Collaboration in the cloud

Hurrah! Thing 13 and nearly caught up at last.

This Thing is looking at ways of working in collaboration on documents using Google Documents and Dropbox.

When I looked at my Google Docs account there were already some documents in there which I had downloaded from other people. Who knew? I experimentally edited one of these and I didn't at first realise that I was editing an actual document that someone had made available for all to read - oops. Think I managed not to do anything too drastic though and hopefully restored it to it's previous format using the option to view revisions. I then created a document using the Family Finance template and shared it with some family members.

I then had a look at Skydrive. This is a Microsoft product which appears to do the same as Google Docs. I had to set up yet another Windows Live account as I can't remember the details of any previous ones. I created and uploaded some documents to this and shared them. The controls on Skydrive allow you to set who can view a document and also who can edit.

I could see little real difference between Skydrive and Google Docs except the storage limit is higher on Skydrive -  25GB as opposed to 1024 MB.

I can see some possibilities for using either of these for collaborative working. Things like writing multi-site guides would be easier using these, although a much more likely use is moving things between home and work. I need to try accessing both services at work to see if this works smoothly.

With both services I'm concerned about version control and the possibility of idiots like me making accidental changes to documents.

Because of NHS rules about data security I don't think there's much point in trying to use Dropbox. There's no way of downloading an app to a work computer and I can't see any possibility of adding a shared folder in Outlook.

I have had a look at PBworks - one of the other cpd23er has written about using a Wiki for booking training - I think I can see a way of doing this and will investigate further.