community collaboration

Community collaboration can be helpful because experts in the field might be able to add new information on research about the topic that have not come to your attention yet. As mentioned before, the collaboration projects are also very helpful. Especially if you are able to coordinate the collection of data with students around the country or world. This gives the students a chance to see how people from other places think, learn, and interact.

Especially with the mentor collaborations, it may be able to show the student that, if they have an ambition in the expert's field the students will be able to see that it is possible to be successful in something you enjoy.

I saw a paper on Google (unfortunately I could not open it because it required a subscription) entitled: Community Collaboration: If it is such a good idea, why is it so hard to do? by Julie White and Gary Wahlage. The beginning of the paper talked about how community collaboration is hard to carry out on a large scale but that it might be beneficial to schools and outside programs because they can then share the economic responsibilities for programs.

As mentioned before, safety is an issue and as Dr. Parlo said, we should always make sure to get parental permission for online discussions with the expert. It is also sometimes difficult to find reputable people close to your school that transportation issues do not come up.