COMPUTERS and COMPOSITION 8(1), November 1990, pages 95-98

The first thing I noticed about COLLABORATIVE WRITER is that it doesn't look like a Macintosh program. All the file names on the two 31/2" floppies have telltale underscores between words rather than spaces. The application file itself is called "Collaborative Writer."

I should say "the application files," for each of the two 800K disks includes a file named "Collaborative Writer." In addition, each disk contains a "CW Help" file and a folder named "Screens." Because my Mac has only one floppy drive, I copied the contents of both disks to one of my hard drives before investigating further.

After putting the files and folders on my hard disk, I could see the reason for splitting the program into two floppies: The complete "Screens" folder contains over 900K of information--more than a single 800K Mac disk can hold. For the same reason, the two COLLABORATIVE WRITER applications are not identical. Each is configured to read only the "Screens" files on its own disk.

COLLABORATIVE WRITER comprises three main components.

• Collaboration is a series of guidelines and checklists on establishing, organizing, and working within a collaborative writing task group.
• Tutorial is a series of guidelines and checklists on planning, drafting, revising, and "packaging" memos, proposals, informative documents, short reports, and long reports.
  
• In addition, the program contains Word Processor, a rudimentary text editor like TEACHTEXT.
  

The Tutorial section is the heart of the program. After pulling down "Tutorial" in the Menu bar, students can select the type of document they are going to write. The Menu bar then shows menus titled "Plan," "Draft," "Revise," and "Package," and pulling down a menu reveals more specific choices. For example, under "Plan," the students find "Purpose," "Audience," and "Content."

The "Screens" then presented are specific to the type of document originally chosen. "Purpose" for a proposal, for example, is quite different from "Purpose" for a formal report. And "Audience" in each type of document leads the students through an analysis of the audiences that will probably be reading the particular kind of document originally specified.

As students read the guidelines they can use a separate window to write notes in response to checklist questions, and they can save the notes as files to be read, edited, and printed for distribution to all members of the group. These notes become the working papers for the group's project.

Although COLLABORATIVE WRITER's text editor has very limited capabilities, the students can draft documents with the text editor, save those documents as text files, and then load them into full featured word processing packages to be formatted and printed.

• The COLLABORATIVE WRITER program itself provides no communication medium. Therefore, there is no way for the students to collaborate online as they use the program. The group members must cluster around a single Mac while one person writes the notes, or they must have another mail or phone program to communicate online while they all work through COLLABORATIVE WRITER
  
• The program provides no way of printing the "Screens" themselves so that group members can meet outside of a writing lab or classroom to discuss their responses to questions posed by the "Screens." Because our Lab is usually operating at or near capacity, and because we have only limited "phone" capabilities online, a meeting in the lab outside of normal class hours usually disturbs students who are working on nearby computers.
• The teacher cannot easily modify the material presented in the "Screens." The "Screens" are MACPAINT bitmaps, not text files, and the program is set to read only a certain number of screens for each menu selection. Therefore, a teacher can probably substitute a new MacPaint file for an existing "Screen," but the teacher cannot add new screens to include material specific to the class's assignment.
  
• Unlike HYPERCARD but like many MS-DOS programs, COLLABORATIVE WRITER is a series of one-way streets. If students select the wrong menu choice, they cannot escape from the sequence of "Screens" without going through the whole sequence.
  
• Even though my examination copy of the program carries a sticker saying "Network Version," it contains two separate applications, as I mentioned above, and the disks are obviously configured for stand-alone computers rather than for a network. This is a minor problem, for a simple procedure using RESEDIT can allow either of the two applications to run all the "Screens" files rather than only those on its own disk. However, this kind of "minor problem" often indicates a carelessness that may cause serious problems elsewhere in a program. Because the label says "Network Version," why should the user have to modify the program to make it run efficiently on the network? Why didn't the programmers do so?
  

• COLLABORATIVE WRITER presents its information in a format that is easy to use as students work on collaborative writing projects. The "Screens" files are not as flexible as HYPERCARD stacks, but they are by no means difficult to navigate.
  
• The checklists provided by COLLABORATIVE WRITER are excellent, and they should be especially valuable to teachers who are new to collaborative writing and to teachers of very large classes. Ann Hill Duin, who teaches at the University of Minnesota, obviously knows her stuff, and she presents it clearly and concisely in this program.
  
• The program's manual suggests an effective way of setting access privileges for easy collaboration on an AppleShare network.
  
• Finally, the price of only $249 per network makes COLLABORATIVE WRITER easily affordable for most writing labs. In a typical 25-unit lab that comes to only $10 per work station. Few good applications are available at that price.
  

As I re-read this review, I see that I've devoted a lot of space to deficiencies in COLLABORATIVE WRITER. That proportion is misleading, for I think that the program can be a valuable teaching tool . We have access to very few computer applications that attempt to lead our students through all stages of the writing process, and fewer still that provide such sound bases for planning, composing, revising, and formatting business and technical writing documents.

The primary deficiency of COLLABORATIVE WRITER is that the programmers and program designers did not use all the capabilities of their chosen medium. Although this program would be normal fare on an Apple II or an MS-DOS computer, the Macintosh can do much more than they ask it to do. For example, instead of providing a crippled text editor, why not include a network communication feature? Instead of using MACPAINT bitmaps in the "Screens" folder, why not use scrolling text files that could be customized by teachers and printed by students? Or, having chosen to work with individual "Screens" files, why not use the flexibility of HYPERCARD instead of reinventing the wheel by writing a new program to present material in a less effective format?

To use COLLABORATIVE WRITER's own terms, I'd say that the purpose is excellent, the content is excellent, but the writers have missed slightly in audience analysis, structure, and style. The program can be an effective teaching tool as it is now, but I'm sure that the writers can make future versions even more powerful.

Robert Boston teaches in the English Department of Iowa State University.

I'll be glad to E-Mail a copy of the RESEDIT procedure to anyone. My Bitnet address is S2.RSB@ISUMVS

COLLABORATIVE WRITER; $249.00 per lab; system: Macintosh.

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