Remote Collaboration

Remote collaboration refers to the ability to interact and work with others from anywhere in the world. Remote collaboration is extremely valuable for removing physical barrier in communication among members in a distributed teams who work remotely rather than being located in a physical office.

Fig. 107 Distributed Collaboration. The Turing Way project illustration by Scriberia. Used under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3332807.

Remote collaboration is quite a standard practice in open source projects or online communities. It has gained popularity over the last few years as more and more companies expand their businesses in areas far from the location of the main office (for example, Mozilla), or exist entirely as a remote company (for example, RStudio).

In early 2020, as we began to work entirely from home due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we experienced a drastic change in our work culture. Since 2022, these changes have permanently become part of our work culture, with most people working remotely either fully or partially, with a requirement to go to physical offices for a few days per week or month, or only when necessary. This chapter will present resources and tips for researchers to make their transition of working from the office (physical location) to working from home (online/virtual) easier, or make their collaboration more effective if they are already working remotely.