We often talk about collaboration in text production as if it is a switch with default position ‘off’. There is no in-between state. Either collaboration is turned on, or it is turned off.
Collaboration is a broad spectrum of activities and affects all text production. Any given work can be discussed as a position on a spectrum of collaborative activity. At one end we have ‘weak collaboration’, and at the other ‘strong collaboration’. The character of production can be described by a collection of attributes which identify where it sits (at a given time) on this continuum.
Weak Collaboration
- coordination through technical frameworks
- little or no human coordination
- coordination rather than collaboration
- isolated producers
- small contributions
- no shared visions on the individual level
- discrete parallelised production outputs
Strong collaboration
- the technical framework is an enabler
- strong human facilitation
- intensely connected contributors
- large contributions
- shared vision
- synthesised production
A text may move along this spectrum as it undergoes different stages of production.
