Collaborative research ICT tools – UGC NET Question

Statements A, B and D represent commonly used collaborative research practices supported by ICT, while C is false. Shared online editors, version control repositories and collaboration platforms all facilitate co-authorship and joint data analysis. Reference managers can in fact be used by groups for shared libraries, so the restriction in C is incorrect. Hence, the combination including A, B and D but not C is the only fully correct option.

Option A:
Option A is incomplete because it mentions only A and B and leaves out D. While co-authoring and version control are central, ignoring shared datasets and protocol repositories underestimates how deeply ICT supports collaborative workflows.

Option B:
Option B is correct because it captures textual collaboration, change tracking and broader sharing of research artefacts. It explicitly rejects C, which ignores team-oriented features in many reference management tools.

Option C:
Option C is incomplete because it groups B and D only and omits A. Statement A concerns direct manuscript collaboration, which is a highly visible application of cloud editing tools in research communities.

Option D:
Option D is incorrect because it includes A and D but also accepts C. Since C wrongly denies team use of reference managers, this combination cannot be considered correct even though two of its statements are accurate.