%0 Journal Article %J Open Source Business Resource %D 2009 %T TellTable: Collaborative Work Using Single User Applications %A Andy Adler %A John C. Nash %A Sylvie Noël %X Many work environments require collaborative writing and editing of documents in diverse formats. In simple cases, there is essentially one author who receives approvals and comments from others. In other cases, the document is genuinely collaboratively authored using asynchronous or synchronous methods. A common way to collaboratively edit a document is to exchange draft versions between authors via email. This method introduces the possibility of conflicting changes and missed contributions as well as a significant burden as all members of the team are responsible for version control. The principle difficulty is that independent changes can be made to different versions, which must later be reconciled manually. It is also difficult to determine when and why a change was made. This article introduces TellTable, an open source system designed to allow single-user software applications to be managed in a collaborative manner. We will discuss current collaboration models, the technical aspects of the TellTable software framework, security issues in its implementation, and tests of performance. %B Open Source Business Resource %I Talent First Network %C Ottawa %8 07/2009 %G eng %U http://timreview.ca/article/273 %N July 2009 %9 Articles %1 Carleton University Andy Adler is associate professor and Canada Research Chair in biomedical engineering at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. His research interests are in biometrics imaging and security systems, and development of non-invasive biomedical measurement technologies. Previously, he worked at several senior engineering positions. Andy Adler received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal in 1995. %2 University of Ottawa Dr. John C. Nash was Professor of Management in the Telfer School at the University of Ottawa until mid-2008. With a B.Sc. from the University of Calgary (in Chemistry) and a doctorate in Mathematics from Oxford, he has had a varied career in government, industry and academia. His books, articles and papers cover computation, statistics, forecasting, information science, risk management and quality and productivity improvement. He has also been a columnist for Interface Age, Scientific Computing Editor for Byte, and an editor or associate editor of several statistical journals. He remains active with several open source software projects, especially R and Gnumeric, and continues to offer his energy and expertise to others, both as a paid consultant, contractor or educator and as a volunteer to community projects, for example, as President of the Ottawa Canada Linux User Group. %3 CRC Dr. Sylvie Noël is a research scientist for the Communications Research Centre of Canada, where she works on the human factors of computer-supported cooperative work and collaborative virtual worlds. She has worked on projects on collaborative writing, video conferencing, social networks, and the incorporation of haptics and of emotions into virtual worlds. She is presently co-writing a book chapter on the difficulties associated with collaborative data analysis.