What are collaboration tools?

There are varying categories (see chart below), components, and phases of collaboration tools. A varied mix of tools may be needed by students, faculty, and staff. Major collaboration suite vendors, like Microsoft and Google, are aggressively moving their services to the cloud. The IT Council will establish a strategic partnership with one of these vendors.

 

Collaboration Services at U-M are currently lacking and fragmented

Some collaboration tools have been around campus for many years. Historically, tools have been discrete, non-integrated, or stand-alone functions. Today’s collaboration tools are more intertwined, aggregated, and integrated. The figure below represents the cloud collaboration suites from Google, Microsoft and Zimbra. These solutions are used in varying capacities across campus (View Analysis of U-M Collaboration Services).

 

 

IT Council will select our strategic partner on a U-M collaboration suite

We will learn and share more about the possibilities of a campus collaboration suite in coming months. The IT Council will establish a strategic partnership with a major vendor to provide this service.