Collaboration with research team on multiple devices

drhardy

I have a researcher and have a team of research assistants. It is impractical for us all to work on the same computer doing sorting of references, etc. The online version of Zotero does not seem as user-friendly in terms of being able to sort articles around in different folders, etc. (I can't get it to drag and drop, etc.). Is it possible for us to all download the desktop version, and use the desktop version in multiple places, without overriding what we each are doing, or getting the syncing confused? I ask because we had fits with Endnote and Mendeley about this, which is why we are switching. I think we will try to use a team schedule so only one of us is using it at once, and we will sync before and after (from whatever desktop we are on). Will this work and keep us from having problems? Any other suggestions for this kind of team collaboration? In Endnote and Mendeley, we kept having folders disappear and or emptied, and kept having to redo things. Trying to avoid that in the future. Thanks.

dstillman

Is it possible for us to all download the desktop version, and use the desktop version in multiple places, without overriding what we each are doing, or getting the syncing confused?

Of course:

https://www.zotero.org/support/sync
https://www.zotero.org/support/groups

No need to schedule work. Make sure you leave auto-sync enabled, and use Zotero 5, which is much better at avoiding conflicts from concurrent changes than earlier versions.

drhardy

So if auto-syncing is enabled and two people are working simultaneously, it doesn't get confused?

dstillman

Correct. As long as you have auto-sync enabled, the only time you should really see a conflict is if two people change the same field in different ways at the exact same time.

(If somebody has auto-sync disabled or is offline, it's generally still fine. You'd be a little more likely to get a conflict from two people making incompatible changes, but in most cases Zotero would still be able to merge changes automatically.)

bwiernik

In my experience working with large teams on a Zotero library, one tip I would give is to instruct all of your members to pay attention to whether there is a sync error (a red exclamation point next to the sync button) and resolve it immediately if there is (though, again, this is much less likely with Zotero 5).