research-article

Towards Successful Knowledge Integration in Online Collaboration: An Experiment on the Role of Meta-Knowledge

Authors:

Nikol RummelAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 3, Issue CSCW

Article No.: 31, Pages 1 - 17

https://doi.org/10.1145/3359133

Published: 07 November 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Successful knowledge integration, that is, systematic synthesis of unshared information, is key to suc-cess, but at the same time a challenging venture for teams with distributed knowledge collaborating online. For example, teams with heterogeneous knowledge often have only vague or even wrong ideas about who knows what. This situation is further complicated if the collaboration partners do not know each other and merely communicate online. Previous research has found meta-knowledge, that is, knowledge about one's own and the partner's knowledge areas, to be a promising but not yet sufficient-ly investigated approach to promote knowledge integration. With our experimental study we aimed to address this desideratum of research on the role of meta-knowledge in net-based collaborations. We "simulated" a chat-based collaboration between partners with heterogeneous knowledge by assigning specific information to students collaborating in dyads on a Hidden Profile task. To arrive at the correct joint solution for this task, collaborating partners had to pool their shared, but more importantly their unshared information. We compared two conditions: In the experimental condition meta-knowledge was promoted by providing the collaboration partners with self-presentations of each other's roles, which pointed to their unique fields of knowledge, while participants in the control condition did not receive this information. Results suggest a positive impact of the meta-knowledge manipulation on two key factors of collaboration: knowledge integration and construction of a transactive memory system (TMS).

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Towards Successful Knowledge Integration in Online Collaboration: An Experiment on the Role of Meta-Knowledge

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Published In

cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 3, Issue CSCW

November 2019

5026 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3371885

Editors:
Airi Lampinen
Stockholm University, Sweden
,
Darren Gergle
Northwestern University, USA
,
David A. Shamma
FXPAL, USA

Issue’s Table of Contents

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

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Published: 07 November 2019

Published in PACMHCI Volume 3, Issue CSCW

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579486
Goswami LZeinoddin PEstier TCherubini M(2023)Supporting Collaboration in Introductory Programming Classes Taught in Hybrid Mode: A Participatory Design StudyProceedings of the 2023 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3563657.3596042(1248-1262)Online publication date: 10-Jul-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563657.3596042
Enríquez C(2022)Estudio empírico para determinar la relación de la personalidad de programadores novatos y la programación colaborativa en tiempos de pandemiaEmpirical study to determine the relationship between the personality of novice programmers and collaborative programming in times of pandemicEstudo empírico para determinar a relação entre a personalidade de programadores iniciantes e a programação colaborativa em tempos de pandemiaTechnological Innovations Journal10.35622/j.ti.2022.03.0021:3(28-43)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2022
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Ying KRodríguez FDibble ABoyer K(2021)Understanding Women's Remote Collaborative Programming ExperiencesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34329524:CSCW3(1-29)Online publication date: 5-Jan-2021
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Turner PTurner P(2021)Management Competence for the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Collaborates to Create and Share Knowledge and InformationThe Making of the Modern Manager10.1007/978-3-030-81062-7_8(229-261)Online publication date: 14-Sep-2021
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