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1. An Exploration of the Effects of Enterprise Social Media Use for Classroom Teams.

   Cherchiglia, L.; Van Osch, W.; Liang, Y.; Averkiadi, E. (December 2020, SIGHCI 2020 Proceedings)

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   Cherchiglia et al. Effects of ESM Use for Classroom Teams Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Pre-ICIS Workshop on HCI Research in MIS, Virtual Conference, December 12, 2020 1 An Exploration of the Effects of Enterprise Social Media Use for Classroom Teams Leticia Cherchiglia Michigan State University leticia@msu.edu Wietske Van Osch HEC Montreal & Michigan State University wietske.van-osch@hec.ca Yuyang Liang Michigan State University liangyuy@msu.edu Elisavet Averkiadi Michigan State University averkiad@msu.edu ABSTRACT This paper explores the adoption of Microsoft Teams, a group-based Enterprise Social Media (ESM) tool, in the context of a hybrid Information Technology Management undergraduate course from a large midwestern university. With the primary goal of providing insights into the use and design of tools for group-based educational settings, we constructed a model to reflect our expectations that core ESM affordances would enhance students’ perceptions of Microsoft Teams’ functionality and efficiency, which in turn would increase both students’ perceptions of group productivity and students’ actual usage of Microsoft Teams for communication purposes. In our model we used three core ESM affordances from Treem and Leonardi (2013), namely editability (i.e., information can be created and/or edited after creation, usually in a collaborative fashion), persistence (i.e., information is stored permanently), and visibility (i.e., information is visible to other users). Analysis of quantitative (surveys, server-side; N=62) and qualitative (interviews; N=7) data led to intriguing results. It seems that although students considered that editability, persistency, and visibility affordances within Microsoft Teams were convenient functions of this ESM, problems when working collaboratively (such as connectivity, formatting, and searching glitches) might have prevented considerations of this ESM as fast and user-friendly (i.e., efficient). Moreover, although perceived functionality and efficiency were positively connected to group productivity, hidden/non-intuitive communication features within this ESM might help explain the surprising negative connection between efficiency and usage of this ESM for the purpose of group communication. Another explanation is that, given the plethora of competing tools specifically designed to afford seamless/optimal team communication, students preferred to use more familiar tools or tools perceived as more efficient for group communication than Microsoft Teams, a finding consistent with findings in organizational settings (Van Osch, Steinfield, and Balogh, 2015). Beyond theoretical contributions related to the impact that ESM affordances have on users’ interaction perceptions, and the impact of users’ interaction perceptions on team and system outcomes, from a strategic and practical point of view, our findings revealed several challenges for the use of Microsoft Teams (and perhaps ESM at large) in educational settings: 1) As the demand for online education grows, collaborative tools such as Microsoft Teams should strive to provide seamless experiences for multiple-user access to files and messages; 2) Microsoft Teams should improve its visual design in order to increase ease of use, user familiarity, and intuitiveness; 3) Microsoft Teams appears to have a high-learning curve, partially related to the fact that some features are hidden or take extra steps/clicks to be accessed, thus undermining their use; 4) Team communication is a complex topic which should be further studied because, given the choice, students will fall upon familiar tools therefore undermining the full potential for team collaboration through the ESM. We expect that this paper can provide insights for educators faced with the choice for an ESM tool best-suited for group-based classroom settings, as well as designers interested in adapting ESMs to educational contexts, which is a promising avenue for market expansion. 

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2. Developing a Method for Identifying Instances of Group Generative Interactions in Enterprise Social Media

   Averkiadi, Elissavet; Van Osch, Wietske; Liang, Yuyang (December 2019, Eighteenth Annual Pre-ICIS Workshop on HCI Research in MIS)

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   Companies hold particular interest in group generative interactions - the conception of novel ideas and solutions through group exchanges. They are a root-cause of innovation and thus are important to companies’ survival. Enterprise Social Media (ESM) offer a unique opportunity to study generative group interactions, due to the transparent nature of activities on these platforms. In this research-in-progress paper, we conduct a preliminary analysis to develop a method that could identify the instances of ESM-based generative group interactions, where we focus on distinguishing generative versus non-generative group interactions. To do this, we used the text from all group interactions from an ESM platform of a multinational organization. We implemented machine learning models to learn and classify the text as generative or non-generative. As a result, we produced the top important term features from the best performing model. These features will help us understand the nature of discussions that occur in these interactions in future studies. 

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3. Predicting Team Function Using Bayesian and Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling Approaches

   Chin, J. H.; Ouyang, J.; Fowler, R. R.; Xu, G.; Matz, R. L. (June 2023, American Society for Engineering Education)

   Team-based learning is commonly used in engineering introductory courses. As students of a team may be from vastly different backgrounds, academically and non-academically, it is important for faculty members to know what aid or hinder team success. The dataset that is used in this paper includes student personality inputs, self-and-peer-assessments of teamwork, and perceptions of teamwork outcomes. Using this information, we developed several bayesian models that are able to predict if a team is working well. We also constructed and estimated Q-matrices which are crucial in explaining the relationship between latent traits and students’ characteristics in cognitive diagnostic models. The prediction and diagnostic models are able to help faculty members and instructors to gain insights into finding ways to separate students into teams more effectively so that students have a positive team-based learning experience. 

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4. Investigating Linguistic Indicators of Generative Content in Enterprise Social Media.

   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50341-3_23  

   Averkiadi, Elissavet; Van Osch, Wietske; Liang, Yuyang (January 2020, In International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction)

   null (Ed.)

   Teamwork is at the heart of most organizations today. Given increased pressures for organizations to be flexible, and adaptable, teams are organizing in novel ways, using novel technologies to be increasingly agile. One of these technologies that are increasingly used by distributed teams is Enterprise Social Media (ESM): web-based applications utilized by organizations for enabling communication and collaboration between distributed employees. ESM feature unique affordances that facilitate collaboration, including interactions that are generative: group conversations that entail the creation of innovative concepts and resolutions. These types of interactions are an important attraction for companies deciding to implement ESM. There is a unique opportunity offered for researchers in the field of HCI to study such generative interactions, as all contributions to an ESM platform are made visible, and therefore are available for analysis. Our goal in this preliminary study is to understand the nature of group generative interactions through their linguistic indicators. In this study, we utilize data from an ESM platform used by a multinational organization. Using a 1% sub sample of all logged group interactions, we apply machine-learning to classify text as generative or non-generative and extract the linguistic antecedents for the classified generative content. Our results show a promising method for investigating the linguistic indicators of generative content and provide a proof of concept for investigating group interactions in unobtrusive ways. Additionally, our results would also be able to provide an analytics tool for managers to measure the extent to which text-based tools, such as ESM, effectively nudge employees towards generative behaviors. 

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5. When Optimal Team Formation is a Choice - Self-Selection versus Intelligent Team Formation Strategies in a Large Online Project-Based Course

   Sankaranarayanan, S. (June 2018, Proceedings of AI in Education)

   Prior research in Team-Based Massive Open Online Project courses (TB-MOOPs) has demonstrated both the importance of effective group composition and the potential for using automated methods for forming effective teams. Past work on automated team assignment has produced both spectacular failures and spectacular successes. In either case, different contexts pose particular challenges that may interfere with the applicability of approaches that have succeeded in other contexts. This paper reports on a case study investigating the applicability of an automated team assignment approach that has succeeded spectacularly in TB-MOOP contexts to a large online project-based course. The analysis offers both evidence of partial success of the paradigm as well as insights into areas for growth. 

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