Joined on 10-22-2004
TechSoup Member
This question is on behalf of a nonprofit worker I met recently who has a community of about 40,000 potential participants, but a very small budget and no tech staff. She wants to provide a way for the participants (who are teachers) to email each other and share documents. My first instinct was wiki, but most kinds I'm familiar with don't have the best email integration or community building features. If anyone has recommendations for wikis, cms's, or 3rd party services that would allow this without breaking the bank or requiring lots of tech expertise or time for upkeep, please share.
Joined on 01-08-2006
St. Paul
You could set up a site that teachers can join and have their own profile etc.
If you have 40,000 potential members, you might want set up your own Social Network with members categorized by state or other variable for easy search/contact.
You have the ability to set it up as an "invite only" environment.
The file sharing can be facilitated by either simple email OR...
...if you want teachers to be able to upload and share via a central repository, a Box.net account can be set up with the account widget embedded on the social network site for others to access. Box.net has group collaboration tools built in as well.
More savvy members could set up their own Box.net accounts and embed the widget in their profiles to share docs with others online.
You could even have a "Box.net Widget Central" page with numerous member widgets organized by state/topic etc.
This is just one "off the shelf" solutions.
hth,
.
Some forum software allows the uploading of files, and that may be a good option for your situation. Forums also generally have the ability to contact members via mail or Private Mail (PM) which can be effective for those that don't have an email account.
Check out
KnowledgeTree.
Perhaps you can elaborate a bit more about your work flow.
Joined on 02-26-2007
TechSoup Member
Hi,
Knowledge tree is a good DMS although quite complex. A simple DMS is myDms although I don't think you are actually looking to manage documents. I think you are looking to manage content from users.
In that case there is an excellent extension available for the Joomla CMS called Community Builder. I suggest the best method of investigating it is to visit the community builder site and sign up. Or you can install the software on your own Joomla install.
I hope this was some help.
Ian.
Joined on 11-21-2005
TechSoup Member
I dont know exactly what you are looking for, but there are a few good and free (ad sponsored) solutions on the web.
Email lists
Google groups; easy to setup, no need for your users to subscibe to google, nice clean emails
Yahoo groups; with nice services like document and photo sharing, links and calendar and even an database!
Online collaboration and wiki spaces
Google Apps for your domain; free service available, Gmail and email lists (don't know if you can get 40.000 email boxes of 2 Gb :wink: ), Calendar, Gtalk, Google pages and Docs & Spreadsheets
Zoho; online office and productivity tools with an wiki. Still in early Beta
About.com; has an list of free and paid for wiki spaces on the web.
Frans
Joined on 02-28-2007
TechSoup Member
I've starting using the free service of Google Docs and Spreadsheets http://docs.google.com They use the standard Google WYSIWYG interface (same as gmail) and also include easy options to convert DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, etc directly to and from private or public web pages. They include wiki like change tracking and Google Apps integration. No commenting feature though :-(
Google has acquired JotSpot which could lead to a category killer app.
I would warn agains traditional wikis unless your users are keen to learn wiki mark-up, which most people are not.
Joined on 03-10-2003
TechSoup Member
If you are wiki-inclined, but don't want to learn wiki markup, there are wiki hosts out there which use pure WYSIWYG interfaces, like wikispaces.com (where I keep my wiki). If you can use WordPad (baby version of Word), you can use Wikispaces. You can choose whether to use pages as documents (like wikipedia does), or whether to upload the documents as such (separate items which you download to edit, then upload back again).
Joined on 03-01-2007
TechSoup Member
At Z2 Systems we just added a document sharing module to our all-in-one NEON e-CRM system. It allows organizations to attach documents to contacts, as well as securely share documents internally and externally. Just upload, and you can share it with other members of your organization from any internet connection. Take a look at our site and sign up for a trial so we can give you a free demo. www.z2systems.com
Joined on 03-02-2007
TechSoup Member
For several people working on a document (word processing or spreadsheet), we like
Google Documents and Spreadsheets. Anyone with access can collaborate simultaneously from any two computers anywhere. The service is free.
Someone recommended Box.net for online storage. I've used
Mediamax on a small scale and can recommend that.
Ning.com has just rolled out its "roll your own" social network. The site says that:
* Members can invite new members, meet new people, and make new friends.
* Members can enjoy a full message center with address book importing.
* Members can set different privacy settings for every photo, video, or blog post they contribute.
Ning just got a good write-up in
Lifehacker.com. This sounds like a good solution for this group or any other. You can't beat the price. It's free.
I'd be interested in which way this organization chooses to go and what the results turn out to be.
Joined on 07-14-2006
TechSoup Member
Located a great online intranet collaboration site...
www.officezilla.com
FREE TO USE...and many many features.
Brenda Dane
Health Literacy Foundation
Joined on 04-30-2003
TechSoup Member
One thing you would want to consider is if they will or could be posting confidential information in the posts or documents. I was originally setting up a Google Group for my nonprofit to allow our fund raising team, which works with volunteer fund raisers in the community. However, after reading the terms of service it sounded like even though it is password protected so general people cannot get on, that Google has the right to use what is posted on a group how they see fit. Since we were going to be posting donor information and amounts that are very confidential, I decided against using Google Groups. Maybe I'm just reading it incorrectly...
What do you guys think about the confidentiality issues for folks like gcardazone and myself wanting to use online collaboration systems where confidential information/files either will be or could be posted?
-Greg
Joined on 03-21-2001
Los Angeles
I had a similar reaction to the license for use of Google APPS:
[*][font face='Arial' size='2' color='Green']By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the general public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, adapt and publish such Content on Google services solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing and promoting Google services. This license terminates when such Content is removed from the Google service to which you originally submitted. Google reserves the right to syndicate Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services and use that Content in connection with any of the services offered by Google.[/font][/*]
So my content would subject to syndication! Would it be a Google service "intended to be available to the general public" if my use of it was intended only to be private, but the generic service was intended for the public? And if I posted it once and immediately removed it and posted it again, would it NOT be subject to syndication? Et C. I tried to get an answer from Google, but nothing meaningful. This was a complete deal breaker for me.
Joined on 04-30-2003
TechSoup Member
Yeah, that is what concerned me too. Because they don't seem to diferentiate between the private and public, to them they all seem fair game to use. I had our group all setup and ready to go when I realized this.
Does anyone have any recommendations on a group server software that is free or open source that could be used on one's web host?
-Greg