Collaboration tools for use at W&L

This is a non-exhaustive list of collaboration tools for use by W&L faculty, students and staff. Some of these tools are not administered by W&L, but are offered here for additional consideration in cases where W&L tools do not meet a precise need. To get started using any of these tools, see the "How do I begin?" column, or contact the Information Desk (x4357 or help.wlu.edu).
Tool Function * Audience How do I begin? Restricted to W&L only? Chat Blog Wiki Use for Personal or Organizational Website Store video, audio, images? Will notify you of changes

Course management

Sakai Web-based platform for teaching, research, and collaboration. Course sites with student enrollments are automatically generated and updated for all W&L courses. Includes gradebooks, other course administration tools. Faculty and Students go to: sakai.wlu.edu Usually; outside participants can be added manually
Blackboard; to be phased out by July 31, 2009 Web-based platform for teaching, research, and collaboration. Faculty and Students go to: blackboard.wlu.edu            

Multi-purpose collaboration

SharePoint; to be released Oct. 2008 Web-based collaboration for departmental, committees, organizations, ad hoc groups. Offers document-sharing, with check-in and check-out capability, and many other tools. Highly customizable to meet team needs. Staff and Faculty More Information   Allows for a "My Site" providing area to store both personal and shared documents as well as build out a personal profile. Public-facing (campus only) profile is not customizable  
Sakai Web-based platform for teaching, research, and collaboration. Primarily for course-related work, but can also be used for extracurricular project work. Faculty and Students go to: sakai.wlu.edu Usually; outside participants can be added manually

File-sharing

Tool Function * Audience How do I begin? Restricted to W&L only? Chat Blog Wiki Use for Personal or Organizational Website Store video, audio, images? Will notify you of changes
L: drive Faculty-initiated collaboration and document-sharing related to specific courses. Faculty and students, exclusively for course work See storage information page          
I: drive Collaboration within academic and administrative departments. An I: drive folder is assigned for each department. Faculty, staff and student assistants See storage information page          
J: drive Collaboration across departments Faculty and staff See storage information page          
W&L static and dynamic fileservers for storage of media files Faculty and students creating large volumes of digital media for instructional use Faculty, staff, students See "Extended Storage" section of this page        

 E-mail, calendar, task management

Tool Function * Audience How do I begin? Restricted to W&L only? Chat Blog Wiki Use for Personal or Organizational Website Store video, audio, images? Will notify you of changes
Outlook; To be released January, 2009 E-mail, calendar, task management software, fully integrated into the MS Office suite and many other applications/products; will replace GroupWise functionality Faculty, staff To be determined - training to be provided via ITS            
GroupWise for students; to be replaced by Windows Live@edu July 2009 E-mail, calendar, task management software Students groupwise.wlu.edu            

W&L-recommended, single-purpose blogs

Moveable Type Web-based blog, best suited for non-course-related needs Students and Faculty Contact Kyle Felker in Leyburn Library  Yes, for creation of blogs, but content is readable to all       Can upload multimedia, but not designed for this. RSS feeds
WordPress Web-based blog, recommended for student organizations that want a web presence.
 
Students mostly
 
Contact Jessica Carter, University Web Editor, to request an account. Student Organization Wordpress sites must be tied to an administrator's account at the University.
 
    RSS feeds

Web-based, searchable collections

Tool Function * Audience How do I begin? Restricted to W&L only? Chat Blog Wiki Use for Personal or Organizational Website Store video, audio, images? Will notify you of changes
dSpace Web-based tool for archiving electronic documents of value to the university. Documents are searchable. Faculty, students or staff Contact Kyle Felker in Leyburn Library Yes, for creation of materials, but content is readable to all         Can upload multimedia, but space is limited.  
ArtStor A searchable, Web-based, library of art images, including descriptive information. Desktop software available for viewing images, with advanced features for teaching purposes Faculty and students; for scholarship, teaching, and learning in the visual arts and associated fields. Contact Information Desk            

Self-service tools (not hosted or supported at W&L)

Tool Function * Audience How do I begin? Restricted to W&L only? Chat Blog Wiki Use for Personal or Organizational Website Store video, audio, images? Will notify you of changes
YouTube Web-based tool for distribution of short video and audio files. Can comment on videos, and create and subscribe to "channels" of themed content Anyone See youtube.com        
Google Video Web-based tool for distribution of video and audio files - similar to YouTube, but can use longer segments. Anyone See video.google.com        
Flickr Web-based tool for storage and distribution of photos and video. Can comment on photos, and incorporate in blogs and other tools. Anyone See flickr.com        
Meebo Web-based chat; works with most major chat services (AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, etc.). Anyone See meebo.com            
Wetpaint Web-based tool (wiki) for collaborative creation of Web pages

 

Students, or anyone for non-course-related work

 

See wetpaint.com Contact Information Desk to request a link to the W&L Web site       
iTunes Desktop software for distribution of audio, video, podcasts

 

Anyone

 

Documentation at apple.com. Contact the Information Desk for help             RSS feeds


* "Faculty" in Audience column includes academic staff