expert

Creating, editing and discussing large documents in a team

Client

The Association “National Society of Technology in Education” (NOTO) is a community of teachers who strive to make education more technological and advanced.

NOTO is a partner of many educational organisations and developers of solutions for schools and universities.

NOTO’s mission is to improve the educational environment, implement the latest technologies in education and increase the digital competencies of teachers.

Project objectives

To provide NOTO with the ability to create documents that will become laws or will be used for teachers’ training manuals.

Challenge

To create a tool for joint development of documents by all members of NOTO.

Заказчик

Ассоциация «Национальное общество технологий в образовании» —сообщество преподавателей и учителей, которые стремятся сделать образование в России технологичным и передовым.

НОТО — партнермножества образовательных организаций и разработчиков решений для школ и университетов.

Миссия НОТО — усовершенствовать образовательную среду, внедрить новейшие технологии в образование и повысить цифровые компетенции учителей.

Цель проекта

Предоставить НОТО возможность создавать документы, которые станут законами или пойдут в учительские методички.

Задача

Создать инструмент для совместной разработки документов всеми участниками НОТО.

Idea

We thought that this task would be best solved by something that is functionally similar to applications for remote collaboration.
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And we created such a program from scratch. This was the only way we could take into account all the tasks and peculiarities of the processes in NOTO.

Profile

Each member has a profile card.

Optionally, the user can choose a status badge for others to understand what role he or she plays in the development of projects.

They can also set up notifications to receive only the important ones.

Later, all versions of documents that the user takes part in, and all their comments will appear in the profile.

Dashboard

Everything that users need is located on the dashboard, they can go directly to all sections of the system.

As soon as the user joins the development of documents, they appear on the main page.

Groups

In order to become a full member of NOTO Expert, users join groups:

groups by profile

группы по цели

Participants can create groups themselves. Any participant can start a group and:

invite all current members
of NOTO Expert,

send an email invitation to those who are not yet registered in NOTO.

Documents

In this section, the users of the system can see a list of documents they are involved with.

In order for the user not to get confused in a huge number of similar documents and their editions, we have divided them into current and archived ones.

Favorites

The user marks important groups and documents with a star, and they appear on the main page. This way, they are easy to find and hard to lose.

Creating a document

создание
документа

Each member can create their own document – to open it directly in the service or download the ready one in Excel or JSON format.

The next step is to invite groups to join its development. If the group administrator accepts the invitation, all members of the group get access to this document.

Discussion

This is where the main part begins. Participants modify the original document – both its separate parts and the structure as a whole:

suggest new versions of paragraphs;

comment on the original paragraphs and their versions suggested by other members of the group;

like the paragraphs that they consider optimal.

обсуждение

Здесь начинается все то, ради чего был затеян проект. Участники дорабатывают оригинальный документ — как отдельные его части, так и структуру в целом:

предлагают новые версии параграфов;

комментируют исходные параграфы и их версии,
предложенные другими участниками группы;

отвечают на комментарии;

ставят лайки параграфам, которые считают оптимальными.

Silence mode

The owner of the document can suspend the process of completion when there are plenty of comments already and it is time to reassemble the document.

Each group member gives one vote for a paragraph option or a document version, even if they didn't participate in the discussion. They can vote for their own suggestions.

Каждый участник группы отдает один голос за вариант параграфа или версию документа, даже если не принимал участия в обсуждении. За свои предложения голосовать можно.

Document assembly

After the vote, the owner of the document assembles its second version – replaces the old paragraphs with the new ones with the most likes and, if necessary, edits the structure:

viewing paragraph versions

version edits

comments to the version

The second stage of improvements is based on the same principle:discussion – voting – assembly. And so on until everyone is satisfied with the final document.

Вторая волна доработок проходит по тому же принципу: обсуждение — голосование — сборка. И так до тех пор, пока не появится документ, который удовлетворяет всех.

DOwnloading

The finished document can be downloaded to a computer in Excel and JSON formats or printed directly from the system.

Technical features

NOTO Expert is a huge branched tree with an unlimited number of levels:

— the document consists of paragraphs;
— versions are created based on paragraphs;
— each version can be evaluated, commented on, used as a basis for a new version;
— each comment can be answered.

And then the next new assembly can be created.