Okay, I have to admit it.  I have tried this before with similarly dismal results.  Wikis seem like a perfect fit for academic committees, taskforces, grant proposals, etc. but every time I try to get my colleagues in the College of Medicine to use them, I fail miserably.  Currently I am a member of a committee that is creating a proposal to fund and establish a marketing function within our department.  I set up Google Apps for our department, added the members of my committee, uploaded the documents we have produced to date, sent everyone instructions for logging in and making changes, and then watched as everyone emailed their documents around to members of the group.

Obviously, I need to lay a better foundation but how to do that when everyone is so busy that I can barely get them to consider the idea of doing things a little different way.  Your suggestions... PLEASE!

Hey, Jerry, this is Mary McGlasson!

      Maybe get everyone in one room (a computer training lab, or with laptops) and get everyone up and running at once? It may be tough to get everyone together, but there's a payoff in the longer term . . . also, what sort of instructions were distributed? Electronic documents? If your folks are anything like me, they probably get into "I'll look at this later" mode.

I wanted to play with Jing (screencast software) last week, so I decided to do double-duty and walk folks through the Google Docs process at the same time. I sent it out, and I've gotten several people on board in the past few days when I had been unsuccessful at doing so over the past few months. I went over my 5 minute limit with Jing on my first recording, so had to add a "Part 2" -- here are the screencasts I did. NOTE: The initial 2-3 minutes is specific to access at my college.

Part 1 (GoogleDocs demo): http://screencast.com/t/pUQRmgj8tJ

Part 2 (GoogleDocs demo): http://screencast.com/t/E4LGckaMx

Hi Mary,

Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.  I am particularly interested in following your lead in using something like the screen capture videos that you created with Jing.  It's something I have been thinking of doing but hadn't gotten around to.  Now I'll give them a try.

Jerry