Scholars increasingly work on collaborative research projects. Collaborative projects often bring together partners across disciplines, institutions, and sectors. These projects present opportunities for innovation but also raise challenges for the development of efficient and effective workflows and the management of data.
There are many tools available that can be used to support these types of projects.
Collaborative Tools
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Open Science Framework
Project Management ToolClick for a video!- OSF is a free and open source project management tool that supports researchers throughout their entire project lifecycle.
- Manage which parts of a project are public or private, making it easier to collaborate and share with the community or just your team.
- Manage files, data, code, and protocols in one centralized location and easily build custom organization for your project.
- OSF connects to many other products including Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, Zotero, and more!
- Explore OSF as an ELN or as a Data Repository
- Get started and signup for a free OSF account!
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protocols.io
Optimize Your Research MethodsClick for a video!- protocols.io is a collaborative platform and preprint server for methods and protocols
- Allows you to create step-by-step detailed, interactive, and dynamic protocols that can be run on mobile or web.
- This platform is helpful for researchers in any discipline that uses a step-by-step methodology, including life sciences, engineering, chemistry, data science, and computational social sciences.
- Get started and signup for a free account!
- protocols.io Premium is available free to Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Dental Medicine and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health users. Find out more and claim your premium account.
Data Analytics Software
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RStudio & R
An integrated development environment (IDE) for R- RStudio includes a console with syntax-highlighting that supports direct code execution, as well as tools for plotting, history, debugging and workspace management.
Click here to view RStudio features. - RStudio is available on HMS O2 servers (details here), including maintaining your own personal R package Personal R Package library.
- RStudio includes a console with syntax-highlighting that supports direct code execution, as well as tools for plotting, history, debugging and workspace management.
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SAS
Statistical Analysis Software- Statistical software suite for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, and predictive analytics
- The department of Health Care Policy manages SAS licensing for the Medical and Dental Schools
- Send an email to help@hcp.med.harvard.edu for more information or to arrange for software installation
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SPSS
Statistical Product and Service Solutions- Software package used for interactive, or batched, statistical analysis
- SPSS can be purchased using Harvard OnTheHub.com (Harvard Key login required)
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Tableau
Data Analytics and Visualization Tool- Tableau allows you to present your data in a wide array of visual formats, which can often provide insights that are not obvious when looking at a grid of numbers
- Tableau is the preferred Data Analytics and Visualization Tool at HMS. Find out more about Tableau and Request Access
- Students can download Tableau for free
- You can also take advantage of Harvard Library Data Visualization Support
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NVivo
Qualitative Data Analysis Software- NVivo is a professional-level software program for qualitative research
- NVivo can be used for image annotation (maps, photos, diagrams) and interview analysis (video, audio, transcript, field notes)
- Available for free download for Harvard's FAS community
- Students can purchase NVivo at a discount