Technologies Used: Ning.com, Skype, Surveymonkey.com
Author: Dr. David Zyngier
Description of Activity
As a result of attendance at an international conference in Toronto University I have developed the ‘Global Doing Democracy Research Project’ using the free and relatively straight forward CMS (Content Management System) software available through Ning.com which is a professional networking and collaborative tool not unlike Facebook.
The use of the Ning has enabled the broadest possible reach of the project and its expansion at a rate unforseen by the co-directors. This has facilitated the involvement of over 40 researchers in 15 countries using 5 languages. This free software has enabled:
- research collaboration
- sharing of videos in different languages explaining the progress and research
- collective writing of documents and submissions
- online chat
- linking to essential reading
- personal and collective blogs
- discussion groups
- sharing of ethics submissions
- inviting members to attend events like conferences, scheduled online chats and Skype group dialogues.
We even have a section that is only visible to the co-directors when we can liaise by linking with face to face Skype dialogue. By linking this site to Surveymonkey.com we have been able to host and facilitate the collection and analysis of comparative research on a global scale at almost no cost.
We were able to remove the advertising by request as we intend to include children under 18 years of age in the project. We have decided at this stage to make this site ‘members only’ so it is only open to those we invite. This may change in the future.
Related Resources
To cite this article please use the following:
Zyngier, D. (2009). Global Collaboration Using Ning.com. In M.Henderson & A.Fernando (Eds) Online Teaching Centre. Faculty of Education: Monash University.
