Collaborative Tools Project

It's always a pleasure when Arthur the online security guy at York drops by for a cup of tea. Today he pointed out, kind of him to bother really, that.... When you run an AppsScript in a Google Spreadsheet, it is run by the ActiveUser i.e the person that is logged in and working with the spreadsheet. In order to run the AppsScript, which edits the spreadsheet, you need Edit permission on that spreadsheet. Stay with me. Because you've got Edit permission on the spreadsheet, the container for the AppsScript, you've also got Edit permission on the AppsScript. That means, that you ( the ActiveUser ) can edit the script to say... get a copy of all my Documents ( assignments etc ) and upload them to a homework cheating site over here... and do it from your actual email address. It could send rude messages from you, the ActiveUser. AAAAAARGHHHHH! It's a massive security hole. You could lock down the spreadsheet so that users can't edit the cells, a...

Yesterday I went to a presentation about  Analysing Collaborative Processes and Interaction Patterns in Online Discussions from researchers at the OU. I found myself getting quite fired up, not in a good way, about their early work, which looked at how 12 students had worked on a collaborative task - generating 29 messages ( this was 2001 folks ). They went on to categorise the messages (by hand) like this... Joint knowledge building Asking questions, dialogue extension prompts Supporting with reference or example Acknowledging/ replying / referring to another message Motivation and commitment to task Instructions/information - coordination messages ... and then diagrams were drawn. I then found myself getting all worked up, not in a good way, about the diagrams, in which ( for me ) too much liberty had been taken with the spacial layout of the data, robbing it of potential meaning. For example, orphan messages were collected at the side, when maybe they should have ...