Wiki Collaboration: Free-riding Students and Relational Social Capital

Wikis are interactive Web 2.0 tools that enable collaboration and knowledge sharing. Wiki-enabled collaboration is ideal in an educational setting, yet is prone to free-riding. This study examined the impact of the relational social capital of undergraduate students on their wiki usage and free-riding in a group project. Preliminary findings reveal that characteristics of relational social capital did not affect usage of the wiki, but did affect perceived free-riding. Specifically, identity with the group had a significant effect on perceived free-riding. Identity also had effects on group trust, reciprocity and norms. Trust encouraged reciprocity and reciprocity reinforced norms. The paper’s main contribution is to increase understanding of how characteristics of relational social capital impact free-riding during wiki collaboration in an educational setting. Another contribution is the analysis of inter-relationships among characteristics of relational social capital, typically ignored by published research.