GDSS DOES NOT GUARANTEE EQUAL PARTICIPATION

Group decision support systems (GDSS) provide forums capable of reducing group process loss and of allowing equal participation. The design of GDSS provides conditions necessary to produce equal participation, but a forum does not ensure equal participation. Reducing group process loss increases the number of comments produced by groups using GDSS. Participants producing more comments did not lead to a uniform distribution of the number of comments. Our study, also, investigated quantity of comments produced by participants with some self-reported measures of participation. We found participation was associated with ''talkativeness''.