Productivity and Collaboration Tools

As a graduate student, I was focused on what I was researching. I enjoyed it and had fun because I was looking into something I cared about. I was given the tools and guidance to do good work.

Productivity tools and skills are a solid investment for graduate school. The world of research is vast, and it is a core challenge to keep track of newly published content while doing coursework, writing, and living life in general. Today’s module is all about exploring tools to help you manage your workflow and keep on top of different information streams.

By the end of this module, you will learn about:

• Alerts & notifications
• Citation management tools
• Tools for collaboration and productivity
• How to set up a newsfeed

Here are some additional tools that may serve useful during your academic career. Feel free to explore these and find a combination that works well for you and your colleagues.

 

Productivity

Google Drive is a cloud-based, online storage service. You can store files, photos, documents, recordings, videos, etc. Drive can be reached from any device and offers smartphone and tablet apps, as well. It also makes collaboration with others easy, as you can share files and folders, inviting others to view, download, and edit in real-time.

Remember, however,  that when you are no longer a student at UW you will lose access to your UW Google Drive account, meaning files and folders that you have saved will expire unless you have saved or copied them elsewhere. To prevent this from happening, make sure you save copies of important work in a personal account before graduation.

Pros: free collaboration tool widely used at UW; integrated with many various G Suite apps; Team Drive gives ownership to UW (and not a single user); FERPA-compatible

Cons: not HIPAA-compatible (should not be used for Protected Health Information (PHI)); beginning in 2024 all UW Google accounts will be limited to 100GB of storage space

 

Storage

Dropbox is another popular cloud storage service. It allows you to upload and access documents from any device with the Dropbox app installed.

Dropbox is convenient for sending and sharing large files like videos and photo albums. It also allows for collaboration; while working on a shared file, everyone receives the update automatically.

Pros: integrated with Microsoft products (Office 365); offline working capabilities; file backup and restoration

Cons: not fully endorsed by UW; limited storage capacity

 

Communication

Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration tool that provides an easy way to communicate with a group. It offers an opportunity to connect with other members of your cohort or research team in real-time conversations or through an asynchronous discussion. Consider downloading the Slack mobile or desktop apps and enable notifications to stay up to date with messages.

Pros: reduce emails; facilitate clearer conversation; easy-to-use user interface; generally simple to understand

Cons: limitations on free access; not endorsed by UW; no FERPA or HIPAA compatibility on free accounts

 

Scheduling

There are many free tools for managing scheduling,  such as Doodle and When2Meet. These are calendar tools for coordinating meetings and interacts with various external calendar systems (Google Calendar, Yahoo, Outlook, and Apple iCal). Doodle and When2Meet are both great resources for collaboration and group projects. Use it to create a poll and send it off to participants to let them choose the best time to meet.

Pros: entirely web-based; more participant input when scheduling

Cons: no native integration with Google and Outlook; not integrated with UW reservation systems