1.
EmergingTechnologies
that Drive Online
Collaboration
Presented by:
Rebecca J. Hogue (@rjhogue)
Jeffrey M. Keefer (@JeffreyKeefer)
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

2.
Necessary selfie
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

3.
Purpose
We will describe how an institutionally, culturally,
geographically, and philosophically diverse group of
people, many of whom never met offline (physically in-
person), came together to collaboratively create conference
presentations and write academic papers.
• This study focuses on the technology that supports our
collaborations
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

4.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15
@rjhogue
@jeffreykeefer
#rhizo15

5.
Scope of Study
The study began with an attempt at mapping of
collaborations between each of the authors.
Collaborative technologies (e.g., Google Docs, Google
Hangouts, Email, andTwitter) were then used to further
explore the technologies that enabled or disabled our
collaborations.
Not all attempts at using technologies were successful =
Dissonance!
This collaboration itself became a collaborative lens
included in the study.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

6.
Collaboration Matrix
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15
Collaboration Name/Person Name Rebecca Maha Keith AK Sarah Jeffrey Ron Len
Paper (WIP): Writing as a swarm: How Google Docs
are enabling new forms of collaborative writing Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Paper: What Is It Like to Learn and Participate in
Rhizomatic MOOCs? A Collaborative
Autoethnography of #rhizo14 Sent for review Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
How the Community Became More Than the
Curriculum: Participant Experiences in #rhizo14 Sent for review Yes Yes No No Yes No No No
Paper (Hybrid Pedagogy): Writing the Unreadable
Untext: a Collaborative Autoethnography of #rhizo14 Published Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
Conference Presentation (#et4online): #rhizo14
Collaborative Autoethnography - challenges and
joyes of unwriting the untext Presented Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
Conference Presentation (Alt-C): A herd of freely
associating, autonomous cats: how a Facebook group
helped turn a bunch of cMOOC participants into a
learning community Accepted Yes Yes No No Yes No No Yes
Conference Presentation (WIP - SMSociety):
Emerging Technologies that drive online
collaboration Presented Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Conference Presentation (WIP - dLRN): Pioneering
alternate forms of collaboration: Technologies that
support and sideline #rhizomatic learning Accepted Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
interview with Dave Cormier for JPD (published) Published No Yes No No Yes No No No
Confessions of a MOOC swarm - lived experience in a
variety of MOOCs (EMOOCS 2016) Started Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

7.
Google Docs
Our current work-in-progress focuses on Google Docs,
which is a central component in our academic
collaborations
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

8.
Methodology
Actor-NetworkTheory (ANT) is a research strategy that
treats everything in the natural and social world as
continuously generated effects of the networked
connections in which they exist.
ANT is useful to examine the multiplicity of ties within
networks and attempt to make sense of the “difficult
ambivalences, messy objects, multiple overlapping worlds
and apparent contradictions that are embedded in so many
educational issues” (Fenwick and Edwards, 2010).
We use ANT to dissect and describing how different
technologies influenced our collaborations and our
community.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

9.
Story of a Google Doc
– A Semi-Fictional Narrative
1. AK writes a blog post that speaks to Rebecca.
2. On her Mac, Rebecca creates a Google Doc, adds some text
to contextualize the idea, and includes the text fromAK's
blog post.
3. Len jumps in with
his thoughts on
how this might
be presented.
@rjhogue
@jeffreykeefer
#rhizo15

10.
Story of a Google Doc
– A Semi-Fictional Narrative
4. Maha, using her phone while commuting to/from work,
adds her thoughts to the conversation.
The mobile app doesn't show the comments in the same
way - they are not
part of the document
but rather an
interruption in the
flow of it.
@rjhogue
@jeffreykeefer
#rhizo15

11.
Story of a Google Doc
– A Semi-Fictional Narrative
5. Sarah tries to use her tablet to access the doc but it
hides comments till one is clicked on, which makes it no
good for swarm writing where the comments are
important.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

12.
Story of a Google Doc
– A Semi-Fictional Narrative
6. Jeffrey at times misses strands as alerts
or notifications are inconsistent, creating
a discussion on notifications in the
margins.
This is just a brief overview of the complex
interactions.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

13.
SwarmWriting
– A Collaborative Process
• It has been called "rhizomatic collaborative writing"
(Hamon et al, 2015).
• Involves multiple authors collaborating and working
together, like a Swarm, on creating a single document.
• Multiple writers in different countries and timezones,
using this method while working on tasks that have not
been readily defined in the literature, benefit most from
free, cloud-based tools.
• While collaborative (like a wiki), it is messy, and thus
allows for (invites?) unexpected bouts of creativity and
shifts in direction.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

14.
Collaboration and Cooperation
- Different modes of working together
Collaboration is often elicited and expected, though it can
be challenging when cooperation is a goal without a clear
road map or strategy.
This often leads to Divide and Conquer:
I will write this section . . .
. . . and you write that one . . .
. . . and who does the rest?!
Swarm writing promotes a blurring of boundaries, with
cooperation coming as part of a group, rather than a pile of
individual authors.
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

15.
Enablers
- Check your Ego at the Door
… allows our words to be re-written many
times, such that we can identify facets of the
ideas in the text, but the words no longer
belong to an individual ...
... they belong to the swarm!
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

16.
Leadership and Authorship Order
• Different leaders for different projects
• Leaders role is to ‘herd the cats’ and also ensure that all
voices that want to contribute have a chance to
• After the leader, there is no authorship precedence – we
talk about who needs to be where on the author order
• Crossing disciplines, authorship order means something
different (e.g. last author in sciences is a prestigious
position that goes to the leader of the lab)
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

17.
Challenges
- Costs
Costs vary by collaborator - especially with international
collaborations and unaffiliated / unfunded collaborators
Philosophical differences among authors over willingness to
pay for collaboration tools
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

18.
Challenges
- Bandwidth
• For the most part, Google Docs performs well in low
bandwidth situations
• Other tools, especially those with video, are challenging
to some co-authors – serving to silence rather than
enable collaborations
• In addition, not everyone is setup for (or comfortable
with) voice / video communication
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

19.
Challenges
- Language
• We are all strong English speakers / writers.
• We are aware of how Google Docs (asynchronous and
written medium) helps to enable English as a foreign
language speakers.
• “We feel the enthusiasm for audiovisual synchronicity
often comes without sufficient discernment, and without
deliberative consideration” (Bali & Meier, 2014).
This is an area we will be exploring further …
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

20.
Challenges
- Navigating new processes and spaces
• We are collaborating in different ways
• External forces (conference deadlines)
• Messiness of swarm interfacing with individual
needs/requirements
• Pragmatic issues (need for presentation to be in PPT on a
stick – not in Prezi)
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

21.
What’s Next?
Tools:
• Email
• Google Hangouts
• Twitter
• Facebook Messenger
• Doodle
• Prezi
Processes:
• Language requirements
• Transitions (from swarm
writing to presenting)
• Transitions (from swarm
writing to article
submission)
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

22.
Discussion
1. Have you ever experienced this phenomenon that we
have termed "Swarm Writing?”
2. What benefits or challenges do you envision?
3. How is your version of swarm writing different from
what we have described?
4. What next steps can you consider for us to continue to
develop this work?
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15

23.
Contact Us
Twitter #rhizo15 - ask for the swarm!
ANT Project collaborators:
• Rebecca J. Hogue
• Jeffrey M. Keefer
• Keith Hamon
• Apostolos Koutropoulos
• Maha Bali
• Lenandlar Singh
• Sarah Honeychurch
• Ron Leunissen
@rjhogue @jeffreykeefer #rhizo15