Productivity for Professors: Part Three, Collaborative Editing
This is the third posting in a series of 7 blog postings, in which I explain some of the productivity tools that I use (or have used) and would recommend to university faculty members.
These are the other items in the series:
Email | Calendar | Collaborative Editing | To-Do Lists | Blogging for Professors | Reading Blogs | Exercise and Nutrition
PART 3: Collaborative Editing
Topics in this Part:
3.a. Using Google Docs (and Spreadsheets, and Presentations)
3.b. How to stop whining about Wikipedia and make it better
3.a. Using Google Docs
Google docs is another free service from Google. Google docs is a collection of simple, web-based office productivity tools, including a word processor (i.e. Word), spreadsheet (i.e. Excel), and presentation tool (i.e. Powerpoint).
The advantages of using these tools over typical desktop-based tools in some situations are as follows:
Ways that I have used Google Docs in an academic setting are as follows:
3.b. How to stop whining about Wikipedia and make it better
Many professors despise Wikipedia. There is no faster way to get professors into an argument than to drop the wiki-bomb in the middle of a lunch meeting. (Try either, "So I've banned wikipedia from all student work this semester" or "So I've got students editing Wikipedia entries in class" for fun.) Some professors hate it, some love it.
Regardless of whether you love or hate the site, the fact is that students (and regular people too!) use it. It has great Google search placement for most terms, and it's not going away anytime soon.
So how can we make the content on the site better? How can we make the pages refer to actual facts and outside resources and not just on Some Random Dude's Opinion? Easy. Sign up for an account, and edit the site when you find a problem there.
Well, I said that was "easy", and it turns out it is a little harder than that. (Like life, huh?) Here's what to do:
These are the other items in the series:
Email | Calendar | Collaborative Editing | To-Do Lists | Blogging for Professors | Reading Blogs | Exercise and Nutrition
PART 3: Collaborative Editing
Topics in this Part:
3.a. Using Google Docs (and Spreadsheets, and Presentations)
3.b. How to stop whining about Wikipedia and make it better
3.a. Using Google Docs
Google docs is another free service from Google. Google docs is a collection of simple, web-based office productivity tools, including a word processor (i.e. Word), spreadsheet (i.e. Excel), and presentation tool (i.e. Powerpoint).
The advantages of using these tools over typical desktop-based tools in some situations are as follows:
- You can create a document and share it with multiple people. These people all access the document over the web, using a browser, so no desktop software is required.
- You can see each other's changes, and you can see a history of changes to the document. If multiple people are editing at once, you can watch each other make changes. In Google Spreadsheets, you can actually turn on a live, real-time chat feature and discuss the document as you edit it.
- You can keep your documents (relatively) private. The default settings for a document are to NOT have it published to the web. However, if you choose to turn on publishing, you can have your document searchable by Google.
Ways that I have used Google Docs in an academic setting are as follows:
- I have used it to write papers and grant applications (including budgets) with colleagues, or to brainstorm about new ideas
- Students can use it to create reports, presentations, and spreadsheets for group projects without having to send emails all over the place. They can sometimes be disorganized and frustrated with the organizational mechanics of group work.
- To create a long-term bibliography or collection of links that I need other people to be able to access, but I don't want to store on a public service like del.icio.us
3.b. How to stop whining about Wikipedia and make it better
Many professors despise Wikipedia. There is no faster way to get professors into an argument than to drop the wiki-bomb in the middle of a lunch meeting. (Try either, "So I've banned wikipedia from all student work this semester" or "So I've got students editing Wikipedia entries in class" for fun.) Some professors hate it, some love it.
Regardless of whether you love or hate the site, the fact is that students (and regular people too!) use it. It has great Google search placement for most terms, and it's not going away anytime soon.
So how can we make the content on the site better? How can we make the pages refer to actual facts and outside resources and not just on Some Random Dude's Opinion? Easy. Sign up for an account, and edit the site when you find a problem there.
Well, I said that was "easy", and it turns out it is a little harder than that. (Like life, huh?) Here's what to do:
- Go to Wikipedia and click on "create an account".
- Find the page you want to edit and click "edit this page" at the top, or BETTER YET, click "edit" on the right-hand side of the page, near the section you want to make the changes to. Start with making textual changes (i.e. removing spam, correcting spelling, making the writing more clear, etc), and move up to adding links and adding new headings later as you get more familiar with the service.
- If you're wondering about the changes that have been made to a page, or if you find yourself asking, "who added this garbage to this page?", click "history" and scroll down the list of changes. You can often pinpoint who the perpetrator was, either by username or by IP address.
- If you're concerned about the content on a particular page, say you make a bunch of changes to a page on a topic for which you are the world's #1 leading expert and you want to see who else is making changes so that they don't contradict yours, click "watch" at the top of the page you're interested in. (Make sure you're logged in first.) This will add the page to your watchlist, and you'll be able to see recent changes to these pages all in one place.
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