Thoughts on Google Docs as a platform for rich data
George | November 11, 2010The team and especially me, needs a tutorial in the clean access, sharing and modifying of Google Docs (as rich data source) on line. we have had a right faff with uploaded documents. We got there in the end, but it took us some time.
For me part of the problem comes with logging into “my Google account”. My browsers have cookies for 3 of them (Brookes, personal, jisc-ssbr). Emails get forwarded to Brookes (Google) mail. I click on the link in the Brookes email and all sorts of different behaviours ensue depending what browser I am in, and what other Google accounts may be open in one browser window or an other.
Another problem is the sharing of documents and folders.
It appears that for shares to work you need to be explicitly named in the share. Just giving all people in jisc-ssbr domain permission does not seem to cascade through the personal menu system. Paul shared a folder with everyone in the domain, but I couldn’t see that “shared” folder until he explicitly named me in the share.
Another issue is to assure that we manage our underlying – baseline – data with security in mind.
Which has just reminded me about backing up. Can I please be assured that our Google site is appropriately risk-managed and backed up. What happens when Google changes ToS?
Because: we already publish some of our Google docs to the web and link to that in a table of our own outputs. We did this with the First Cycle of Synthesis. Please can you follow the links in this document Synthesis Methodology Cycle 1 Stage 2 V1 from last July to be reminded how it works. Note that this is a lumpy underlying URL:
Do we want to adopt a consistent URL shortening service? Google’s own?
In the document, You will see the links below the second figure in the Synthesis Methodology Cycle 1 Stage 2 V1 paper resolve to current (not July) versions of these documents. They are updated dynamically. In the case of the big Cycle 1 Synthesis spreadsheet, the “Final Outputs” sheet, accessible from the published version on the web is a tremendous resource. We need to replicate appropriate parts of this resource for Cycle 2 and 3 of the programme synthesis work. This is starting with the new Google spreadsheet: SSBR Phase 3 projects. Similarly lumpy URL:
We need to expose the links to the synthesis reports as well as some key underlying data, keyed to the work package identifier and ensure they are:
- persistent and/or update appropriately and that, ideally, a record of changes (change/version control) is available; we may want to take pdf “impressions” from time to time and archive them, such as the the first synthesis report.
- discoverable – even by JISC programme managers, let alone University PVCs
- searchable
- navigable
- scalable to the most effective level of granularity
Can we be assured that this is a platform that will be stable for 3 years from April 2011