Collaborative Problem Solving in an Open-Ended Scientific Discovery Game

Countless human pursuits depend upon collaborative problem solving, especially in complex, open-ended domains. As part of the growing technological support for such collaboration, an opportunity exists to design systems that actively guide and facilitate collaborative problem solving toward the most productive outcomes. A better understanding of the dynamics of open-ended collaboration on complex problems is needed to realize this opportunity. Motivated by this need for better understanding, we investigate the collaborative problem solving ecosystem of the scientific-discovery game Foldit. Our investigation is guided by two primary questions: how do the social aspects of Foldit impact an individual's behavior? and what factors have significant impact on group success? We find that collaboration and competition are associated with increased participation and that collaboration increases individual performance. We also find that measures of group skill, individual skill, and participation correlate with better group performance.