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Connecting Discussion General discussion IT solution needed - sharing documents across institutions
The views and opinions expressed in this forum are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education, the University of Minnesota or any of our funding partners.
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Hello - I'm looking for practical ways to easily share documents across institutions so multiple individuals can collaborate on their development.  A logical file structure is a necessity but we'd also like to be able to tie materials to action items/workplans.  Does anyone have a solution?  thanks in advance- Heather

 

Heather Hageman

Director, Center for Interprofessional Education

Washington University Medical School

St Louis College of Pharmacy

Goldfarb School of Nursing

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You may want to consider a platform such as DropBox where you can invite others to view and add to the platform and it automatically notifies members of this group when documents are added or updated. If an individual/group manages the DropBox then a "filing system" could be created by the name of the institution or by the type of files being shared, whichever works best. An action/workplan folder can be created for work that needs to be done by any group. The other platform is sharing in GoogleDocs where different individuals or groups cna contribute to one or multiple documents or in an editing or review process.

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Thanks for your thoughts, Jody. The IT folks locally are suggesting that Office 365 has secure collaboration tools - do you have experience with that?  Heather

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Hello

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I am not familiar with Office 365 and note its compatibilty with windows and that there is a fee involved. Drop Box can be used for free unless there are sizable numbers of persons using this system. I have used Drop Box internationally as well in sharing documents privately with only those invited as participants. As long as the system works for institutions involved in the process, it is easily accessible,  has minimal or no costs, and meets the needs of its users then the only thing remaining is to "test" it to see if it can do everything that you need. Please let us know what you decide and if it works feel free to share with others who are seeking mechanisms to share works in progress, documents, and conduct research, etc.

Good luck!

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You may have already found a solution but if not, there are several wiki options that might serve your needs. You can read a comparision of the most widely used options available, including information on free verses paid options at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_hosting_services. I've used a few on this list and they vary in terms of user-friendly interfaces and features.

I've also used DropBox and GoogleDocs on various projects and both have their strengths and weaknesses as collaboration tools.

I'd be interested in reading about where you land (or have landed) in the selection process.

Best Regards,

Connie