Models and Theories in Human-Computer Interaction/Collective Effort and Wikibook

Applying Karau and William’s collective effort, let’s look at how Wikibook motivates and deters collaboration in group work.

How Wikibook motivates collaboration - Since this is a knowledge contribution source, everyone is motivated to share their knowledge. Because they understand that by contributing they are also benefited by learning from others. This is referred to as attractiveness of task. - When name is included within the posting (which is the case for our class), it is referred to as identifiability. It could do two things: It could encourage user if he/she contributes something very interesting and useful (uniqueness of own contribution). Or it could deter user to write due to fear of being criticized if he/she writes something sensitive or controversial (social pressure). - Being able to edit others’ posts can be an effective collaboration tool as long as all editors communicate (via an outside channel) to ensure they know what’s being edited. - Having no comment feature eliminates the “fear” of being directly criticized. This is another instance of social pressure.

How Wikibook deters collaboration (more technical) - Others can access your document and edit (or even accidentally delete) it without you knowing. - The ability to edit or delete might work towards the interest of the writer. Yet it is hard for other users to acknowledge the fact that the post they have read has just been edited. Having a time stamp feature might help with this. - If a group of writers are working on a posting simultaneously, the content is likely to be uncontrollably moved, typed and deleted. Google Doc provides a better tool for multiple users to edit one same document at the same time.