Collaborative information seeking

Collaborative information seeking (CIS) is a field of research that involves studying situations, motivations, and methods for people working in collaborative groups for information seeking projects, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. Such projects often involve information searching or information retrieval (IR), information gathering, and information sharing. Beyond that, CIS can extend to collaborative information synthesis and collaborative sense-making.

Seeking for information is often considered a solo activity, but there are many situations that call for people working together for information seeking. Such situations are typically complex in nature, and involve working through several sessions exploring, evaluating, and gathering relevant information. Take for example, a couple going on a trip. They have the same goal, and in order to accomplish their goal, they need to seek out several kinds of information, including flights, hotels, and sightseeing. This may involve them working together over multiple sessions, exploring and collecting useful information, and collectively making decisions that help them move toward their common goal.

It is a common knowledge that collaboration is either necessary or highly desired in many activities that are complex or difficult to deal with for an individual. Despite its natural appeal and situational necessity, collaboration in information seeking is an understudied domain. The nature of the available information and its role in our lives have changed significantly, but the methods and tools that are used to access and share that information in collaboration have remained largely unaltered. People still use general-purpose systems such as email and IM for doing CIS projects, and there is a lack of specialized tools and techniques to support CIS explicitly.

There are also several models to explain information seeking and information behavior, but the areas of collaborative information seeking and collaborative information behavior remain understudied. A few specialized systems for supporting CIS have emerged in the recent past, but their usage and evaluations have underwhelmed. Despite such limitations, the field of CIS has been getting a lot of attention lately, and several promising theories and tools have come forth. A recent review of CIS related literature is written by Shah. Shah provides a comprehensive review of this field, including theories, models, systems, evaluation, and future research directions. Other books in this area include one by Morris and Teevan, as well as Foster's book on collaborative information behavior.

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