Escritura colaborativa en la nube sobre clones de plantilla

Abstract

In computer science studies, it is common to write collaborative reports as the culmination of practical works. This activity requires more than just using a good editor in the cloud, as students' difficulties in writing, both individually and in teams, are well known. Document templates are widely used, both in the industry and in university practical works. They make it easier to understand the scope and size of the task to be performed. In addition, they provide a very interesting scaffolding that helps to structure complex documents, making the results more comprehensible. Thus, they facilitate individual and collaborative writing. The templates can be complemented with relevant examples made by students or reviewed by teachers. To promote real collaborative writing we provide clones, or copies, of templates in the cloud to our student teams. If we need to handle many clones manually the associated task may discourage us. In the case of Google Drive documents, simple functions can be programmed in Google Apps Script to automate clone management tasks. In addition, thanks to the version history, we can know how much and when the writers of a document have contributed.