Anonymity-Featured Group Support Systems and Creativity

Until recently, creativity has been a neglected research topic (Steinberg & Lubart, 1999), although it is a central concern for schools and universities. Steinberg and Lubart have defined creativity as “the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e., original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e., useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)” (p. 3). Teachers in classrooms challenge students to generate creative ideas so as to foster independent thinking. This article aims to investigate normative influence as a barrier to creative idea generation that is present in the classroom and to propose information technology (IT)-based solutions to remove these barriers. Specifically, the article considers the influence of group support systems (GSS) on creativity within the classroom, reviews the pertinent literature, and suggests relationships between the use of GSS and creative idea generation.