# Collaborative application editing

Nuvolos enables and encourages collaborative editing in certain application types. In collaborative editing mode, multiple students may connect at the same time to the same applications and edit files and notebooks together (similar to Google Docs), seeing each others' edits and without getting into any file version conflicts.

Collaborative applications are suitable in group instances — see [Setting up group projects](/user-guides/education-guides/setting-up-group-projects.md) to learn how to create them.

{% hint style="warning" %}
Currently collaborative editing is supported in applications based on JupyterLab >3.1.
{% endhint %}

## Setting up collaborative JupyterLab applications

In order to set up a collaborative JupyterLab application, follow these steps:

1. Set up group work space (see [guide](/user-guides/education-guides/setting-up-group-projects.md#create-a-new-space)).
2. Set up group instances (see [guide](/user-guides/education-guides/setting-up-group-projects.md#add-group-instances)).
3. Add a JupyterLab 4 (recommended) or 3 application (see [guide](/features/applications/create-an-application.md)).
4. Configure the application to be shared: in the master instance, go to the Applications view, find your JupyterLab application, and open the Actions menu (...) next to it. Click Configure and enable the Run in shared mode option.
5. Finally, [distribute](/features/nuvolos-basic-concepts/distribution.md) the application to the student instances along with regular files and instructions.

You can read more about collaborative mode in [Configuring applications](/features/applications/configuring-applications.md#run-in-shared-mode).


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