This report is a compulsory and important part of our course. In this report we talked about introduction and definition of collaborative writing. Later on we discussed different roles and key activities of collaborative writing, then some examples are given and at the end some issues and problems are discussed.
Introduction
Collaborative Writing is highly essential and group act in which promises are likely to increase, collaborative writing is widely used in industries and academia.
Given the importance of collaborative writing and its interdisciplinary nature, researchers have examined it from social interdisciplinary perspective.
Although notable interdisciplinary collaborative writing research has been produced much of the research is disjoint, assumes contrasting definition of collaborative writing (Beck, 1993) and lack of common taxonomy and nomenclature of interdisciplinary discussion, this lack of common understanding of collaborative writing undermines the efforts of researcher and practitioner especially in interdisciplinary efforts such as developing technology to support collaborative writing.
Collaborative writing is salient area of collaborative research and practice that has significant impact in academia, industry and government.
There are also some collaborative writing issues that will likely need interdisciplinary research for resolution including issue of poor task definition, personality differences, leadership, group dynamics, managing group and hidden agenda (Formen and Katsky 1986), inequitable work distribution and difficulties in monitoring progress (Krant Galengher and Egido 1989).
To make progress on these issues, more interdisciplinary research needs to be conducted to learn about appropriate collaborative writing processes and activities that predict success and failure of different kinds of collaborative writing teams that work on various writing tasks. A consistent nomenclature and taxonomy of collaborative writing would also aid the interdisciplinary collaborative writing community in continuing to build on its rich research tradition. Too often in our disciplines we are quick to move on to the latest and greatest trends, yet slow to build on the rich contributions of the past.
Definition
Allen, Atkinson, Morgan, Moore, and Snow (1987) define Collaborative writing as "collaborators producing a shared document, engaging in substantive interaction about that document, and sharing decision-making power and responsibility for it.
Bosley (1989) proposes Collaborative writing as two or more people working together to produce one written document in a situation in which a group takes responsibility for having produced the document.
Rice and Huguley (1994) offer yet another definition which emphasizes the primary activities of Collaborative writing Collaborative is any writing performed collectively by more than one person that is used to produce a single text; and we define writing as any activity that leads to a completed document, including brainstorming or idea generating, gathering research, planning and organizing, drafting, revision, and editing.
The limitation of these and the many other definitions of collaborative writing is that they do not generalize well to the interdisciplinary nature of collaborative writing because they are often restricted to the authors' particular research interests in collaborative writing, whether it be socialization or COLLABORATIVE WRITING activities or composition. Adding to the confusion, collaborative writing researchers and practitioners do not even agree on a common term for collaborative writing. Although collaborative writing appears to be the most commonly used term in research to describe the process of writing as a group (Beard, Rymer, & Williams, 1989; Bosley, 1989; Duin, 1990; Ede&Lunsford, 1990; Lay, 1989; Trimbur,1985)
Different Roles in Collaborative Writing
It may be formal or informal responsibility in a CW that a participant has in a CW group. It is known to the group and it may be for a Known or unknown amount of time. Several roles are used in CW, and it may change over time depending on the activity the CW group is engaged in. Different Roles in collaborating are as fallows
Writer
A writer is a person who creates a written work and in collaborative writing it's a person who is responsible for writing a portion of the content in a collaborative writing document.
Consultant
Consultant is a person who provides advice in particular area and he is a specialist at that particular area. In Collaborative writing a consultant is a person who is normally external to a project team who provides content- and process-related feedback but has no ownership or responsibility for content production.
Editor
A person who has responsibility and ownership for the overall content production of the writers and he can make both content and style changes to a shared document.
Reviewer
A person who has responsibility and ownership for the overall content production of the writers and who can make both content and style changes to a shared document.
Team Leader
A team leader is someone who provides guidance, instruction, directions, and leadership to a group of other individuals for the purpose of achieving a key result or a group of aligned results.
In collaborative writing it's a person who is part of the collaborative writing team and who may fully participate in authorship and reviewing activities but also leads the team through appropriate processes, planning, rewarding, and motivating.
Facilitator
A facilitator is someone who helps a group of people understand their common objectives and assists them to plan to achieve them without taking a particular position in the discussion. In collaborative writing it's a person who is external to the collaborative writing team who leads a team through appropriate processes and does not give content-related feedback.
Key activities in Collaborative Writing
Key activities performed in collaborative work are as fallows
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a group creativity technique designed to generate a large number of ideas for the solution of a problem. In collaborative writing brainstorming is developing new ideas for a paper draft.
Converging on brainstorming
This activity includes deciding what to do with the brainstormed ideas as a group.
Outlining
Outlining is creating a high level direction in which the document will be going, including major sections and subsections.
Drafting
Drafting is the initial incomplete text of a document.
Reviewing
Reviewing is having a participant or an editor read and annotates document draft sections for content, grammar, and style improvements.
Revising
Revising is responding to review comments by making changes in the draft that reflect the review comments. Revising is used over editing to distinguish this activity more clearly from copyediting and from the editorial process of reviewing.
Copyediting
The process of making final changes that are universally administered to a document to make a document more consistent usually made by one person charged with this responsibility.
Examples of Collaborative Writing:
There are some examples of technologies that support Collaborative writing e.g Google docs and Wikipedia.
Google Docs:
The first one is Google Docs which originated from two separate products, Writely and Google Spreadsheets. Writely was a web-based word processor created by the software company Upstartle and launched in August 2005. Spreadsheets, launched as Google Labs Spreadsheets on June 6, 2006, originated from the acquisition of the XL2Web product by 2Web Technologies. Writely's original features included a collaborative text editing suite and access controls. Menus, keyboard shortcuts, and dialog boxes are similar to what users may expect in a desktop word processor such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer.
On March 9, 2006, Google announced that it had acquired Upstartle. At the time of acquisition, Upstartle had four employees. Writely closed registration to its service until the move to Google servers was complete. In August 2006, Writely sent account invitations to everyone who had requested to be placed on a waiting list, and then became publicly available on August 23. Writely continued to maintain its own user system until September 19, 2006, when it was integrated with Google Accounts.
Google developed Google Spreadsheets using the technology it had acquired from 2Web Technologies in 2005 and launched Google Labs Spreadsheets[8] [9] on June 6, 2006 as the first public component of what would eventually become Google Docs. It was initially made available to only a limited number of users, on a first-come, first-served basis. The limited test was later replaced with a beta version available to all Google Account holders, around the same time as a press release was issued.
In February 2007, Google Docs was made available to Google Apps users.
In June 2007, Google changed the front page to include folders instead of labels, organized in a side bar.
On September 17, 2007, Google released their presentation program product for Google Docs.
On July 6th, 2009, Google announced on their official blog that Google Docs along with other Google Apps would be taken out of beta.
On January 13, 2010, Google announced on their official blog that Google Docs would allow any file type, including 1GB of free space and $0.25/GB for additional storage.
On January 29, 2010, Google announced that support for IE6 would end on March 1.
Features:
It's free!
Create and share your work online
Upload from and save to your desktop
Pick who can access your documents
Many users can be working on the same document at the same time.
Automatically saves every minute or so, but you should occasionally use the done button just in case, and save copies onto your own computer periodically.
Keeps track of previous revisions which you can access with the Revisions button.
Uses an interface that looks and works a lot like Word, so the learning curve is very short.
You can cut and paste from Word and export in different formats
Files are stored securely online
Data storage of any files up to 1GB each in size was introduced on January 13, 2010.
2. Wikipedia:
Wiki is just a word processing program that is online and it is basically designed for collaborative authorship. A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. It is accessed from anywhere. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites. They are probably the most important tools for collaborative writing, although so far there have been far more failures than successes.
The term collaborative writing refers to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. Some projects are overseen by an editor or editorial team.
In a true collaborative environment, each contributor has an almost equal ability to add, edit, and remove text. The writing process becomes a recursive task, where each change prompts others to make more changes. It is easier to do if the group has a specific end goal in mind, and harder if a goal is absent or vague.
A very good method of discussion and communication is essential, especially if disagreements arise. Successful collaboration occurs when each participant [or stakeholder] is able to make a unique contribution toward achieving a common vision or goal statement. Supporting this common goal are objectives that have been generated by each of the participants. It is important for each participant to "feel" as though he or she has a significant contribution to make to the achievement of goals. It is also important that each participant be held accountable for contributing to the writing project.
Collaborative writing can lead to projects that are richer and more complex than those produced by individuals. Many learning communities include one or more collaborative assignments. However, writing with others also makes the writing task more complex.
Advantages:
Using collaborative writing tools can provide substantial advantages to projects ranging from increased user commitment to easier, more effective and efficient work processes.
It is often the case that when users can directly contribute to an effort and feel that they've made a difference, they become more involved with and attached to the outcome of the project. The users then feel more comfortable contributing time, effort, and personal pride into the final product, resulting in a better final outcome.
In addition, collaborative writing tools have made it easier to design better work processes. These tools provide ways to monitor what users are contributing and when they contribute so managers can quickly verify that assigned work is being completed. Since these tools typically provide revision tracking, it has also made data sharing simpler. Users won't have to keep track of what version is the current working revision since the software has automated that.
Furthermore, because this software typically provides ways for users to chat in real time, projects can be completed faster because users don't have to wait for other users to respond by asynchronous means like email.
One more advantage is that since this software makes it easy for users to contribute from anywhere in the world, projects can benefit from the inclusion of perspectives from people all around the world.
Collaborative Writing issues and problems:
Collaborative is difficult face-to-face, but online it can be truly difficult. Groups have to deal with language and cultural barriers, time zone issues and overall communication issues. These challenges are inherent in teamwork.
Teamwork suffers when the right people work on the wrong things on wrong time, or when roles, expectations or responsibilities shift quickly and unexpectedly.
Expectation of content and user controls - Often, issues will come up when access to documents becomes a necessity and multiple people are contributing. It is imperative to have appropriate user access controls in place to ensure smooth files transitions. Proper controls must exist that allow people to work on files either as a simultaneously shared or checked out document. User accounts need not be hierarchical but changes from all accounts should not run the risk or being overridden.
Controls should be in place that allows user checkout capability or a "sandbox" area where changes can then be merged. While providing an environment is important, establishing guidelines and the expectation of the type of content that will be submitted is equally important. Having a content editor to proof-read to maintain quality and ensure one coordinated voice should also be considered
Cultural barriers that lead to communication issues - as the work force becomes more diverse, language and cultural differences must be taken into consideration to ensure a seamless assimilation into the group while still being respectful of others traditions. An organization must be proactive or risk misunderstandings that will hinder communication and creates work space issues.
Time-zone - It is always a challenge coordination meetings with a disparate group of people who are all busy with other projects, it becomes more of an issue when trying to coordinate with those in different time-zones. When arranging meetings with those from different time zones, it is good to accommodate parties by compromising on schedules or using collaborative software that allow sessions to be recorded for later use.
Users may not be able to check the large data source, and will enter in data more than once. Which will creates more content than needed.
There is a possibility that users may accidentally delete material. Without the correct access management system, this could occur.
This also requires a constant internet connection, and a server that is always available. Users cannot always be online to access documents.
Other Examples of CW that will likely need interdisciplinary research for resolution include issues with:
Poor task definition, Personality differences, Leadership, Group dynamics
Managing a group, Hidden agendas, Inequitable work distribution and difficulties in monitoring progress, Self-disclosure, Control, Trust, Perception, Roles and reward, Ideology, Freeloading, Confusion, Time management, Expense, Excessive diversity of ideas, Disjointed efforts and lack of cohesion, Stylistics inconsistencies, Satisfaction and creativity, Communication and planning, Distributed work, Conflict, Coordinating work and challenging and questioning authority, Version control, And effective use of technology,
To make progress on these issues more interdisciplinary research needs to be conducted to learn about CW processes and activities that predict success and failure of different kinds of CW teams that work on various writing tasks. Like interdisciplinary cancer research, Interdisciplinary CW research will be aided by use of a common taxonomy and nomenclature.
Conclusion:
CW is a critical form of communication and that despite its complexities; CW is likely to continue in its importance in the future. If properly performed, CW can be more effective than single-author writing, and this explains its heavy use in education and industry. Furthermore, CW is a form of group work that has a substantial research history but also has many inconsistencies and areas for improvement, as evidenced by the scant CW research that has been published in peer-reviewed journals
