With multi-institution multi-state collaborative funding grants and consortium-based e-learning endeavors, the occurrence of collaborative image creation has become much more common-place. Even within an institution, cross-departmental or cross-college endeavors exist. This chapter addresses collaboration around digital imagery creation for e-learning, both via face-to-face (F2F) and virtual teaming. This captures some workflow practices and highlights ideas for encouraging quality builds and innovation.
TopChapter Objectives
- •
Explore the steps to collaborative digital image creation
- •
Define face-to-face (F2F) co-located collaborative teams for creating digital imagery
- •
Define distributed virtual teaming for digital imagery creation
- •
Describe a virtual design studio and some of the technologies needed
- •
Emphasize the importance of verbose communications for digital imagery collaboration, design, and development
- •
Review cultural sensitivity in teaming
- •
Explore efficient workflow practices for encouraging collaborative quality image builds and innovation
TopCollaborative Image Creation
Some collaborations are formal with clearly defined teams and goals; others involve informal peer-to-peer networks connected by computer mediated communications. Some are co-located teams within the same organization; others are virtual teams that may or may not be from the same organization. Collaborative work via outsourcing is another factor that has fed collaboration.
Some teams are regular work ones, with plenty of research addressing different ways that these function. Then, there are the anomalous “hot groups” that coalesce spontaneously around cutting-edge work, deliver creative results, and tend to be short-lived (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1999, pp. 11 – 13). Underlying collaborative image creation is the idea of equifinality, a principle that suggests that “an open system such as a person, team, or organization can behave and still achieve the same outcome…” (Hackman, 2002, p. 216). Yet, even given the different paths, some general phases of digital imagery capture and development may be understood to be the work of such teams.
Collaborative digital image creation for e-learning involves five general steps:
- 1.
design,
- 2.
planning (for execution),
- 3.
capture and collection,
- 4.
processing and development, and
- 5.
deployment and archival.