Web Office Tools

Google Docs (Beta) is pretty cool, I can see it as useful to students working on a group project or by faculty co-authoring a manuscript. It could also be used by members of a professional association, such as a working group or officers who need to draft or edit a document before presenting it to the rest of the association.

I've used the Google spreadsheet to update my contact information for a private, unofficial alumni group. We used to update our information by downloading an Excel spreadsheet, editing it, and then sending it back to the person coordinating the whole thing. Google Docs makes things so much easier for her! The only hard part was getting everyone invited and signed up properly so that they could gain access, particularly since many have multiple email addresses.

However, so many of us are familiar and comfortable with Microsoft applications that I think Microsoft Office Live Workspace (Beta) has a better chance of being used by professionals, particularly co-authors of a manuscript. It would be easier than the current method of emailing the Word file to the other collaborators with "Track changes" activated. I've heard examples from faculty members where multiple collaborators made changes and emailed the new document to the group at about the same time, thereby creating complications and adding time to the process. Using web-based software could eliminate this problem, as long as every co-author has a decent PC with a good Internet connection speed.

Here are a couple of examples of Google Docs that I chose to publish on the Web, without allowing others to edit them: http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dg32b75x_1fp49p2hc
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pmSWLq6162INuGIiv2QFKMQ