Why it works (when it works): success factors in online creative collaboration

  • Authors:

  • Kurt Luther;Kelly Caine;Kevin Ziegler;Amy Bruckman

  • Affiliations:

  • Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA;Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA;Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA;Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 16th ACM international conference on Supporting group work
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Online creative collaboration (peer production) has enabled the creation of Wikipedia and open source software (OSS), and is rapidly expanding to encompass new domains, such as video, music, and animation. But what are the underlying principles allowing online creative collaboration to succeed, and how well do they transfer from one domain to another? In this paper, we address these questions by comparing and contrasting online, collaborative animated movies, called collabs, with OSS projects. First, we use qualitative methods to solicit potential success factors from collab participants. Then, we test these predictions by quantitatively analyzing a data set of nearly 900 collabs. Finally, we compare and contrast our results with the literature on OSS development and propose broader theoretical implications. Our findings offer a starting point for a systematic research agenda seeking to unlock the potential of online creative collaboration.