Online collaborative tools can enable you to work with colleagues at a distance. They can also allow you to work on a single document together. This is your opportunity to design, create, execute, analyze and share a collaborative research project.

The unique aspect of this assignment is that you cannot sit next to each other to discuss the work. You must:

• Use Google Docs to discuss and design your project.
• Use Google Forms to create your Assessment tool.
• Use your Twitter list to distribute the URL to your assessment tool.
• Use Google Spreadsheet to analyze your results.
• Use Google Presenter to create a short (3-4 screen presentation).
• Use Jing to record your presentation.
• Use our EIT wiki to post the links to your Jing presentations.

Identifying Group Roles
Begin by identifying the group roles for this project. You will need:

• a leader,
• an expediter and
• a detail specialist.
• You will also need to identify a person or persons who are responsible for each of the following steps.

Discuss how you will be communicating throughout the project. It might be through chat (now included in Google Docs), writing on Google Docs Comments, Skype, Mobile Unit, FaceBook . . . ???.

Now that you have your roles defined. Separate yourselves geographically. This might mean that you move to different places in the room or in other rooms (as long as you have wifi.) This is an online collaborative project.

Open a Google Document

The leader will open a Google document and then share it with the group. Please share it with Dr. Z as well (leigh.zeitz@gmail.com)

Identifying Your Problem
Identify a research question that you believe is important to know about your classmates. It doesn't have to be complex. It might be something as simple as their attitudes towards different types of pets. This is simple enough to complete in a short time, but complex enough to make it interesting.

Identify Your Question
Your question must be simple. Something like "How do people feel about cats, dogs, gerbils, fish and snakes?" Combining all of the animals into the same question is not good research practice but it will simplify things for this activity. This is your research question. You will have multiple questions on your assessment tool. In this case, you would have 5 questions - one for each of the animals.

Design Your Assessment Tool
Write the questions that you will include in a survey. It would be best if you made these multiple choice questions. In the case of the animals, you might ask your respondents to respond to this statement.

I like dogs: __ Yes __ Indifferent ___ No

or, if you want to get more scientific:

I like dogs: ___Strongly Agree ___ Agree ___ Neutral ___ Disagree ___ Strongly Disagree.

Create Your Google Form
Open a Google Spreadsheet and create the columns which will correspond with your questions. Create the form that your respondents will use to answer your questions. You could use a dropdown menu or a short answer if you want them to include numbers. Remember to make it use an interesting background/theme.

Announce Your Survey
Now you need to let the public know about your survey. Use Twitter to send out the message. Unfortunately, there is no way to selectively send tweets. It is possible, however, to include the hash tag #EITS2010. Everyone should also find your announcement if they use TweetDeck to follow the eit-itcohort2010 list. Include a time deadline for the responses. This means that if you decide to make your deadline 5:00 on Monday, 6/14, any late responses will not be included in the analysis.

Prepare Your Presentation
Don't waste time while you are waiting for the responses. Use Google Presenter to create a presentation. Remember that you are still doing this from a distance. So your discussion needs to be through chat (now included in Google Docs), writing on Google Docs Comments, Skype, Telephone, FaceBook . . . whatever.

Analyze Your Data
This doesn't need to be a formal statistical analysis. You just need to identify how people feel about your topic. You can use the Show Summary of Responses tool in the Form menu in Google Docs. It is up to you. Your results are not as important as the process.

Record Your Presentation Using Jing

1. Download Jing to your computer.
2. Open your presentation on your computer.
3. You will use Jing's capture mode to make your presentation.
4. Make a 10-second test recording to ensure that your microphone is working.
5. Now create a presentation using Google Presenter and your narration. Remember that you cannot edit a Jing video. You don't have to be perfect, but you might want to redo it if you make some serious errors.
6. Save your Jing video on the Screencast server.
7. Jing will copy the URL into your computer's clipboard. You will need to copy that somewhere so that you can use it at a later time.

Posting Links to Your Submissions
Now that you have completed your work, it is time to share it with the world. Post a link to your Jing presentation on the EIT wiki. It would be useful for your to identify the question; explain what it means; identify the researchers; and post the link. EIT Collaborative Research Wiki

Submission

The process that you used is as important as the product. This process will be recorded in the development of your documents. Your final document should have 8 sections:

• Group Members and their Roles - Just make a list.
• The Research Problem - Explain the problem you selected and why you selected it.
• The Research Question - Identify the research question.
• The Research Instrument - This could be a link to the survey form.
• The Survey Announcement - Include the tweet that was sent.
• Survey Presentation - Include a link to your Google presentation.
• Video of Presentation - Include a link to your Jing presentation.
• Reflection (one for each researcher):

At the bottom of your official Google Doc, each researcher will write a reflection where s/he will explain the experience of completing this Collaborative Research Project. Include the following elements:

• What I did in this project - Describe the project and what you actually accomplished. This may be more than your assignment.
• What did you learn in doing this project? - Describe your impression of how the project proceeded. Make it more detailed than "It went well."
• How might you use this process in the future? - Now that you have completed a collaborative research project, how might you use this in the future (in and out of education)?

These reflections don't need to be extensive. Just a few paragraphs will be sufficient.

Good luck and remember to contact Dr. Z if you have any questions.