Hi all. An interesting issue that I’ve come upon.
I’m looking for a tool for the tech saavy, and the tech challenged alike to collaborate on the production of a whitepaper. A lot of these guys and girls will be busy doctors who don’t usually feel compelled to sit in front of a computer for very long, if at all.
So my first thought on this was to use exactly this: what I’m typing into now, A vbulletin bulletin board system, or similar. Also was thinking about using wordpress. These have plugins so all the busy doctors can view posts and otherwise collaborate from the comfort of their blackberry/iphone/other smart phone, as I’m sure they have one and use it.
My next thought was to use Git, or Bazaar, or CVS, or Subversion or Mercurial or some other version of revision control software, as that is really what is to be done: to develop and refine the content of a white paper. So the code in this case is in plain english, and the end product is just a paper, but with collaboratively worked upon content. But I don’t know enough about these RVS products, and I can’t seem to find the info. Do they allow comments from others about your code? Is there real-time messaging within them? Can anything be done (view, edit, comment, revise, delete) on RVS products from a smart phone?
Maybe we end up using a host of open-source products, but it would be nice to have them integrated as tightly as possible from the beginning. Or to use the features that are integrated already, out of the box.
But again, I think the key to getting busy, non-tech people to collaborate on anything online would be through the apps on their cell phone. So I kind of start there, as a lowest common denominator.
Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?