DITA Users Collaboration Tools
Just as we use many knowledge building and social networking tools for the network of DITA support sites, we use a wide variety of collaboration technologies.
- Web pages with threaded comment discussions (members can subscribe to a page to receive changes by email).
- Web presentations that can be driven (slide advance, pause, etc.) by any member attending an online meeting. See DITA Users first webinar.
- Telephone conference meetings using the free phone bridge at freeconference.com.
- Screen-sharing tools for up to 25 people in a meeting. We are now using a number of tools:
- Elluminate Academic Office - a powerful system aimed at online eLearning - now our major collaboration tool.
- The open-source screen sharing tool Real VNC, which allows remote computer access for training one person. There are also Macintosh versions from Chicken of the VNC. There is support for all major browsers. (Downloads below.)
- We have tested eBLVD and hope to test GoToMeeting, Adobe Connect, Microsoft Live Meeting, and WebEx.
- Meeting recordings, with audio, video, and presentation or shared application recording. See DITA Quick Start tutorials.
We are also exploring still lower-cost collaborative technologies.
- VoIP (Voice over IP)
- Client/Server - Vonage, Net2Phone
- Peer-to-peer - Skype
- Voice Chat (developed for networked game players) - GameVoice, TeamSound, TeamSpeak, Ventrilo. This technology is used for SecondLife meetings on Christian Kravogel's DITA Island.
- IRC Chat - requires a Chat client (e.g., Bersirc)
- IM (Instant Messaging) - requires an IM account (Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.)
- Listen to the audio webcast, then participate by email. (BloggerCon and OSCOM meetings at Harvard have been very successful fielding email questions from listeners to the webcast).
Here are links to the VNC client and server for Windows and Macintosh platforms.
Here is the link to our
Elluminate Academic Office.
