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In explicit collaborative search, two or more individuals coordinate their efforts toward a shared goal. Every day, Internet users with similar information needs have the potential to collaborate. However, online search is typically performed in solitude. Existing search systems do not promote explicit collaborations, and collaboration opportunities collabportunities are missed. In this article, we describe a method to evaluate the feasibility of transforming these collabportunities into recommendations for explicit collaboration. We developed a technique called pseudocollaboration to evaluate the benefits and costs of collabportunities through simulations. We evaluate the performance of our method using three data sets: a data from single users' search sessions, b data with collaborative search sessions between pairs of searchers, and c logs from a large-scale search engine with search sessions of thousands of searchers. Our results establish when and how collabportunities would significantly help or hinder the search process versus searches conducted individually. The method that we describe has implications for the design and implementation of recommendation systems for explicit collaboration. It also connects system-mediated and user-mediated collaborative search, whereby the system evaluates the likely benefits of collaborating for a search task and helps searchers make more informed decisions on initiating and executing such a collaboration.

Communication is considered to be one of the most essential components of collaboration, but our understanding as to which form of communication provides the most optimal cost-benefit balance lacks severely. To help investigate effects of various communication channels on a collaborative project, we conducted a user study with 30 pairs (60 participants) in three different conditions - co-located, remotely located with text chat, and remotely located with text as well as audio chat, in an exploratory search task. Using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis, we found that teams with remotely located participants were more effective in terms of being able to explore more diverse information. Adding audio support for remote collaboration helped participants to lower their cognitive load as well as negative emotions compared to those working in the same space. We also show how these findings could help design more effective systems for collaborative information seeking tasks using adequate and appropriate communication. We argue that collaboration is an important aspect of human-centered IR, and that our work provides interesting insights into people doing information seeking/retrieval in collaboration.

Space and time are considered the most important dimensions for studying systems and methods that support collaboration in information seeking. Several investigations have provided us with insights into people’s preferences and experiences relating to these two dimensions, but there is a lack of empirical evidence. A user study is presented, involving 60 subjects in 30 pairs, in which the experience and performance of users are compared while performing an information-seeking task in three different spatially defined collaboration settings: (1) working at the same workstation, (2) working in the same room at different workstations, and (3) working in different rooms. The results show significant differences among the experimental conditions, indicating the impact of space on collaboration. The pros and cons of different spatial set-ups are derived from an extensive analysis that uses several traditional information retrieval measures such as precision and recall, as well as unconventional assessments involving coverage and diversity.

Collaboration takes place at different time-space conditions. Past research has shown that these two dimensions may have different implications in the collaboration process, as well as on its outcomes, depending upon the task being performed. In collaborative information seeking (CIS), as a relatively new topic in information science, little is known about the effects of different temporal-spatial contexts. To address this, we conducted a user study involving 80 participants in 40 pairs, which were assigned to four experimental conditions, namely: co-located, remotely located with text chat, remotely located with audio chat, and asynchronous. Using quantitative methods, we investigated the effects of these conditions on communication, information synthesis, productivity, and user experience. Results regarding the space dimension suggest that information seeking behaviors of co-located users tend to overlap thus affecting their coverage of diverse and useful information. Conversely, when team members are remotely located, limited interaction allows them to work more independently, leading them to explore more diverse and useful information with the added value of less cognitive and affective load. With respect to the time dimension, we found that asynchronous collaboration enables participants to reach high levels of independency at the cost of effectiveness. These results provide practical implications about how various spatial-temporal contexts in CIS could influence factors such as productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, and uniqueness.

Many theories and models exist for understanding and explaining information seeking processes (ISP) for individuals. Such is not the case for collaborative information seeking (CIS), despite its growing importance. In this paper we take Kuhlthau's ISP model, designed for individual information seeking, and map it to a CIS situation. We present a laboratory study with 84 participants in 42 pairs and demonstrate how their information seeking processes over two sessions can be mapped to various stages of the ISP model. In addition, we explore the affective dimension of information seeking as well as perceived relevance expressed by the participants through their interactions. We discuss similarities and disparities of ISP for individuals and collaborative information seeking. In particular, we show that there is a logical progression from uncertainty about the task to being satisfied about the collected information among the participants; and at the same time, there is a lack of clear segmentation between stages of formulating information need, exploring information, and collecting it. The latter can be attributed to exploratory search tasks and interactions among the collaborators.

Most information retrieval (IR) systems consider relevance, usefulness, and quality of information objects (documents, queries) for evaluation, prediction, and recommendation, often ignoring the underlying search process of information seeking. This may leave out opportunities for making recommendations that analyze the search process and/or recommend alternative search process instead of objects. To overcome this limitation, we investigated whether by analyzing a searcher���s current processes we could forecast his likelihood of achieving a certain level of success with respect to search performance in the future. We propose a machine-learning-based method to dynamically evaluate and predict search performance several time-steps ahead at each given time point of the search process during an exploratory search task. Our prediction method uses a collection of features extracted from expression of information need and coverage of information. For testing, we used log data collected from 4 user studies that included 216 users (96 individuals and 60 pairs). Our results show 80���90% accuracy in prediction depending on the number of time-steps ahead. In effect, the work reported here provides a framework for evaluating search processes during exploratory search tasks and predicting search performance. Importantly, the proposed approach is based on user processes and is independent of any IR system.

We present a user study involving 80 participants in 40 pairs about the implications of four time-space conditions in a collaborative information seeking task, namely: co-located, remotely located with text chat, remotely located with audio chat, and asynchronous. Results suggest that when individuals are co-located, their search behaviors tend to overlap thus affecting their ability to find diverse and useful information. On the other hand, when people are remotely located, the levels of independency and diversity depend upon the richness of the communication channel being used. Finally, when collaborative search is performed asynchronously, team members reach high levels of independency at the cost of effectiveness. These findings are particularly essential in various areas of research and application such as human-computer interaction (HCI) and information retrieval (IR), providing additional knowledge that would enable system designers to provide better support for the information search process of teams.

It is typically expected that when people work together, they can often accomplish goals that are difficult or even impossible for individuals. We consider this notion of the group achieving more than the sum of all individuals' achievements to be the synergic effect in collaboration. Similar expectation exists for people working in collaboration for information seeking tasks. We, however, lack a methodology and appropriate evaluation metrics for studying and measuring the synergic effect. In this paper we demonstrate how to evaluate this effect and discuss what it means to various collaborative information seeking (CIS) situations. We present a user study with four different conditions: single user, pair of users at the same computer, pair of users at different computers and co-located, and pair of users remotely located. Each of these individuals or pairs was given the same task of information seeking and usage for the same amount of time. We then combined the outputs of single independent users to form artificial pairs, and compared against the real pairs. Not surprisingly, participants using different computers (co-located or remotely located) were able to cover more information sources than those using a single computer (single user or a pair). But more interestingly, we found that real pairs with their own computers (co-located or remotely located) were able to cover more unique and useful information than that of the artificially created pairs. This indicates that those working in collaboration achieved something greater and better than what could be achieved by adding independent users, thus, demonstrating the synergic effect. Remotely located real teams were also able to formulate a wider range of queries than those pairs that were co-located or artificially created. This shows that the collaborators working remotely were able to achieve synergy while still being able to think and work independently. Through the experiments and measurements presented here, we have also contributed a unique methodology and an evaluation metric for CIS., 34th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval

In an interactive information-seeking environment, it is important to consider more user-centric notion of relevance, which includes motivational and affective relevance. In this poster we introduce the notion of group's affective relevance for collaborative information seeking. We propose a new model for implementing and studying group's affective relevance in information systems that provide support for collaborative information seeking. In addition, we present preliminary results from a laboratory experiment for studying how affective information judgments are related to the performance of a group.

Collaboratively seeking and constructing information is becoming an increasingly important activity in our lives. Yet, many important aspects of such common undertakings are still understudied or unclear, including the effect of spatial configuration in information synthesis or writing process. This article investigates the effects of location-based setups on collaborative writing in the context of information seeking. These investigations are done using a laboratory study and an experimental system for collaboratively seeking and synthesizing information. A total of 30 pairs (60 subjects) were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions: (1) on a single shared workstation; (2) in the same room with individual computers; and, (3) remotely located with text chat. By analyzing the way the collaborative pairs constructed their reports, it was found that those remotely located spent less effort per edit than those in the same room. Separate location discouraged social interactions and boosted the writing efficiency. These differences in various measures across different configurations, as discovered through exploratory analysis — both qualitative and quantitative — provide useful guidelines for developing collaborative systems, specifically presenting trade-offs among communication efforts, social interactions, and productivity. The work reported in this paper is a first known attempt to investigate impacts of spatial configuration on collaborative writing in the context of information seeking. In doing so, it brings together, and benefits to, scholarly inquiries from computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and library and information science (LIS) fields.