Open innovation and crowdsourcing ideas rely on people to be creative through an online collaboration system. Creativity in online groups depends heavily on the interaction between group members. Anchored discussion was evaluated in a preliminary laboratory experi- ment as a new mode for creative interaction. In anchored discussion every comment is tied to some aspect of the idea. This first exploration gener- ated novel insights for additional and refined research. Results indicate that anchored discussion leads to a more structured discussion amongst group members. For the same level of creativity, groups using anchored discussion needed less interaction and less discussion than the control groups. In a post session survey, participants made several suggestions on how to improve anchored discussion. We conclude that anchored dis- cussion is promising as a new tool to aid online groups in creative col- laboration.
['Georg J P Link', 'Dominik Siemon', 'Gert Jan De Vreede', 'Susanne Robra-Bissantz']
Evaluating Anchored Discussion to Foster Creativity in Online Collaboration