Computer-Mediated Group Support, Anonymity and Software Inspection Process

While considerable research in both software inspection and anonymity in Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) exists individually, anonymity within the context of software inspection has not been explored. Anonymity becomes an important issue as researchers and practitioners advocate the use of computer- mediated inspection over traditional manual-based ones. Moreover, the emergence of new paradigms such as distributed and asynchronous environments for inspection only add to the importance of understanding the effects of anonymity on inspection outcomes. This research examines and proposes possible influences of group member anonymity on the outcome of computer-mediated software inspection

Meeting Impacts of Two Types of EMS Anonymity and Initial Difference in Opinions

A laboratoryexperiment was conducted to study the effects of two types of anonymityin an electronic meeting system (EMS) setting (source anonymity: participants know who their group members are but do not know the source of any comment, and participant anonymity:, participants do not know who their group members are), initial difference in opinions, and their interaction on participation and satisfaction. Results suggest that the effects of participant anonymityshould not be considered as similar in nature to but stronger than those of source anonymity. The extent to which source and participant anonymitymake a group salient to its members is proposed as a crucial determinant of the effects of source and participant anonymity