Research Collaboratlon Tools

One of the signiflcant activities that can be done together by mathematica

a scicnce is to do research. As they do research

teachers and students is

gether, the opportunity to share resources and inputs can be aided by

chnological tools. In a rescárch that was conducted Staley and MoCallum

Co10), they were able to share some online tools that have emerged to be

geful in the conduct of collaborative activities with medical practitioners.

1. SciLink (hatp:laww%scllink.com)

This is a free networking community that focuses on science

researchers. SciLink profiles include resumne and biographical

information as entered by users, as well as automated updates from

Web-based data and literature that create network relationships, such

as publications and coauthors.

2. Epernicus (htp:lbyww.epernicus.cem)

Epernicus is a professional networking and expertise locator

for current and former rescarch scientists. User accounts are free

but require registration upon which one answers questions about

his or her research area and institution. Detailed information within

Epemicus profiles creates automatic network connections formed by

shared expertise, methods, or institutional relationships. Epernicus

also provides private networking platforms available to indıvidual

institutions through their Epermicus Solutions services.

3. RefWorks-COS Research Support Suite (htp://www.cos,.com) and

(http://wwW.Csa.com)
This subscription-based product is actually a suite of tools

designed to provide support throughout the entire research process.

Available from ProQuest, the suite is made up of some very familiar

products from the former Community of Science, including COS

Expertise and COS Funding Opportunities, as well as a few

additions currently available on the CSA Illumina platform.

4. Research Crossroads (http://www.researcheroSsroads.org)

This is designed to provide transparent access to publicly funded

research, Research Crossroads aggregates funding, publication,

clinical trial, and grant data from government and private research

agencies. Profiles are based on publicly available data, but researchers

may also login to update their own information-with about 12,000

profiles being updated this way to date. Researchers can use the

service to maintain a public profile and search for other researcher

or organizational profiles, as well as search for funding awards,

opportunities, and clinical trials.

5. SciVee (http://www.scivee.)

Sci Vee is a multimedıa community that provides social networking, collaboration and communication
applications for

publishers, societies and

researchers-across K-12 to professional

levels. The core of SciVee's services is a plattorm on which community memberS share videos describing
their work or publicizıng articles, posters, or presentations

6. PLoS ONE (http://www.plosone.org)

PLOS ONE was launched in 2006 as an international, peer-

reviewed, open-access publication of the Public Library of Science

disciplines and is set up to provide a channel for fast publication

where authors retain their own copyright.

7. Connotea (htp:/lwww.connotea.org), CiteULike (http://www.

citeulike.org), and 2Collab (http://www.2collab.com)

Several of the top social bookmarking tools designed to handle

reference management are produced by major publishing groups,

including Connotea, a product of the Nature Publishing Group.

CiteULike from Springer, and 2Collab from Elsevier. Overall, these

tools also share a few common design features, including (a) one-click

browser buttons that allow users to instantly add citations to hosted

bookmark libraries: (b) tagging with keywords to assist in organizing

and searching across other user libraries; (c) user profiles that include

bibliographies of published material, areas of expertise, and ongoing

research activities; and (d) group functions that allow users who

have common interests to share or discover references, as well as set

privacy settings for collaboration.

Recommendations for Effectively Employing Online Collaborations Tools

(0CT) in Teaching

It is not enough that you use online collaborative tools as supplementary

strategy in teaching mathematics and science, It is but apposite for teachers

to be guided by some principles in selecting and in employing these tools

in mathematics and science teaching. Hershock and LaVaque-Manty

collaboration tools in teaching which were contributed by their respondents in

their research.

A. Carefully Seleet Specifie Instructional Technologies

According to Hershock and LaVaque-Manty (2012), ofen, multiple

Online Collaboration Tools (OCTs) provide ways to achieve the same goal,

with its own advantages and dısadvantages. Ulimately. any choice

of instructional technology should be closely aligned with and motivated

by one's teaching and learning goals. Nevertheless, when selecting among options,the following aspects
are also important.

1. Start-up costs

Instructors should consider how difficult it is for them as well

as for their students to set up and learn any given tool. In general,

most of the current OCTs are very easy to use, but it is always a

good idea to test drive a tool, especially from a student's perspective,

before making it a part of one's instruction. For example, it takes

merely minutes to set up a blog or a Google Sites website, even for

a novice, but it may take longer to make one that is easy to navigate.

Furthermore, using an OCT's basic functions may be intuitive (e.g.,

posting text to a blog), but advanced functions critical to particular

learning activities may be more difficult to learn or use (e.g., posting

and captioning videos on blogs).

2. IT support

There is a need to consider the technical support is available to

students and instructors. Before using an OCT that is not supported

by your institution of your IT staff in your academic unit, instructors

availability to serve the role of tech support and training. Similarly, it

is impotant to consider whether your classroom has the appropriate

infrastructure to support the desired technology use (e.g.. power

outlets for students' devices, wireless internet with sufficient

bandwidth).

3. Tool overload

Students can be overwhelmed by the diversity of instructional

technologies in several ways. First, they may become frustrated if

they have to learn how to use many different tools to complete similar

tasks across courses. Using common, supported tools may help keep

the focus on learning course content, rather than learning how to use

a new technology. Second, managing accounts and passwords for

different OCTs can be challenging. To use apps not supported by your

institution, students may need to create new accounts and passwords

for each tool. The number of accounts and passwords within and

across courses can rapidly become unmanageable for students. Third,

leveraging your institution's learning management system, can case

students' navigation of course materials and multiple online tools.

4. Accessibility

or

Is the technology accessible to students with disabilities? For

example, Google Docs are accessible to some users with disabilities,

primarily via keyboard shortcuts, but are not accessible to visually

dexterity-impaired users who depend on screen reader or speech input

an additional strategy. For instance,

they should consider employing

in addition to sharing a Google Doc with students, instructors could

upload a doc version to Resources in Collaboration Tools, which is

accessible to visually impaired students.