Participating partners should take a role in planning the project they will be more enthusiastic and get more out of it. If your collaboration requires data collection which students then share, be very clear on procedures for collecting data. Experiment with collecting data in your classroom or school before going online. Then, adjust your questions to elicit the data you want. Set up a reasonable schedule and stick to it.
Many good projects become burdensome when they begin to lag behind schedule.
Offer to help or use a bit of humor to remind partners that you are waiting for their contributions, if they are late. A critical challenge is finding a partner or partners to share in your project. Your partners may be full-fledged collaborators in a major project, keypals, experts online, or a combination of any of these. Finding partners who match your needs is important to the success of your project. The Teachers' Center link on the main page will bring you to a page full of choices, including a link to Partner Classes.