Forum Size and Content Contribution per Person: A Field Experiment

52 Pages Posted: 3 May 2019

See all articles by Jiye Baek

Jiye Baek

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) - Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management

Jesse Shore

Boston University - Questrom School of Business

Date Written: March 23, 2019

Abstract

Promoting contribution of content is a key challenge for platforms that support the collective creation or transfer of knowledge. We study the role of forum size (number of people in a forum) on contribution of content per person with a field experiment on a massive open online course (MOOC). We find that larger forums elicit more contribution per person. The number of questions and other help-seeking threads posted per person was unchanged by size, but replies and other more conversational posts increased sharply. Most of the positive effect of size was in a subset of socially responsive subjects. The implication of social responsiveness driving our results is that the unequal distribution of contribution on online platforms is unlikely to be easily changed: if more contributions are elicited from infrequent contributors, the greatest contributors would contribute even more due to there being more to respond to.

Keywords: online engagement, discussion forums, group size, user-generated content, Massive Open Online Courses, free riding, lurkers, knowledge sharing

JEL Classification: M15

Suggested Citation

Baek, Jiye and Shore, Jesse, Forum Size and Content Contribution per Person: A Field Experiment (March 23, 2019). Boston University Questrom School of Business Research Paper No. 3363768, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3363768 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3363768

Jiye Baek

Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST) - Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Operations Management ( email )

Clear Water Bay
Kowloon
Hong Kong

Jesse Shore (Contact Author)

Boston University - Questrom School of Business ( email )

595 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA MA 02215
United States

HOME PAGE: http://jesseshore.com

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