James Aiello's List: 2.5 Researching Credible Connections

• 15 Free Online Collaboration Tools for Business
• • Score:85

  • Source is well known. Easily readable content. The site is also eyecatching.

• Just a few years ago, effective coordination and collaboration between a group of people required physical proximity, or regular e-mails, phone calls and meetings. Nowadays, however, it’s possible to work on a single project with people from all over the world without ever meeting or speaking to them. Indeed, the emergence of online collaboration tools has revolutionized the way individuals and business work together. Best of all, most online collaboration tools are simple, easy to use and inexpensive. If you haven’t already begun taking advantage of these powerful tools, here are four great ways to start.
• • Source is known worldwide. Information is accurate.
    Score:79

• • This source is current, good information.
    Score: 72

• Multimedia collaborations like this are now possible thanks to a massive range of specially designed websites, platforms and apps designed to make life easier for creatives who want to make the most of others' minds. The likes of Cage, Scribbler and Conceptboard allow people to easily work together on design-led projects, while the newly launched Framebench is an interface that allows people to design, edit, email and speak about the same piece of work in one place. Musicians can use sites such as Soundcloud, Acidplanet and Kompaz, while artists can download the Sketchshare app and draw while their contemporaries watch and feedback.

  It's all very well having access to these tools, but what if you don't have an idea to start with? No problem – the web has a solution for that. Head to IdeaScale to brainstorm with the people you want to engage with. And if you don't have the cash, Kickstarter is the site for you. Here, you can crowd-fund projects in exchange for giving donors special rewards, from signed copies of your book to the chance to appear in your film. Such is the power of the site – and a good idea – that Rob Thomas, creator of cult TV show Veronica Mars, secured $2m in less than a day to make a film version.

• • Author is identified and can be contacted. Page is also copyrighted. Article is current. The page is eye catching.
    This site engages me to spend time here.
    Score: 92
• If you get down to that level, you start to see some hard benefits in terms of productivity, time savings and reuse of assets," Schadler says. In general, electronic collaboration products allow people to work together in effective ways when other means of communicating aren't effective. "I would advise people to think about specific situations where tools such as the phone or email are not working very well," he says.
• The new system will make it easier and faster for users to share and find the documents they need. "We will also be able to very quickly, easily and securely provide clients with access to those documents when the situation calls for it without having to create entirely new systems," Michel says.

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• Collaboration Support Services (CoSS) are an instant messaging (IM) solution for customers who need to share information and communicate online in real-time, from dispersed locations. CoSS can include “one-to-one,” “one-to-many,” and “many-to-many” bi-directional messaging between internal and external entities.

     
      

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  • Real-Time Collaboration. With today’s dispersed workforce, it is critical for Verizon Enterprise Solutions customers to be able to share information online, in real-time, regardless of their location. The Verizon Enterprise Solutions CoSS solution enables customers to collaborate in real-time and save money, time and resources. For example, users can take advantage of multi-party audio and video within their IM chat sessions. In addition, they can broadcast content on their desktops, share and annotate Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and use a virtual white board. 
• • Well known source. Very easy access. Link access is easy and identifiable
    Score: 85

• • Article stays on topic. Good content. Intention of topic is obvious.
    Score: 80

• For example have you ever considered the amount of time that goes into a business meeting? If it involves everyone meeting up at a predetermined time and place it will involve a big chunk of time being taken out of everyone’s day. It could even spill over into more than one day, depending on where the meeting is to be held.

   

  Nowadays you don’t always have to have a meeting like this though. You can still have a face to face meeting online by all getting together at a predetermined time to have a video conference. This means you can all see each other and take part in one conference, without having to travel to get to it.

   

  It is obvious that such an occurrence would indeed save both time and money for everyone involved. The ease with which everyone would be able to get together is obvious as well. You will be more productive because you will take less time preparing for the meeting and of course there is no travel involved. In addition to this you can get more work done either side of the meeting, which will further boost profits as less time is wasted.

• • Authority in his field, has contact information, the site engages reader to stay.
    Score: 90
• There’s no question that adoption of online collaboration technology will continue increasing across all geographic regions. In regions with healthy economies, the uptake will be driven by opportunities to accelerate revenue growth. In regions with troubled economies, it will be driven by the need to reduce costs. In either case, online collaboration will enable organizations to save time and money, while managing risk and ensuring accountability. 

• • Reputable source. Authors are identified. Proper spelling. Author is an authority in his field.
    Score: 85
• Traditionally, the face-to-face meeting has been the most valued way to collaborate on projects of any nature. The primary drawbacks to in-person meetings are the rising costs and lost time due to travel. Another difficulty of in-person meeting is trying to find a convenient time for everyone to meet. While face-to-face meetings are still ideal, travel expenses and scheduling issues can be reduced if a business is flexible and utilizes online collaboration.
• Not only does online collaboration save time and money for small businesses, it also benefits the client.
• After initially contacting a prospective client, WebEx meetings can take the place of initial and follow-up sales calls. Sales calls are often difficult to schedule around everyone’s calendars, but web conferencing provides near immediate gratification since meetings can be set up quickly. Online meetings also save the small business and the client travel expenses and time. When the business saves money, the savings can be passed on to the client. A client that knows he is getting a fair rate for services is a happy client.
• Anyone can create a project at their convenience and post it through Google Docs or Box.net and other teammates can comment and revise the work at their convenience. When collaborative sessions no longer require group scheduling, project completion times become shortened. Once again, saving time means saving money.

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• • Author is identified and can be contacted. Author is an authority in his field. the page fulfills its purpose.
    Score: 80
• Best of all, the lower transaction costs of the new collaboration can facilitate far more than outsourcing. Big savings accrue in transactions with any business constituency-supplier, customer, stockholder, or government. The savings not only benefit the cost of procurement, but also time to market, innovation, and customer intimacy.
• hat doesn't mean that the technology's benefits are purely tactical. Far more than a way to cut costs, collaborating via Internet-based procurement can be an important steppingstone to corporate growth and success. For example, by taking procurement to the Web, IBM saved an estimated $240 million in 1998, but far more importantly demonstrated that effective procurement and customer satisfaction are not mutually exclusive terms. Part of an integrated product-development initiative, IBM's Web procurement update was able to pare time-to-market by as much as 70% for PCs and midrange computers. One element in IBM's success was its ability to satisfy procurements 85% of the time with just 50 preferred suppliers. IBM uses market analysis software tools from Aliah Inc., Pittsburgh, to assess its product portfolio and cost out new products.

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• • This article is peer reviewed. Gives good evidence of collaboration achieving better results.
    Score: 85
• E-commerce can help IEs win that battle. E-commerce collaboration by virtual teams in product and process design may not only be cheaper, it can also yield better and quicker decisions. As a communication and collaboration tool, the Internet allows members of product teams in different locations to share knowledge while driving down development costs. Tighter control of engineering changes and configuration management can easily extend to the supply chain. Accurate data to suppliers, subcontractors, and strategic partners becomes more important with globalization and extended supply chains.

• • Peer reviewed. Good content in the abstract makes the purpose obvious.
    Score: 70
• Internet collaboration through remote data entry in a common database yields data of high quality without monitoring, and is a powerful and resource economic tool for clinical multicentre trials and quality assurance.

• • Article is peer reviewed and author is identifiable.
    Score: 90
• The Internet also has the power to support scientific collaboration by linking investigators who can then interact with each other in real-time while dynamically manipulating data. Coordination of most geographically distributed research collaborations now is based on traditional means of communication--the telephone, facsimile transmissions, and in-person meetings. However, the time delays inherent in asynchronous means of communication hinder progress and can create opportunities for misunderstandings or extended negotiations between collaborators who need to work tightly together.

• • Author is an authority in his field. Credible source. Page is worth the time. Has its own search engine.
    Score: 85
• The most obvious benefit of online collaboration is that it lets people who aren't in the same location work together on a project. Since several companies have offices in multiple cities and countries
• Another benefit to online collaboration is that it helps conserve physical space. Sometimes it makes sense for a company to hold a meeting online rather than in a physical location. If a company or department meeting has a lot of participants, it can be a challenge to find a room large enough for everyone. With very large groups, it's also difficult to control participation. Online meeting spaces can be an attractive alternative to cramming a room with disengaged employees.

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• • Author is identifiable. The page fulfills its intended purpose.
    Score: 70
• Texas is not the only state moving in a big way toward library education without walls. This fall, the School of Information Studies at Florida State University (FSU) in Tallahassee is offering a master's degree with an emphasis in either information studies or library studies through distance learning over the Web.

• "The Internet is fully integrated within our library education program," explained Dean of the FSU School of Information Studies Jane B. Robbins. "It's our key to communication between faculty and students and provides for a high level of collaboration and interactivity."

    

  As the new innovative programs in Texas and Florida show, library schools in the United States are developing distance-education programs to help them train students for the demanding needs that both the library profession and American society will face in the 21st century. These programs show that location, distance, and time constraints are no longer critical considerations for those wanting to pursue a library science degree.
• "Distance learning has made it possible for me to take most of the 12 courses I need for an MLS degree at the University of South Carolina [USC]," said Gerri Gaskill, a paraprofessional and head of circulation at Winthrop University's Dacus Library in Rock Hill, South Carolina. "I am a single parent with two children at home who would have had to find the time to commute an hour-and-a-half one way between Rock Hill and Columbia to complete the course." Gaskill is studying in USC's College of Library and Information Science.

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• • Peer reviewed. All sources are cited. Authors are Identifiable.
    Score: 80
• In addition to revising course content, BSU is developing courses that will be delivered entirely online to a rural cohort group. Providing an online special education teacher certification program offers effective instruction to qualified candidates and increases the ability for rural schools to offer special education services to their students (Canter, Voytecki & Rodriguez, 2007)
• The challenges to improving special education service delivery in rural areas are numerous and complex. Therefore, complex and multi-faceted approaches are required if there are improvements in outcomes for students with disabilities served in these areas. Within this article, several salient challenges have been enumerated and described. TATERS, which couples an online delivery model to a rural cohort group, mentorship support, and stronger collaborations between the IDE, an IHE, and local districts, addresses systemic issues via evidence-based best practices as described. Evaluation using a combination of formative and summative methods will be undertaken to determine the impact this approach has on increasing the effectiveness of highly qualified special education teachers in rural Idaho. States with similar concerns can follow the description of this program to develop similar models. It is anticipated that high tech and high touch, provided in the context of strong collaboration relationships, will lead to better services for rural students with disabilities.

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