Abstract
The primary purpose of this study was to enhance the collaborative idea generation under online communication and to find out the motivational synergy. We have hypothesized that the group thinking is influenced by its environments, especially whether it is synchronous or asynchronous. In order to find out our results, we set up a couple of experiments and have examined the process of group thinking and the effect of their stimuli in the environments. We have focused the collaborative idea finding by group. To enable efficient ways of cooperation, these collaborative processes need to be supported by internet, in particular, when cooperation takes place with locally dispersed groups. We have adopted brainstorming as a typical tool for group thinking, and the Creative Group Thinking System (CGTS) as a Computer-Supported Environment (CSE). The creative idea generation process and the Synergistic Extrinsic Motivator (SEM) for group have reviewed. By measuring the differences of creativity between online and offline, verbal and visual thinking, and with stimuli and without stimuli, we found that the SEM conduces to the creativity of the collaborative idea generation on the web.
