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Asynchronous discussions

Colleagues at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have been exploring novel technology to facilitate group-work activities between collaborators who may be separated both in time and space. The SYNERGY project - supported by the Small Development Projects fund - builds on significant UEA experience of using software to support face-to-face facilitated meetings. The software - FacilitatePro - offers shared and anonymous brainstorming, categorising and voting tools. Participants use it during sessions to record questions, ideas, facts and opinions for later processing and action.

FacilitatePro has been used extensively in-house at UEA’s dedicated iLab (www.uea.ac.uk/is/larc/iLab/). In many cases, however, it is not straightforward to gather all stakeholders together in the right place at the right time. The SYNERGY project, using the web capabilities of the software, offers a solution to this problem which enables people to be involved in a facilitated meeting, irrespective of their geographical location and existing diary commitments. Not only does this allow for wider consultation and different modes of collaboration, it can also save on travel and energy costs. The project aimed to arrive at a better understanding of the issues involved in running asynchronous groups, so that facilitators understand when this approach might be appropriate and how best to manage the facilitation task.

The project report has now been released. It details a number of case studies – some from within UEA and some external, including a collaboration with partner institution the University of Hertfordshire. The main learning points from each study are summarised and the report offers suggestions about how the software could be used to support organisational learning.

Details of the project, including the project report, can be found at www.uea.ac.uk/csed/projects/synergy

For a hard copy of the report contact Gurpreet Gill

Last updated: 17 July 2009