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Online collaboration tips and tools

Teamwork is highly valued by universities as well as prospective employees. 

You need interactive, organisational, interpersonal and communication skills.

Follow the links below to learn about the various aspects of teamwork, how to make it work, and how to prepare a digital story. The topics include: 

  • the importance of teamwork 

  • getting started and planning

  • allocating roles 

  • keeping to your schedule

  • avoiding or resolving problems 

  • organising and sharing group content.

Show respect:

  • Be open minded to others’ views

  • Question other peoples’ views respectfully and diplomatically

  • Be aware of diversity within the classroom and online forums but do not assume anyone's beliefs

  • Articulate hidden assumptions

  • Share your experience (not others)

  • Seek permission before forwarding material, particularly from within restricted forums.

  • Don’t SHOUT (writing in capitals is like shouting)

  • Discrimination will not be tolerated

 

Create a comfortable environment:

  • Let everyone have a voice

  • Don’t be afraid to ask questions

  • Try to keep discussions and debates academic, not personal

  • Be positive, non-judgmental and open to new ideas

  • Listen (or read) for understanding – inquire (ask) before you advocate (persuade)

  • Seek common ground and understanding (not problems and conflict)

  • Avoid embarrassing people by pointing out their mistakes in the public forum. If you need to correct information in a public post, address the information rather than the person who posted the mistake.

If you use YouTube or Vimeo, you should:

  • Publish as unlisted

  • Disable comments

Learn how to protect your online identity by working through the online resource below:

Follow relevant researchers

You may also like to follow relevant researchers in your field to keep up-to-date with their work or follow cultural heritage institutions to get up-to-date collection developments.

Manage Twitter information overload

If you find yourself following a lot of different researchers and institutions and starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information you're getting, you can break it up into Lists and use Twitter like an RSS newsfeed.

#Hashtags as subject headings

Hashtags are like crowd sourced subject headings for social media: they gather together tweets and facilitate access to information on a particular topic, theme and/or event from perspectives that may not be found elsewhere. They also often help people find and build a sense of community online.