An Introduction to Collaborative Technologies

Sandy Heierbacher. National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), 2004.

Collaborative technology can create an interactive learning environment involving people who are hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Businesses are far more savvy with the more sophisticated packages of high-tech tools available than we are in the dialogue and deliberation community, and the prohibitive cost of many of the tools, software and services primarily marketed to businesses is the most obvious reason for that.

An Online Environment for Democratic Deliberation: Motivations, Principles, and Design

Todd Davies, Brendan O'Connor, Alex Angiolillo Cochran, Jonathan J. Effrat.

This paper elucidates the experience and thinking behind our new web-based environment for asynchronous group deliberation: Deme (pronounced 'deem'). Deme grew out of participation in and observations of group decision making and community democracy, and is being developed within a university-community partnership to enhance civic participation and to bridge digital divides.

Resource Link: http://www.stanford.edu/~davies/deme-principles.pdf

Ascentum

Ascentum is a Canada-based professional services firm that combines a unique technology expertise with specialized management consulting services. Dialogue Circles is Ascentum's intermodal approach to consultation that aims to maximize the synergies between the traditional and online worlds of consultation and dialogue. Dialogue Circles provides clients with the flexibility to hold online or traditional consultation and dialogue. According to Ascentum, many of the most successful consultation and dialogue endeavors now involve a mix of online tools and traditional face-to-face approaches that complement one another.

Resource Link: http://www.ascentum.ca

Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom

Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt.

This book focuses on the task of creating a sense of community among learners. The authors share their insight into what it takes to foster feelings of safety and a sense of shared learning among students and faculty involved in computer-mediated distance education.

Caucus Systems Inc.

Caucus Systems is a leading provider of online collaborative environments for global 1000 companies. Caucus Systems creates online collaborative environments that integrate data sources with structured conversations for action, allowing people to work together online as they do face-to-face - by discussing shared information to reach actionable decisions. Group Jazz is part of the Caucus Consortium, supporting the work of groups that meet face-to-face, online, or both.

Resource Link: http://www.caucus.com

CommunityZero

CommunityZero is an interactive website that allows a group of people to communicate and exchange information over the Internet in their own private and secure area. Within each area, called an online community, participants are provided access to a suite of powerful tools that enable a group to effectively get organized, share knowledge and communicate.

Resource Link: http://www.communityzero.com

Compendium

Compendium provides a methodological framework and an evolving suite of tools for collective sense-making and group memory. It is the result of over 15 years' continual research, deployment and development of a tool to support the real time mapping of discussions in meetings, collaborative modeling, and the longer term management of this information as organizational memory.

Resource Link: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/tools/compendium.htm

Developing an Online Learning Pedagogy for Conflict Resolution Training

Laina K. Reynolds and Lambrecht Wessels. University of Bradford, Department of Peace Studies (Centre for Conflict Resolution Working Paper series), 2001.

Innovations in education and computing are currently converging around the use of communications technology to enhance teaching and learning. This development has significant implications for the field of conflict resolution because of the importance of education and training in the discipline. In response to these changes, the Centre for Conflict Resolution and the European Network University (University of Amsterdam) collaborated in the creation of an online course entitled ?‘Transforming Civil Conflict,?’ an introduction to the concepts and tools of non-violent conflict resolution....

Resource Link: http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/confres/assets/CCR8.pdf

Dialogue as Pedagogy: Deliberative Learning with Democracy Lab in High School and College Classes

James T Knauer, PhD and Paul Alexander, PhD.

This 10-page document was distributed during Jim Knauer and Paul Alexander's workshop of the same name at the 2006 NCDD Conference in San Francisco. Deliberative dialogue can be used across the curriculum to integrate civic education without sacrificing disciplinary content or traditional learning objectives. The document not only outlines Democracy Lab (an online deliberation program for college students) and where it is headed, it also outlines existing research on dialogic pedagogy, describes William Perry's Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development, and explores the relationship between deliberative dialogue and learning.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Dialogic_Pedagogy_Handout.doc

E-Democracy.Org / Minnesota E-Democracy

Minnesota E-Democracy is a non-partisan citizen-based organization whose mission is to improve participation in democracy in Minnesota through the use of information networks and communication technologies. Minnesota E-Democracy was established in 1994 and created the world's first election-oriented website. They sponsor election-year online partnerships to promote citizen access to election information and interaction. Their year-round focus is on the use of the Internet to improve citizen participation and real world governance through online discussions and information and knowledge exchange.

Resource Link: http://www.e-democracy.org

Evolution of Evaluations for Critical, Reflective and Deliberative Discourse: National Issues Forums On-line

M.E. Holt, F Rees, J.D. Swenson and P.B. Kleiber. National Issues Forums Project, Department of Adult Education, The University of Georgia (UGA) College of Education.

This 17-page report is an evaluation of online deliberation. It asks such questions as "How can online deliberation be assessed?", "Can deliberation occur online?", and "Can the deliberative process be learned through participation in an electronic forum?"

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Evol_of_Eval.doc

FacilitatePro

FacilitatePro turns your web browser into a collaborative meeting place that facilitates group problem solving and decision making. FacilitatePro web meeting software helps facilitators and team leaders run high performance meetings by delivering tools and techniques to support innovative thinking and decision making. FacilitatePro provides online tools for surveys, brainstorming, categorizing, prioritizing, custom voting and polling, alternative analysis, action planning and reporting. Explore their live software demo site or call for a hands-on guided tour.

Resource Link: http://www.Facilitate.com

Full Circle Associates

The consulting practice of Nancy White and a network of independent professionals, Full Circle Associates provides strategic communication, online community development, facilitation, marketing, and project management services for the community, non-profit and business sectors. Full Circle focuses on online and offline strategies with a passionate interest in online community and collaboration, and provides training in online facilitation and distance collaboration.

Resource Link: http://www.fullcirc.com

GroupJazz

GroupJazz supports the work of groups whether they are meeting face to face or online. Founder Lisa Kimball believes that 'great groups make great things happen' and utilizes the word Jazz as a metaphor for collaboration.

Resource Link: http://www.groupjazz.com

OnLine Learning International

OnLine Learning International (OLLI) is a consulting and web based training company based in Concord, Massachusetts. OLLI was built over a decade of research and development of methods and tools. OLLI's international staff has a long history of training, facilitation, and executive coaching working with globally dispersed teams. OLLI's programs and services are based on a sophisticated model for learning and decision support, developed by OLLI and its parent organization, the Concord Consortium.

Resource Link: http://www.olliolli.com

Onlinefacilitation

The onlinefacilitation listserv is for discussion about the skills, techniques and issues around online facilitation in a variety of Internet online environments and virtual communities.

Resource Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinefacilitation/

Otherwise Engaged

Alexandra Samuel's blog is every blogger's guide to citizen engagement and every citizen's guide to blogging. Alexandra is a consultant, researcher and writer specializing in online dialogue and electronic democracy.

Resource Link: http://www.alexandrasamuel.com

Podcasting: A New Tool to Plant and Sow the Seeds of Negotiation and Mediation

Joshua N. Weiss, Ph.D., Global Negotiation Project at Harvard?’s Program on Negotiation, Associate Director.

We live in a world of instant information. We live in a world of simplicity. We live in a world that desparately needs negotiation and mediation skills and processes. Podcasting enables practitioners and scholars of negotiation and mediation to extend our reach and explain concepts simply, in an unfiltered manner, to a large number of people around the globe. If 3,800 people have downloaded my Podcasts over the past four months alone, imagine what would happen if we had legions of Podcasters spreading the message that negotiation and mediation are invaluable tools to have in your toolbox. I am hard pressed to think of something that would help our field more...aren?’t you?

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Weiss_Podcasting.doc

Politalk Announcement List

Politalk is "a safe and civil environment to discuss important political topics." Examples of topics addressed on the Politalk website are campaign finance reform, globalization and school choice. Subscribers receive 2 to 4 emails per month with news about upcoming Politalk topics and online events.

Resource Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/politalk-announce/

Soliya's Connect Program

Utilizing new web-based videoconferencing technology, small groups of university students from the US and predominantly Muslim Countries in the Middle East meet weekly on-line with the help of skilled facilitators. Together they engage in intensive dialogue about the relationship between the U.S. and the Arab and Muslim World, with a particular emphasis on the role of the media in shaping perceptions of the "other."

Resource Link: http://www.soliya.net