Do you have a group project to complete this semester? You might be wondering about the best ways to communicate and share your work within your group. Thankfully you have access to lots of useful tools for collaboration, many of which are covered in the Be Innovative module of the Digital Capabilities for Students course – an interactive Moodle resource open for all students to complete at their own pace. Check out the module or read on for some simple tips.

When it comes to group work, some teams set up group chats using apps like Whatsapp to keep in touch, which is a great idea. But when it comes to sharing work, constantly uploading and downloading different versions of documents can be a hassle.

As a Brookes student you have access to the Google Suite of tools, which includes Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, Photos and more. You can use these tools to share work with your group.

• All group members can be editors of a shared Doc, meaning that you can update the document live when you’re working together or contributing individually.
• You can store files in a shared folder on Google Drive, which means no more downloading and uploading of documents or presentation slides.
• Google Chat can be used as a substitute for other messaging tools and has the advantage of being easily accessible on your laptop or desktop as well as mobile.

To access the full suite of Google apps, log in to your Gmail account and click on the grid icon.

Outside of the Google Suite, you could try out collaborative mindmapping tool Coggle which allows all members of your group to brainstorm using a shared map, to which you can add multimedia like videos and links to sources you have found.

Find more cool tools you can use to collaborate or improve your own work by checking out the Be Innovative online module on Moodle, part of the Digital Capabilities for Students course and open to everyone.

— Isabel Virgo, Academic Liaison Librarian