Avenues to collaborate with PHD students / professors while working What are some of the best ways\avenues to collaborate with PHD students\professors to do research and publish in conferences\journals in the field of software engineering.


Do students\professors encourage people reaching out to them on cold emails, if they are interested in their research?
Do we write a draft a research paper and reach out for collaboration\peer review?
Are there academic meetups where we can meet people informally to discuss and work with them on interest?
Are students\professors interested in the practical industry experience of the field and collaborate on publishing books, articles on tech blogs ?


Is it better to enroll into a part-time PHD, if you are interested in research but have the family financial responsibilities on you? 
What are some good online, part-time PHD programs that are good and provide the flexibility to work during the course?
This is certainly field specific, but in general there are few straightforward fora where someone who is simply interested in research in general can collaborate with a PhD student or academic. Such collaborations occur and often the results are amazing, but they tend to arise more organically than a cold email.

Thus to answer your penultimate question: yes becoming an academic yourself is the best way to collaborate with academics and do academic research. As for finding a programme that is right for you, that's another kettle of fish and you should be looking for researchers who work in the area you wish to enter and consider them as possible supervisors: that's research for you to do.