Making and sharing in asynchronous discussion: exploring the collaboration process in online maker community

ABSTRACT

Collaboration is the key element of maker movement. Online maker community is a new environment for makers to collaborate with one another voluntarily. This article selected one of the largest open online maker communities in China as the research sample. A total of 1292 postings selected from 19 threads were coded using Schaefer et al.’s (2019, Fostering online learning at the workplace: A scheme to identify and analyse collaboration processes in asynchronous discussions. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(3), 1354–1367. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12617) coding scheme. Social network analysis was also performed to explain theinteraction in the discussion. Interviews were conducted to explore the barriers of highest-level collaborative processes. Results indicate that social presence occupied the largest proportion of the postings. The initiators played three key roles in the discussion: creative idea sharers, resource providers and problem solvers/advice providers, but they failed to play an important role in improving the highest-level collaborative processes. Other ordinary members also praised, posed questions, produced advice and learned from the tutorials. According to the results of the interview with members in the community, two main barriers limited the highest-level collaborative processes, the first is the information security and privacy issue, and the second is the communication functions of communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Online maker community
• maker movement
• collaboration process
• content analysis
• social network analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Statements on open data and ethics

The data in the present paper can be accessed and reused for educational or/and research purposes, and for educational or/and research purposes only. Please contact the lead author. The data collection procedure and the instrument of the present study follows the Institutional Review Board (IRB) ethical guidelines. To protect the privacy of participants the research followed the ethical guidelines of the EmployID project. All data were always anonymised before analysis.