Modern knowledge work, such as that done by Extension professionals, often calls for collaborative efforts to address complex issues from a variety of angles. Using technology to facilitate collaboration can allow teams to span geographical boundaries, work at different times, easily share information, foster frequent interaction, expand the team’s expertise, and reduce costs. However, collaboration within virtual spaces is different than traditional face-to-face work and requires consideration of a variety of factors: comfort with and access to the technology, leadership and coordination of the team, scheduling across time zones and institutions, etc. In this webinar we will highlight published research about technology-facilitated collaboration and discuss its benefits, challenges, and factors that contribute to success. This foundational webinar will set the stage for subsequent webinars that will address specific tools and techniques that can be used to foster the success of collaborative work using technology.

1. Leveraging Technology
In Collaborative Work
This material is based upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture,
and the Office of Family Policy, Children and Youth, U.S. Department of Defense under Award No. 2010-48869-20685.
Jerry Buchko - Network Literacy CoP, Minnesota
Stephen Judd - University of New Hampshire
Janyne Kizer - North Carolina State University
Victor Villegas - Oregon State University

2. What is collaboration?
“A mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties to
achieve common goals by sharing responsibility, authority and
accountability for achieving results. It is more than simply sharing
knowledge and information (communication) and more than a
relationship that helps each party achieve its own goals (cooperation and
coordination). The purpose of collaboration is to create a shared vision
and joint strategies to address concerns that go beyond the purview of
any particular party.”
Source: Chrislip & Larson (1994)

3. Objectives
• Collaboration versus Cooperation
• Benefits - time & space flexibility,
diversity, relatively inexpensive
• Considerations - time difference,
geographic dispersion, project planning,
synchronous vs asynchronous, etc.
• Principles - shared use, learning curve,
cost, etc.

4. Collaboration versus Cooperation
“My own definition of
cooperation is that it is
freely sharing, without
any expectation of direct
reciprocity.”
- Harold Jarche
Source:
http://jarche.com/2014/06/peering-
deeply-into-collaboration/
Source: http://jarche.com/2011/04/technologies-for-collaboration-and-cooperation/

5. Collaboration versus Cooperation
Collaboration requires cooperation among team members focused on a shared
task or goal that leads to an agreed upon outcome. A collaborative team will
generally have defined roles for team members who will work together until the
goal is achieved or priorities change.
Collaboration Cooperation
Shared goal / outcome Free sharing of information
Collaborative team Network
Time-bound Ongoing / perpetual
Structure / leadership Free-form complex
Requires cooperation Not necessarily collaborative

6. Technology in collaborative work
• Real-time communication (voice, video, text)
» phone, Skype, Hangouts, Connect, WebEx, etc.
• File sharing
» email, Google, Dropbox, Sharepoint, etc.
• Real-time document editing
» Google Apps, Microsoft Office online, etc.
• Asynchronous communication
» email, social media, discussion group
• Polling / scheduling
» Doodle, Google Forms, Qualtrics, etc.

7. Question - respond in chat
In your experience, what has
been the greatest benefit of
using technology in
collaborative work?

8. Benefits
• Greater time and space
flexibility
• Relatively inexpensive
• Allows for more fluid
interaction and
information sharing
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Excess_flexibility.jpg

9. Collaborative teams
“Practices and structures
that may have worked
well with simple teams of
people who were all in
one location and knew
one another are likely to
lead to failure when
teams grow more
complex”
Source: Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007).

10. Collaborative teams - Size
Large teams can widen the
stakeholder group and add
diverse skills, but can also
decrease effectiveness. Groups
of more than 20 can result in
lower level of natural
cooperation.
Source: Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007).
Bigger isn’t always better!
Source: http://luckybastian.deviantart.com/art/Muscle-Morph-Practice-
413795137

11. Collaborative teams - Diversity
Diversity can spark insight and
innovation. However, the higher
the proportion of people who
don't know anyone else on the
team and the greater the
diversity, the less likely the
team members are to share
knowledge.
Source: Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007).
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CarrotDiversityLg.jpg

12. Collaborative teams - High
education levels
Huge value in drawing on a variety
of deeply specialized skills and
knowledge to devise new
solutions. Research shows that the
greater the proportion of highly
educated specialists on a team, the
more likely the team is to
disintegrate into unproductive
conflicts.
Source: Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007).
Source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ross/4368015/

13. Collaborative teams - Success factors
• Sense of community - comfort reaching out and
sharing
• Task- and relationship-oriented - task orientation at
the outset of a project and shifting toward a relationship
orientation once the work is in full swing
• Heritage relationships - reluctance to share
knowledge if too many strangers. A few people who
know one another on the team helps.
• Role clarity and task ambiguity - defined roles with
latitude on how to achieve the task.
Source: Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007).

14. Skills Needed for Collaboration
• Relationship building skills
» Nurturing trust
» Developing familiarity
» Establishing a shared environment and context to build a
sense of community
• Establishing a norm of open and active
communication, promoting clarity/understanding and
conflict resolution
» Appreciation for diversity
Source: Roy, S. (2012).

15. Skills Needed for Collaboration
• Communication skills
» Developing language that is simple
and easy to understand (limiting
professional jargon)
» Limiting ambiguity, including lack of
nonverbal communications
» Knowledge sharing to
encourage/nurture learning,
efficacy, and innovation
Source: Roy, S. (2012).
Source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ramblinglibrarian/6972755597/

16. Skills Needed for Collaboration
• Collaboration skills
» Working autonomously
» Delegating tasks
» Motivating others
» Adapting to changing
contexts
» Innovating
Source: Roy, S. (2012).
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:We_Can_Do_It!.jpg

17. Question - respond in chat
In your experience, what has
been the greatest challenge
when using technology in
collaborative work?

18. Considerations / Challenges
• Scheduling / time zones
• Selecting technologies suited to the task
• Technical support and technical
glitches
• Project planning
• Learning the technologies
Source:
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/863351

19. Scheduling / Time Zones
• Scheduling (Doodle polls)
• Frequency
• Find times that work across
time zones
• Don’t meet for the sake of
meeting
• Synchronous and
asynchronous interaction
Source:
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/586015

20. Institutional Considerations
• What’s allowed / available?
• Access to external partners
• Licensing costs
• Privacy and security
• Technical support / capacity

21. Technical support / learning
• Options (e.g., phone in to
video conference)
• Gauge team comfort with
different tools
• Adopt new tools when
needed, but not for the sake
of the shiny new tool
• Opportunity to learn and
apply new tools
Source:
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/675476

22. Technical support
• Formal and informal
technology mentoring such as
technology stewards
• Address potential technical
glitches by using the same
platform for all team
collaboration whenever
possible
Sources: Witthaus, G. (2008). and Roy, S. (2012).

23. Project planning
• Objectives
• Deliverables
• Timebound
• Define roles
• Work teams
• Define processes
• Embed learning and evaluation

24. Changing routines
“Much research has shown that the use
of collaboration technology can improve
group performance, yet groups and
organizations are often slow to adopt it.
Part of the reason for this may be an
inherent resistance to changing
established routines; part may be
because it can be challenging to learn
new collaboration technology-based
routines.”
Source: Garfield, et al. (2012)
Source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4554851174/

25. Selecting technologies
• Select tools that will optimally allow the team to
function, tools that all team members can
access
• When possible, choose tools people already
know how to use or do not have a steep
learning curve
• Consider each tool’s strengths and weaknesses
in supporting the team’s ability to function
Source: Tate, et al. (2014).

26. Coordination Communication Activity Awareness
Explicit Communication Information Gathering Shared Access Transfer
Video & Audio
Conferencing, Synchronous
Text & Image Based,
Near-Synchronous
Text & Image Based,
Asynchronous
Collaborative Values and
Priorities
Interactions
Tools
The Technology Selection S’more...
Derived from Figure 2: Cognitive Work Analysis Phase 1 - Work Domain Analysis by Tate, et
al. (2014).
Source:
http://www.morguefile.com/archive/display/698642

27. Source: Tate, et al. (2014).

28. Takeaways
Leveraging technology can:
• Allow teams to span
geographical boundaries
• Work at different times
• Easily share and store
information
• Foster frequent interaction -
not just meetings
• Expand the team’s expertise
• Reduce costs

29. Takeaways
You should consider:
• Team leadership needs task-
and relationship- orientation
• Different levels of comfort with
technologies
• Access to technologies differs
across institutions
• Opportunities for both
synchronous and
asynchronous communication
• Defined roles and flexible
methods
• Time zones and working
hours of team members
• Loss of traditional face-
to-face cues
• Avoiding “mission creep”
• Need to build trust
among team (esp. if
unfamiliar)

30. Question - respond in chat
What topics related to
leveraging technology in
collaborative work would you
like to learn more about?

31. Questions, comments, challenges?
Share your experiences in chat!
Please let us know what we could do better:
https://vte.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_2oBrBsVGCRUjjlr

32. References
Chrislip, David and Larson, Chip. Collaborative Leadership: How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can
Make a Difference. Jossey-Bass. 1994. p. 5.
Garfield, M. & Dennis, A. (2012). Toward an Integrated Model of Group Development: Disruption of
Routines by Technology-Induced Change. Journal of Management Information Systems. Winter
2012, Vol. 29, Issue 3, p. 43-86.
Gratton, L. & Erickson, T. (2007). Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams. Harvard Business
Review, 00178012, November (2007), Vol. 85, Issue 11. [online] Available at:
https://hbr.org/2007/11/eight-ways-to-build-collaborative-teams/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].
Jarche, H. (2011). Technologies for collaboration and cooperation. seek > sense > share, Jarche.com
[online] Available at: http://jarche.com/2011/04/technologies-for-collaboration-and-cooperation/
[Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].

33. References
Jarche, H. (2014). Peering deeply into collaboration. seek > sense > share, Jarche.com [online]
Available at: http://jarche.com/2014/06/peering-deeply-into-collaboration/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].
Ogden, C. (2014). Networks for Change: Collaboration & Cooperation. Interactioninstitute.org.
[online] Available at: http://interactioninstitute.org/networks-for-change-collaboration-and-
cooperation/ [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].
Roy, S. (2012). Virtual Collaboration: The Skills Needed to Collaborate in a Virtual Environment.
Journal of Internet Social Networking & Virtual Communities, Vol. 2012 (2012), Article ID 629512,
p.1-8. [online] Available at:
http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/JISNVC/2012/629512/629512.html [Accessed 15 Jan.
2015].
Tate, A., Hansberger, J., Potter, S. & Wickler, G. (2014). Virtual Collaboration Spaces: Bringing
Presence to Distributed Collaboration. Journal For Virtual Worlds Research, [online] Vol. 7, No. 2.
Available at: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/index.php/jvwr/article/view/7090 [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].

34. References
Witthaus, G. (2008). Enhancing the Effectiveness of Virtual and Offshore Project Teams: Guidelines
for Best Practice. Communications of the IBIMA, Vol. 6, 2008, p. 57-61. [online] Available at:
http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/CIBIMA/volume6/v6n9.pdf [Accessed 15 Jan. 2015].