Google Makes Collaboration Easy
Posted by Jim | May 10, 2009 | Comments Off
- Image via CrunchBase
An unavoidable fact of life for any MBA student is the group project. While valuable for learning important concepts in teamwork and group dynamics, group work can also be very difficult from a logistical point of view. Teams can’t always find convenient times for members to get together in person to work. Juggling multiple versions of a word document can be a disaster waiting to happen. Luckily, Google has introduced Google Docs, which makes collaborating with classmates easy. All documents that you create are kept online, using Google’s secure servers, instead of on your hard drive. When you share a document with someone, Google sends them the link to access it. Multiple users can access and edit the document simultaneously, or add comments for other collaborators. Docs tracks all changes and stores older versions that can be recovered, if necessary. No more worrying about who’s the “keeper” of the most current version of the project.
I’ve used Google Docs for a number of individual and group projects with great success. Accessibility and collaboration are areas where Google shines. Word processing features, however, are pretty basic. Simple tasks such as changing line spacing or margins within a document are not yet possible. Because of this, when it comes time to print and turn in the final paper, I tend to download into Microsoft Office to format. If Google would improve the functionality of Docs (including the spreadsheet and presentation features) just a little bit, I could realistically see myself giving up on Office for good.
Another online office suite with collaboration capabilities is Zoho, but I have not used it enough to make a fair comparison. Has anyone had good or bad experiences with such online collaboration tools?
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