Implementing Tools for Collaboration Across Boundaries
Steve Nelson, Marquette University School of Law
Dax Phillips, Marquette University School of Law

The Marquette Law School Media and Technology Group has implemented several software tools to promote collaboration between librarians, IT staff, faculty, and patrons. Until recently, Group staff was scattered across several locations in an old building and reported to several different people. This created confusion among users about who was responsible for what.

Prior to changes, tech support for the law school was run through an online help desk run by campus IT. This meant all requests were initially handled by staff outside the law school before being filtered back. Group members communicated by personal email, meaning individual Group members couldn't keep track of what others in the Group were doing, or how much they knew (or didn't know) about ongoing projects. In addition, Group data was maintained on a shared campus network space -- on which there was little to no available space.

Despite these limitations, the Group's customers were satisfied. However, they still remained confused about who had responsibility for specific areas.

The Group's first changes were administrative in nature. First, staff centralized all the law school technology services into a single service point. This involved moving everyone into one office and incorporating all law school units perceived by users to be "technology" into a single department.

With the administrative changes in place, the Group adopted a number of new tools. Email remained a primary method of communication, however a single email address was established for users to contact Group members, and all Group members received messages sent to the address. Similarly, a single hotline number was created for users to reach group members by phone.

At the beginning of each semester, Group members contacted each faculty member and explained the technology tools and services available to them in the classroom to which they were assigned. The Group also offered to demo these tools and services in a one on one session.

The Group began using Microsoft Sharepoint, which enabled members to make documentation available to everyone and provided a platform for them to share and collaborate on these items.

Also, the Group adopted Microsoft Communicator for its internal messaging needs. Since the entire campus used this tool, Group members could communicate easily with University organizations beyond their own walls.

A number of social tools were adopted for current awareness purposes. The first of these was del.icio.us, which provided shared bookmarks for everyone in the group. Members also began using Furl for private tagging and bookmark purposes. Furl also assisted in the creation of table of contents subscriptions for members of the law faculty. Group members installed an RSS reader (RSS Bandit) on new faculty computers and pre-populated the program with subscriptions tailored to each professor's interests. A Group blog was established to bundle and market Group services and resources to users. The blog included several popular features, including a virtual jukebox, del.icio.us tags, and a Flickr badge. Finally, the Group used AirSet to create a system of calendars for everything from equipment checkout to personal schedules to room reservations.

RSS moves all information within this new system to everyone involved inside and outside the group, thus ensuring that everyone knows what's going on. And when everyone knows what's going, there is a huge incentive for Group members to not drop the ball.