History of GCcollab
The response below is courtesy of GCcollab employee extraordinaire Jeff Outram. Original context can be found HERE:
Whose idea was it?
- I would assume Chris Allison and team came up with the idea.
When did it start?
- Initially open to only three Canadian universities and the federal public service, GCcollab went live September 2016.
What government department did it grow out of?
- GCcollab was initially launched as one of four innovation projects at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS). It was approved in response to requests for projects by a committee formerly known as the Deputy Minister Committee on Policy Innovation.
- GCcollab was started by the GCTools team, leveraging the previous successes of GCconnex and GCpedia (previously launched tools that exist internal for federal public servants).
How many people are currently using it?
- GCcollab is approaching 50K registered users, but for stats on GCcollab, simply to go: https://GCcollab.ca/stats
Has it ever been written up in a newspaper or magazine article?
- Although it is now somewhat dated, yes GCcollab was highlighted in University Affairs magazine in February 2017.
https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/networking-site-academics-public-servants/
What were the milestones?
- For me, some of the memorable milestones including gaining the approval to open the platform beyond the three initially approved universities within the first month of launching the platform.
- all Canadian universities and colleges (September 2016)
- all provincial and territorial governments (October 2016)
- open by invitation (January 2017)
- all municipal public servants (April 2017).
- Since then we have gone on to host a single sign-on service allowing us and partners to host additional platforms without requiring users to register and remember yet another username and password. These additional platforms now include GCwiki and GCmessage.
- Lastly and maybe most importantly, the team was granted the approval to move ahead with a plan to rebuild the various platforms, a project we refer to ask the ‘Open, Accessible Digital Workspace’. Development is currently in progress.
What have been the biggest challenges, miss-steps, opponents?
- Challenges? Meeting the demand of the various use audiences and use cases of GCcollab.
- Missteps? Love the question. I’ll think about this over the weekend and get back to you.
- Opponents? People that don’t understand why GCcollab and the GCTools are hosted and are ok with public service data being hosted on for-profit and foreign owned platforms, such as: LinkedIn, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Google Drive, Sharepoint.
Whose garage was the first server in?
- Not sure how far back into the GCTools history I could go in trying to answer this question but I continue to highlight that GCcollab and the acceptance of risk by previous TBS leaders would not have happened without the hardwork and success of previous colleagues on the GCTools Team.
- I’ve been told that the first GCTools platform was started on a server under someone’s desk. To me, the GCTools are one of the best examples of organic, employee-driven innovations in the federal public service.
Needing to sell the use of GCcollab in your department could include the following points, but I will welcome others to offer their own points since they have had to actually use them.
- GCcollab allows [insert department/government name] to work in the open to:
- build networks with colleagues in other organizations;
- develop more timely and cost effective research; and
- operate as one public service across the country to serve Canadians better.
- GCcollab supports the use of both official languages.
- GCcollab is hosted on the cloud, allowing users to access it from any device.
- GCcollab has a low bandwidth requirement, making it easy to access in communities across Canada with slow latency internet access.
- GCcollab is open source software, meaning we can augment it to meet the needs of the users.
- GCcollab offers two apps available for both iOS and Android devices:
- GCcollab
- Rocket.Chat (GCmessage)
- GCcollab has resources and a team to ensure users are supported.
- GCcollab supports the uploading of documents up to 1GB.
- GCcollab is FREE to use.
