directsupport.org.uk

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Case Study: Email Group - CharityWebForum

The Charity Web Forum is an email group set up by RNIB to facilitate charitiessharing information and knowledge about the subject of the web. Most postings are from new or less experienced web staff and a fairly small core of 'experts'. Membership is moderated.

The Charity Web Forum uses Yahoo! Groups to host its group because when it was started this was the leader in providing the service. Now many email, ISP and search engine providers have a tool which allows a group of people to set up an email interest group. In the case of the Forum, any member can post an email to the group and the rest of the group will receive the email. Members can usually chose whether to receive the email immediately, as a daily digest or not at all, in which case they must visit the website to join in. On the website the emails are stored in threads by conversation and date.

Advantages:

It is a useful way for new or less experienced charity staff to get information and share learning.
The instant emails allow for lively discussions and postings can be extremely informative.
It is open to all the Voluntary and Community Sector and moderation is light-handed.
It allows those with longer or deeper experience to share with others in an open and public way.
The open nature of the emails prevents members joining simply to make a hard sell.
The open conversations lead to lively and interesting debate, but it is kept clean and polite.

Disadvantages:

New members do not check the existing listing for previous threads, which is understandable as there are many thousands, but the group gets the same questions repeated every few months by relative beginners.
Some members try to use the tool as a self promotion mechanism and this can become frustrating.
Sometimes people forget the audience and write either biased or extremely techie answers which the majority of the audience will not understand.
Occasionally someone will give out incorrect information and this is dangerous as the vast majority of users will not know they are being misled. Generally there will be someone on hand to correct any mistake.

More information: Charity Technology Trust www.ctt.org

Case Study: Membership Database - CAN (Community Action Network)

CAN is a UK organisation for social entrepreneurs. The CAN team and members deliver community projects in almost every field of social change and service delivery. CAN aims to stimulate new, entrepreneurial ways to tackle social problems more effectively and more efficiently by connecting people in communities, bringing together those from voluntary and not-for-profit organisations with the public and private sectors. One of the strengths of CAN is the amount of online networking and collaboration that is achieved by its members, who need to maintain an awareness of where and how other members are working. An up-to-date, searchable online database has proved invaluable for this.

CAN have an internet-based contacts database which can managed by all its staff and partners, wherever they are located, using an internet connection. They use the database in traditional ways for mailmerges, label printing, event and contact management. Staff can edit records, add new ones and delete them. Data can be exported for use on other applications and imported from other sources. The same database is accessed directly by the CAN website to provide up to date information to website visitors on CAN membership.

CAN members forms the largest section on the database. From the database, the CAN administration staff can automatically produce renewal notification letters, invoices and generate mailing lists for all, or targeted groups of members. They also use the database to keep a history of communications with each member. One section of the CAN website is a directory of members which promotes the cause of the member organisation and gives contact details. This information is automatically updated on the CAN website from the Contacts database as soon as an update occurs avoiding duplication of data entry and ensuring the data is current. Locating the database in a secure location on the internet, rather than on an office-based PC, provides appropriate levels of access to the data for CAN collaborators wherever they may be.

Advantages:

The database makes information available to all of CAN and can be updated by everyone.
By maintaining it centrally, it ensures that it is as accurate and up to date as possible for everyone.
The direct link to the Website is also a big plus keeping the 2 data sources in step.
The design of the database allows easy maintenance so that CAN can add additional data and structures without disrupting the existing information held.

Disadvantages:

To keep the data on the database current and relevant requires on-going communication with members and other contacts to ensure they have not moved or left the organisation. This is a time consuming on-going exercise.

More information: www.can-online.org.uk

Case Study: Content Management System - Leicestershire County Council

Leicestershire County Council have been building up an ICT community since 2001 to help address rural isolation by providing information and services electronically. They built a Content Management System to allow communities to manage their own information. The system is easy to use with no technical skills required and has a hierarchical management system, so a user can register and add content at an appropriate level.

The infrastructure comprises a community website for every village in Leicestershire, individual Parish Council, Community for Voluntary Sector (CVS) and Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) websites. The village website (www.leicestershirevillages.com) is seen as the hub of the infrastructure with all other community websites branching off this. All the sites have been created to allow interactivity at three levels: a browser, a registered user, or an editor.

A browser just looks at the site as any other web user would, and can enjoy the wealth of information.
A registered user will be able to post in certain limited areas of the websites. They can post items informing their community or community group electronically about content applicable to their organisation or village.
An editor has more general powers. They can create pages and allocate and approve content posted by registered users.

Leicestershire County Council built a Content Management System (CMS) as there wasn't anything else suitable at the time and seemed the best tool to allow communities to manage their own content.

Advantages:

The system is easy to use with no technical skills required and has a hierarchical management system, so a user can register and add content at a suitable level without any reliance on anyone else.
They can be escalated to a higher level user group with a simple request.
Users only need to register once and with appropriate permissions have access throughout all portals, so they only need to learn to use one set of tools as these are the same throughout the portals. This saves time on training and allows the user to see how the sites all interact.
The tools used to produce the various web sites are available as open source from www.leicestershirecommunity.com along with a list of portals hosted on the community server.
If organisations are transferring their existing website to this technology they can still maintain the look and feel of their existing website. Postings can be made village/district/county wide to enable people to reach as wide an audience as possible if required.

Disadvantages:

Mainly around the capacity to engage with minimal resources. They have addressed this by rolling out www.leicestershirevillages.com throughout Leicestershire libraries. Training the staff on using this has also helped engage more with the public by directing them back to the libraries.
Misunderstandings have arisen on the best place to put certain content. For instance the Parish Council website is an official e-government website and should reflect the business of the Parish Council, but a common mistake is entering community information on this site instead of putting it on the village website, which has led in some instances to duplication of data. This has been overcome this by re-educating the users.

More information: www.leicestershirevillages.com

Case Study: Blogs - ruralnet|uk

ruralnet|uk is a rural regeneration charity which promotes a living and working countryside and finds new ways to help rural communities improve and strengthen their local economies. It has specialist skills in Information, Communications and Collaboration Technologies (ICCTs) and wide experience covering their potential and appropriate use for rural areas.

In 2005, ruralnet|uk started experimenting with putting their daily online digest of development news, xPRESS Digest, in the form of a weblog. Previously this had only been available to subscribers; ruralnet|uk saw this as a way of distributing it to a wider audience - and it could be used by other sites as an RSS feed on their pages.

Following on from this, it 'blogged' its Conference, ruralnet|2005. It found this valuable - both for putting out information ahead of the conference and for disseminating information afterwards. In addition, the 'comments' facility of a blog allows people to respond directly - not just with comments, but questions too - which can initiate discussion and collaboration.

Since then, it has converted part of its website - www.ruralnetuk.org - into taking blog feeds - namely the Press Release/News section, and the list of the projects it has undertaken.

Blogs like the ruralnet conference blog can aid collaboration within a team or joint project (several authors contributing to one blog), providing a way of collecting thoughts, articles and links in one easily accessible place.

Outside a single blog, people interested in a common theme or topic can collaborate using their own blogs (single author, single blog). Each individual or organisation can read, comment and link to each others posts on their own blog. Tools like RSS enable those using blogs to easily keep up with new articles being posted on other blogs.

Advantages:

The blog allows easy creation of new pages by non-technical users with the appropriate permissions, empowering them to publish important information directly: new data are entered into a simple form (with the title, the categories, and the body of the article) and then submitted. Automated templates take care of adding a shortened form of the article to the main page, creating the new full article page (Permalink), and adding the article to the appropriate date and category-based archive. Adding material to the website has thus become a much more collaborative process.
It allows for easy filtering of content for various presentations: by date, or category.
It can allow people to comment on the material and ask questions.
It gives greater flexibility in adding material. The administrator can give privileges to the person that just uses a particular blog. They don't need special software to update it; they don't even need to be web literate (although a certain measure does help).
Material can be keyworded, making it searchable and so very easy to access data if people are looking for information on a particular area.

Disadvantages:

Problems came from the fact that it used a standard software package (TypePad) rather than designing its own blog - which would have had time and cost implications. TypePad provided a quick and simple solution, but it does have limitations.
Some disadvantages related to the initial change-over of material. For example, because the format of a blog is to display material on the day it was published, with the most recent first, when trying to put up projects that were started in the 1980s, the calendar had to be adjusted in order to get the correct date, and that was time-consuming and not easy.
An ongoing problem is updating blogs which need a great deal of new information added. Because the information is usually uploaded to an external website it requires a good connection to be maintained during the entire upload. This can be difficult to achieve using a normal web browser and the process may be interrupted. There are certain pieces of software that allow you to write and edit blog posts offline and upload several posts at once; the best one ruralnet|uk has found is ecto.

More information: www.ruralnet.org.uk

Case Study: Wiki - ladder4learning

ladder4learning promotes learning for people and organisations in the community and voluntary in South East England. ladder4learning has developed a Jargon Buster Wiki because the Voluntary and Community Sector uses a range of inaccessible terms and acronyms.

The rapidly changing nature of the sector means that new initiatives and their corresponding terms come and go and it can be very hard to keep up to date with the latest jargon and acronyms. While a number of Jargon Busters exist, they rapidly become outdated. A wiki allows for rapid and regular updating by anyone in the VCS and this enables a collaborative approach on a national scale.

The Wiki (http://vcsjargonbuster.wikispaces.com/) has an introduction page and an alphabetical grid in the left margin. Users searching for the definition of a word or acronym click on the letter that the word/acronym begins with and they are taken to the appropriate page. The user then scrolls down to the appropriate place (alphabetically). If the word/acronym being sought is not there, the user can add it and a definition will be added by another user or the ladder4learning office. Users can register as members of the wiki, or they can use the wiki as a guest and remain anonymous. The success of this collaboration can be seen by the fact that the majority of definitions are added to and edited by people and groups outside ladder4learning.

An RSS feed allows ladder staff to monitor use of the Wiki and filter out any inappropriate use or seek and add definitions where required.

Advantages:

Cheap to set up and run.
Quick and easy to update.
The latest/current version can be accessed from anywhere (with an internet connection).
People can make enquiries anonymously (e.g. enter an acronym they don't understand and await a response without having to tell anyone they don't know what something means; for some people, this is very important).
Its collaborative nature means definitions can be provided by the most appropriate people - whether they are part of the organisation ladder4learning or not.
RSS feed enables effective monitoring.
Enables review of past changes and reverting to previous versions if necessary.

Disadvantages:

With such collaborative, free-use tools there is always the potential for abuse of the site, for example the addition of inappropriate words and definitions.
At the current usage rate, the RSS feed (which notifies ladder of the 3 most recent changes) enables ladder to check on all use of the site. However, if many people were making updates/alterations to the site during the same time periods, not all alterations would be picked up by ladder's monitoring of the RSS feed and so alternative means of monitoring site usage would need to be devised.
If two or more users strongly disagreed about a definition a wiki-argument' could ensue with users editing and re-editing each other's contributions. If such people were using the site with a guest' status, it would be hard to mediate such a dispute. If they are registered members, ladder would have contact details for the individuals and would hope to mediate off-line (via e-mail) and resolve any such dispute. Such a dispute has not occurred to date.

More information: www.ladder4learning.org.uk

Case Study: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) - VolResource

VolResource aims to provide practical resources for people involved in the voluntary sector, making use of communications technology such as a website, an email newsletter. Their dynamic news pages give the flexibility to allow voluntary organisations to add their own news. The latest 20 news items on VolResource/VoluntaryNews have been available as an RSS feed since 2003.

Since March 2006, news items have been processed using WordPress blogging, allowing organisations to add their own news, which is automatically produced as RSS feeds for the latest news. People taking the RSS feeds can limit their choices to a particular category, as well as accessing news more broadly.

VolResource chose these tools because they like to demonstrate the possibilities available. They believe that if they can collaborate with other providers, on limited resources, then so can others. They consider this to be a 'work in progress'; RSS is likely to develop further, with more features.

Advantages:

With current technology, it is pretty much click and go'. Once set up, there is no extra work at the web management end and the subscriber updating systems puts relatively little load on the server (hosting computer).
Users gain by not re-visiting sites to check for new items when there aren't any. They have control - they can delete any feed from their subscribed lists very easily.
In some ways, organisations might see RSS as a very basic email newsletter which draws subscriber attention to the latest news.
You have to get subscribers to sign up. How effective it is depends on how they've set up the software.

Disadvantages:

Different versions of RSS can cause confusion, although most feed readers cope with most formats.
Partly because of differing standards, and no central overseeing body, there are varying ways of how to display an RSS feed link on web pages. This can cause confusion, and has probably led to relatively slow uptake outside web/techie enthusiasts.

More information: www.volresource.org.uk