Thinking Together, Working Apart: Leveraging a Community of Practice to Facilitate Productive and Meaningful Remote Collaboration

Abstract

Considering the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, scholars were encouraged to cease collocated meetings. Many researchers have turned to remote collaboration to continue group-based projects. This paper focuses on the structure, processes, and outcomes that a group of physically distanced, embedded researchers used to collaborate across Canada to produce research outputs prior to the pandemic. The intent of this paper is to provide an overview of mechanisms that can facilitate meaningful and productive remote collaboration using online and digital technologies as a feasible and effective alternative mode of communication for research teams.

Keywords

• remote collaboration
• social distancing
• community of practice
• communication technology
• training modernization