How to share research securely with collaborators

A research project rarely stays inside one institution. A co-author at another university needs the draft, a statistician needs the dataset, a research assistant needs the interview recordings, and an external reviewer needs to read chapter three without seeing the participant data behind it. Each of those people needs something different, and the usual tools tend to give them everything or nothing.

This guide covers how research teams typically share material across institutions, where that gets awkward, and how to set up a Fabric space where each collaborator has a defined role, sensitive folders sit behind a password, and discussion happens on the files themselves.

How research teams usually share material

Many projects start with email: a draft goes out as an attachment, comes back with tracked changes, and the version numbers climb. It works for two people. With four or five, it becomes hard to say which file is current, and every draft that contains participant quotes is now stored in several inboxes.

Institutional storage such as OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Drive is the next step, and it usually comes with good access controls. External sharing can be restricted by the university, though, so a collaborator elsewhere may end up with a personal-account workaround. Reference managers like Zotero handle citations well; the notes and arguments built on those papers tend to live in a separate Google Doc, so the reading and the writing drift apart.

Notion and similar workspaces bring notes together, but they handle PDFs less comfortably. Annotating a paper there, and then searching across the whole team’s annotations, takes more work than most teams have time for.

Step 1: Set up a space for the project

Create a space for the project and add folders for the parts of the work, for example Literature, Data, Interviews and Drafts. Drag in PDFs, documents, spreadsheets (CSV and XLSX) and recordings, or click Upload a file. How to build a research workflow covers folder structures that suit longer projects.

Folders are optional in Fabric, since search reads the contents of each file, but for sharing they’re useful. They give you clear boundaries to set access and passwords on. If the team prefers working from the file system, the desktop app mounts Fabric as a virtual drive, and files stream when opened instead of taking up space on each laptop.

Step 2: Give each collaborator the right role

Click Share and add your collaborators. Fabric has four roles: viewer, commenter, editor and admin, and you can set them at space level or on individual files. A co-author writing alongside you is an editor. An external reviewer who should read and respond, without changing the text, is a commenter. A funder or supervisor who only needs to follow progress can be a viewer.

Collaborators outside your organization can use shared links without signing up. If one group should never see another group’s material (two partner sites, say), give each its own space. People shared into a space see only that space.

Step 3: Put a password on sensitive data

Raw interview recordings, consent forms and identifiable data deserve an extra layer. Right-click the folder, or open it and click the three-dot menu, then choose Add password protection. Password protection is on the Pro and Team plans.

Anyone with access to the folder must enter the password, and access lasts 6 hours before it’s needed again. New files added to a protected folder are covered automatically, which matters when recordings arrive weekly. There’s no password reset, so store it in a password manager the team already uses. Whether a setup meets the terms of your ethics approval or a data sharing agreement is a question for your institution’s ethics board or data protection office.

Step 4: Discuss the work on the files themselves

Commenters and editors can highlight text in documents and PDFs and add a comment, so a reviewer’s note sits next to the sentence it’s about. On audio and video, they can leave timestamped comments. Any comment can be marked completed, which turns a round of review into a checklist. The annotations page shows how this looks on different file types.

Recordings can be transcribed (transcription needs a paid plan), which makes interviews searchable alongside papers. Transcripts can be edited, so a research assistant can correct names and technical terms before analysis starts. Open a folder and the AI assistant is limited to that folder, so you can ask a question across the interviews and get an answer with references to each source, including timestamps for recordings.

Step 5: Publish findings separately from the working files

When you need to send a summary to someone outside the team, publish it instead of adding them to the space. Click Share, open the Publish tab and click Create link, then turn off allow indexing by search engines and decide whether to allow downloads. A published link is view-only, with no access to the folders around it.

When new people join partway through, onboarding collaborators has practical advice on what to share first.

Frequently asked questions

How do I share research data securely with someone at another university?

Share a space or folder with them in Fabric and give them the lowest role that lets them do the work. Add a password to folders holding identifiable data. External collaborators don’t need an account to use a shared link.

Can a reviewer comment on my draft without editing it?

Yes. Give them the commenter role. They can highlight text and add comments, and you can mark each comment completed once you’ve dealt with it.

Can I share some folders in a project and keep others private?

Yes. Roles can be set at space and file level, and you can password-protect individual folders. For groups that shouldn’t see each other’s work, use separate spaces.

Can collaborators search the papers and transcripts?

Search reads the text inside PDFs and documents and covers transcribed audio and video, with results opening at the exact page or timestamp. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Does password protection cover files added later?

Yes. A password on a folder also covers files added to it afterward.

Is Fabric approved for my ethics protocol?

That decision belongs to your institution’s ethics board or data protection office. Share the details of how files will be stored and shared with them and follow their guidance.

Can we use AI on our shared research?

Yes. Open a folder and the AI assistant answers from the files in that folder, citing its sources. You can save useful answers as notes.

Which plan does a research team need?

Password protection is on Pro and Team, and transcription needs a paid plan. Team pricing isn’t per seat; see plans for teams.