I think there are strengths for when you work both collaboratively and independently. I have experience working with a team in a research laboratory, and some of our best work was done through collaborative efforts. We have ran into problems where it took all of our combined knowledge to figure out why a piece of equipment wasn’t working. In addition, when you get into the transcribing process of recording all of your data and results, and interpreting those results, the process can be a lot quicker when you have a team collaborating. The best papers too, are generally the ones that include a vast array of authors throughout many disciplines and specialties. I may only see one conclusion, while someone else may infer something completely different. When it comes to the interpretation of data, I believe collaborative efforts can play a positive role in the conclusions you draw up.
In addition, it always helps to have an extra hand in the lab to assist you with measurements, reactions, observations, etc. The data collection process can be very tiresome when you are doing it all on your own, and it always helps to have an extra hand in the lab. It is easy to mistake an experiment gone wrong as there being a bad reagent, when in reality, you or someone else could have easily missed a minute step. Working collaboratively also eliminates accidental error in your experiments. I have experienced first hand of experiments ran in triplicate by someone, and we both were getting consistent results when compared to our triplicates, but our results completely differed from one another. Eventually, we learned that the plates we were using were slightly different and one brand was resulting in more evaporation then the other brand. Our results could have been potentially skewed if my coworker who was using the bad plates were running the triplicates by herself.
My experience with collaborative efforts using online platforms has involved Google Docs. The group learning tutorials we did in this class were surprisingly challenging for me. I ended up making the mistake that the audio could be imported into the Google Slides, when Google Slides doesn’t have the capabilities for audio. The cooperation between group members was absolutely necessary for this, and if you had one group member who did not participate, then your project could not be completed. This kind of collaboration had me really relying on my group members to do their part, and luckily they did. I will be completely honest, this kind of collaboration always makes me nervous. I have had experiences in the past where I was burdened with the majority of the workload, so I sometimes wish we could do these projects independently instead. However, when you do get a group of people who are willing to collaborate, the process of making the presentation just becomes so much easier and less stressful.
As far as negative experiences of collaborative efforts in the lab, I would have to say every once in a while you can get stuck working with someone that refuses to do their fair share of the work. This leaves me with the majority of the burden falling on my shoulders and I have someone unreliable to collaborate with. During these circumstances, I prefer to just work independently in order to get the work done.