Predicting Successful Global Online Group Projects from Online Discussion

This study aims to analyze 13 collaborative teams in a global web-based student design project in terms of participation activity levels, participation characteristics and the use of the three types of communication: cognitive, emotional, and social. Furthermore, it examines the association between 1) participation and communication characteristics and 2) design outcomes, in order to identify potential key factors that predict successful global online group projects. The analysis results indicate that 1) the teams that have a higher percentage of students with language barriers tend to post longer messages; 2) the teams that use a higher frequency of use of cognitive, social, and emotional words tend to post a higher number of messages; 3) the teams that have potential success factors, such as higher student participation levels, students' more evenly distributed participation patterns and a higher proportion of female (or male) students, are not necessarily associated with more successful team outcomes.