Research collaboration tools

The Web offers a wide range of handy tools to help you collaborate and communicate with other researchers, as well as manage research data and keep notes, events and calendars organised.

The following is a selected list of tools for collaboration. There are other other useful tools for analysis, visualisation and curation. Please feel free to suggest new tools to include, or give feedback on the tools listed here. Tools are listed in categories.

File storage and sharing

	ARCS Data Fabric ^{A national data storage system, available to all Australian researchers and free within stated limits for easy storing, maintaining and sharing their data.}^{More information ... Highly recommended for researchers.}
	WebDrive ^{Free product links a computer with the ARCS Data Fabric as a mapped network drive on a Windows desktop.} ^{More information ... Highly recommended for Windows users.}
	Dropbox ^{Internet service for file storage and sharing. 2GB of Dropbox for free, with montly subscriptions up to 100GB available. Files saved to Dropbox will be saved to your specified computers, mobile phone, and the Dropbox website. More information ...} ^{Recommended for limited research and personal use.}

Organising research literature

	EndNote Web ^{Online version of the EndNote software, stores references online and allows sharing of references with other people. More information...} ^{Highly recommended for current EndNote users.}
	Refworks ^{An online reference manager, stores references online allowing accessing from any computer with an internet connection. More information...} ^{Recommended for writing assignments.}
	Zotero ^{A free Web-based tool to collect, organise, cite, and share research sources. It needs the Firefox plugin to be installed.} ^{Recommended for researchers who already use Firefox and have no access to EndNote.}
	Mendeley ^{A free reference manager and academic social network to help organise research resources, collaborate with others online, and discover the latest research. Need to install software.} ^{Recommended for limited research use.}
	CiteULike ^{A free service for managing and discovering scholarly references.} ^{Not recommended for research use.}

Finding, organising and saving notes and information

	Delicious ^{A free social bookmarking and tagging service. Google Chrome, IE or Firefox add-on needed.} ^{Recommended for saving and sharing web pages.}
	Diigo ^{A tool to manage bookmarks, notes, highlights, documents, audio and video and more. Browser add-on needed.} ^{Highly recommended for managing bookmarks, audio and video files. Ease of use:}
	Evernote ^{A notetaking and organising tool for text notes, snippets on Web pages, photos and screenshots. Apps available for iPads, iPhones and iPods as well as Android devices.} ^{Recommended for mobile devices such as iPad or iPhone users.}
	Hyperwords ^{Every word becomes a link to services on the internet , e.g. Google, Wikipedia, translations, conversions and much more. Browser add-on needed.} ^{Very useful tool for finding and sharing word definition, translation and measurement conversion.}

Writing, publishing and sharing

	Microsoft Office Live ^{Access, edit, and share documents from anywhere using Microsoft Office Web Applications on SkyDrive. Works seamlessly with Microsoft Office products. Provides 25GB storage space with individual file size limited to 100MB.} ^{Useful for sharing photos, videos and files.}
	Google Docs ^{Create documents, spreadsheets and presentations online and collaborate on editing. 1GB free storage space. Documents created in Google Docs and converted files do not count towards the storage allocation but have some size limitations.} ^{Great for sharing documents if the file size is within the prescribed limit.}
	Zoho ^{Offers a range of collaboration applications, such as chat, meeting, documents, projects, discussions, share, mail, and wiki. Also provides productivity applications such as calendar, notebook, planner and writer and business applications.} ^{Great for organisations with different platforms and task requirements.}
	Open Office ^{Free Microsoft Office-like product suite that includes documents, spreadsheets and presentations.} ^{Highly recommended for researchers who want a free alternative to Microsoft Office products.}
	Prezi ^{An online 'zooming' presentation tool.} ^{Good tool to show the relationships among concepts and topics, can be overwhelming if used extensively.}
	Slideshare ^{Upload and share presentations, documents and professional videos.} ^{YouTube-like, easy to use site for sharing presentations.}
	Vimeo ^{A video sharing tool. Registration is required to upload video. Viewing is available without registration.} ^{Easy to use site for sharing video.}

Collaborating and communicating

	Skype ^{Free online audio and video conference tool. Versions are also available for mobile devices such as iPads and Android phones.}^{Software needs to be downloaded and installed and users must create an account with a unique username, which becomes their Skype 'phone number'.} ^{The latest version can be used for multiple sites.}
	Wiggio ^{A web-based service to share and edit files, manage a group calendar, poll a group, post links, set up conference calls, chat online and send mass text, voice and email messages to your group members. Requires users to create an account.} ^{Very easy to use. Alternative tool for virtual meeting, messaging and online chat. Can be used for short and small surveys. Can be slow.}
	^{A virtual whiteboard for both drawing and writing. Limited features for free use. Various pricing for more functions.} ^{Useful tool for projects and assignments.}
	EVO@AU ^{A desktop multi-site-capable}^{video collaboration tool. Able to share the desk-top screen. Free for Australian researchers. Registration is required. Needs the lastest Java version.} ^{Highly recommended for research collaboration.}
	Access Grid ^{Group-to-group and multi-group two-way video and audio meeting tool. IT expertise is required to set up the facility and run meetings.} ^{Good tool if IT support is available. Ease of use:}