A survey of collaborative information seeking practices of academic researchers

Abstract

Information seeking and management practices are an integral aspect of people's daily work. However, we still have little understanding of collaboration in the information seeking process. Through a survey of collaborative information seeking practices of academic researchers, we found that researchers reported that (1) the lack of expertise is the primary reason that they collaborate when seeking information; (2) traditional methods, including face-to-face, phone, and email are the preferred communication mediums for collaboration; and (3) collaborative information seeking activities are usually successful and more useful than individually seeking information. These results begin to highlight the important role that collaborative information seeking plays in daily work.

Evaluating web conferencing tool effectiveness

“…With face-to-face meetings not always being practical or cost effective for virtual teams, the ability to share technical information or collaborate with fellow team members becomes even more important [30]. The quality of information within web conferencing relies on two major components: the quality of the information provided by the presenters and the quality of the technology delivering that information.…”

“…The sharing of information in organizations often needs to be made more effective [30]. When collaboration is performed through web-based communication systems, research has shown that it assists with deeper learning, shared understanding, critical thinking and better retention of information [16].…”

“…Information seeking is a core component of work done within virtual teams and groups using collaboration to discover new information are often successful [30]. People have varied communication styles and prefer different forms of information delivery.…”

Bireyselden Ortak Bilgi Davranışına

“…Başka bir çalışmada ise, yukarıda belirtilen tetikleyicilerden parçalanmış bilgi kaynakları hariç diğerleri tetikleyici faktör olarak belirtilmiş ve evren olarak akademisyenleri ele alan çalışmada akademisyenler arasında her ne kadar bilginin karmaşıklığı ve erişilebilirliği tetikleyici olsa da, asıl tetikleyici unsurun alan uzmanlığı olduğu belirtilmiştir (Spence, Reddy ve Hall, 2005).…”

Collaborative Information Retrieval: Concepts, Models and Evaluation

“…Accordingly, a great amount of research in the IR domain mostly dealt with both the design of enhanced document ranking models and a deep user's behavior understanding with the aim of improving an individual search effectiveness. However, in practice, collaboration among a community of users is increasingly acknowledged as an effective mean for gathering the complementary skills and/or knowledge of individual users in order to solve complex shared search tasks, such as fact-finding tasks (e.g., travel planning) or exploratory search tasks [13,18]. Collaboration allows the group achieving a result that is more effective than the simple aggregation of the individual results [14].…”