News - Toolkit approach to collaborative online

Toolkit approach to collaborative online working

March 2003

The e-government programme and the Review of the Centre call for agencies to increasingly collaborate across the board, from policy development to service delivery. While the Internet would never replace working face to face with your colleagues in other departments, a range of web-based tools promise to make collaboration that much easier.

Earlier work by the E-government Unit established the benefits of online collaboration, but focussed on the idea of a single one-size-fits-all solution for a variety cross-agency work. Further study of some of the lessons learned by agencies already using online collaboration has shifted thinking towards the modular or component-based approach adopted elsewhere in the programme.

In the first half of 2003 groups and teams will test a range of collaboration tools, and those that are successful will be added to the shared workspace 'toolbox'. Like the other components being developed for use by agencies, the benefits are clear. Components and the infrastructure supporting them will be pre-approved against e-government and security standards. Secure project workspaces can set up relatively quickly and cheaply, and disassembled when projects are completed. We are also planning a whole-of-government intranet designed for easy sharing of information from central agencies, links to legislation online and information of value to human resource and IT managers across government, for example.

So far, 17 teams are using document sharing and online discussion secured to the level of IN CONFIDENCE. The next series of trials will test tools for collaborative authoring and moderated email discussions.

For more information contact ros.coote@ssc.govt.nz.