The secure, open-source workspace for your cross-border collaboration

The Collaborative Desk provides a secure digital workspace and expert support, adjusted to the needs of your cross-border team. We handle the tools, so you can focus on the journalism.

Digital Security Assessment

We begin with conducting a need & threat analysis with your team as the basis for your customised Collaborative Desk set up.

Secure Tech Infrastructure

We set you up with a secure digital workspace, tailor-made for the cross-border journalism projects, using open source tools for communication & knowledge management.

Support & Mentorship

Your team will receive ongoing support throughout your project, including technical, and mentorship in digital security, cross-border collaboration and coordination.

Arena Networks

Through our extensive Arena journalism networks, we can help connect you with team members and partners across Europe.

Why work on the Collaborative Desk?

The Collaborative Desk is a customised digital workspace for your remote team. It allows you to easily and instantly collaborate across borders in a secure environment. This digital workspace is customised for your team to meet your specific needs.

What we offer
  1. Digital security assessment for your team, and continous mentorship and support on digital security throughout your project.

  2. Secure infrastructure and set up of your workspace with open-source collaboration tools for secure communication and file sharing:
    • Nextcloud environment for storing, sharing and collaborating on files
    • Integrated Nextcloud applications for your team management such as calendar, KanBan and wiki functions
    • Secure and open-source chat server 
    • Secure and open-source video call platform
    • Open-source tool for database creation
    • Open-source project management software

Our Arena team will guide the technical setup, maintains the digital environment, and provide you with mentoring around digital security.

What it costs

The Collaborative Desk is offered for a one-time payment of between 500 and 1500 euros. The exact cost depends on your team’s and project’s set up and needs. This payment is for us to maintain the digital infrastructure, offer personal support and provide tools for the duration of your project.

However, just as we adjust the tech set up to each team’s needs, we also take differences between teams into consideration regarding the payment structure. This may depend on aspects such as the number of team members from high or low income countries, staffers or freelancers, or the agreement with the team on additional mentorships.

It is our goal to provide a secure and shared work space for your team and facilitate cross-border collaboration together with as many journalists as possible. Diversity is a priority throughout our work. We welcome teams and journalists from lower income countries to contact us – we’ll try to find solutions so that participation doesn’t fall through due to a lack of funds.

Contact Us

If your team is interested in using the Collaborative Desk for your cross-border collaboration, contact us: collaborative-desk@journalismarena.eu

 

The idea behind the Collaborative Desk

The aim of the Arena Collaborative Desk is to facilitate a crucial aspect of the professional collaboration of journalists: A digital workspace that is easily accessible and secure as well as guidance in using it, so cross-border journalism teams can collaborate securely and smoothly.

Working with the Collaborative Desk

Cross-border teams have unique challenges: team members work in different countries, in different editorial offices, in different organisations, or on a freelance basis. Well managed coordination is therefore key to a successful collaborative project.

The first coordination challenges to solve are:

  1. how to communicate;
  2. how to organise your research.

Although most initially aim to find a secure, independent platform, often teams find themselves defaulting to options which seem easy at first, but quickly become confusing, insecure, and chaotic to manage.

The Collaborative Desk is here to help. With our team of experts in cross-border journalism from Arena for Journalism in Europe, we will help you set up and navigate your cross-border collaboration, providing the tech, tools, and advice you need.

The results are direct and structural: The immediate opportunity for journalists to collaborate across borders on one level. On a development level, the Collaborative Desk signals the importance of cross-border collaboration as a necessary and legitimate activity in a networked society and speed up its development. Further, by using open source software and guiding transnational teams on adjusting the set-up to their precise needs when it comes to security and collaboration structure, we aim to contribute to the thoughtful use of digital tools in journalism networks.

The concept has been developed with journalists and is based on their needs throughout cross-border collaborations. We will continue to develop the Collaborative Desk based on the experiences and feedback from you.

The Collaborative Desk is made possible through the support of the Limelight Foundation.