Using Social Network Analysis to predict online contributions: The impact of network diversity in cross-cultural collaboration

Although collaborative web-based tools are often used in blended
environments such as education, little research has analysed the
predictive power of face-to-face social connections on measurable
user behaviours in online collaboration, particularly in diverse
settings. In this paper, we use Social Network Analysis to
compare users’ pre-existing social networks with the quantity of
their contributions to an online chat-based collaborative activity in
a higher education classroom. In addition, we consider whether
the amount of diversity present in one’s social network leads to
more online contributions in an anonymous cross-cultural
collaborative setting. Our findings indicate that pre-existing
social connections can predict how much users contribute to
online education-related collaborative activities with diverse
group members, even more so than academic performance.
Furthermore, our findings suggest that future Web Science
research should consider how the more traditionally ‘qualitative’
socio-cultural influences affect user participation and use of
online collaborative tools.