How do online MLIS students succeed in contributing to distributed (exclusively online) research groups? How can distributed research apprenticeships contribute to intellectual and research productivity of faculty, alumni, and graduate/students? In one study, a team of six graduate students in a fully online degree program was mentored by faculty researchers using a wide variety of groupware and procedural techniques during the course of a three‐year IMLS research grant. Students flourished at times ‐  delivering excellent work and maintaining high degrees of motivation and engagement ‐ while certain aspects of the experience caused some struggle. Another project created a distributed research and writing group as an experiment in learning design ‐ seeking to create a virtual collaboratory for the SLIS community. Patterns of participation in this activity were diverse and changeable with interesting results relating to resource and project‐centered efforts.  This panel will describe the online working arrangements, discuss helpful collaboration methods, and make recommendations to ensure student success in research productivity.