Examining the Writing Phases and Revision Patterns in Online Collaborative Writing: What Can We Learn from Them?

Collaborative writing has become a current interest in higher education and the work-place. The rise of Web 2.0 genres, such as Wikis, has allowed us to perform online collaborative writing. However, writing in an online collaborative manner is hardly taught and practised in tertiary education. The only forms of online collaboration in the writing process that students experience are typically variants of peer review; however, even then, the goal is still to improve upon an individually authored document. This study investigates the relationships between writing phases and revision patterns during the online collaborative writing process. Three groups were observed. The study compared texts from and investigated the nature of the writing process in each group. The study found that the groups developed unique patterns. In the future, the discovered patterns provided by performance sequence and dotted chart analyses can be used to provide feedback to students during their writing so that they are aware of the writing activities and can coordinate effectively.