Collaboration Technology for Teachers & Researchers 
 

Key points to consider

• Asynchronous collaboration tools
• Real-time collaboration tools
• Campus tools vs. off-campus hosted (free) tools

Asynchronous collaboration tools

1.  Listserv lists? – (UIC) ancient but proven email distribution lists
   
   
2.  WebDisks – (UIC) Think of WebDisks as having flash/thumb drives on the Web with granular control for read-only and read-write sharing and saving files and folders with selected people at UIC, with non-UIC folks, with everyone at UIC and/or with the whole Internet at large.  Everyone at UIC has a personal WebDisk.  Additionally, faculty members and departments can get larger WebDisks (starting at 500MB) for teaching, research and other official university activities.
   
   
3. personal and group blogs and wikis (UIC and off-campus hosted)
   Check and subscribe to the RSS feed of the ITL Blog at www.accc.uic.edu/itl/blog
   
   
4. Twitter (off-campus hosted)
   
   
5. Podcasts (MP3 audio recordings), Flash Video streaming (UIC)
   
   
6. Off-campus tools: blogs, wikis, GoogleDocs, Google Sites, Adobe Buzzword
   
   
7. Social networking environments :: Blackboard work sites (UIC), Ning (off-campus hosted)

Real-time collaboration tools

1. MeetMe telephone conferencing (UIC)
   
   
2. Web conferencing tools: ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra)(UIC)
   others hosted off-campus: WebEx, Microsoft LiveMeeting, Elluminate
   always consider the convenience of on-demand session archives
   
   
3. Pronto Instant Messenger
   Automatic single sign-on (and seamless integration) with Blackboard course sites and Blackboard work sites, and used outside of Blackboard
   
   
4. Other Instant Messenger tools: Skype, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL, jabber and GoogleTalk
   
   
5. Video conferencing
   like Polycom video conferencing systems, supported at UIC 
   H.323 standards-compliant standard definition and high-definition