Impact of Using Creative Thinking Skills and Open Data on Programming Design in a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environment

In this paper, we investigate if a computer-supported collaborative brainstorming environment for programming design can promote students' creativity. We developed a web-based learning environment to foster the competence of innovation, one of the essential competencies required for today's software development. The proposed system includes the modules of creative thinking skills and instructional scaffolds that have been known to promote creativity. In this study, we provided an open data that downloaded from local government, the data recorded many attributes of historic sites of Tainan city. Students were asked to propose and implement an innovative application based on the data. The three-part study investigated if: i) students of the experimental group (EG) significantly have better fluency than students of the control group (CG), ii) there is no significant difference in flexibility but the EG still has better flexibility than the CG, and iii) the EG significantly outperforms the CG in originality. Analysis of the divergent thinking phase demonstrated that the proposed system can help students generate creative ideas. However, they may not use their creative ideas to develop innovative software because of their limited coding ability or the feasibility of their ideas.