A qualitative study of collaborative information seeking
| Pages | 533-547 |
| Date | 01 October 2002 |
| Published date | 01 October 2002 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410210441000 |
| Author | Paul Prekop |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Collaborative
information
seeking
533
Journal of Documentation,
Vol. 58 No. 5, 2002, pp. 533-547.
MCB UP Limited, 0022-0418
Received 4 October 2001
Revised 15 April 2002
Accepted 6 May 2002
A qualitative study of
collaborative information
seeking
Paul Prekop
Information Technology Division, Defence Science & Technology
Organisation, Department of Defence, Canberra, Australia
Keywords Information systems, Information retrieval, Information technology
Abstract Much of the existing information seeking literature only considers information
seeking when performed by an individual information seeker. This paper describes a study that
explicitly considers information seeking from a collaborative perspective. The study used a
grounded theory approach of a complex, real world, example of collaborative information seeking
activity, drawn from the military domain.
Introduction
Information seeking forms an important part of many human activities,
ranging from decision-making and problem solving through to resource
allocation and system management (Rouse and Rouse, 1984). While many
different models of information seeking have been proposed (Brown, 1991),
implicit in most of them is the assumption that the information seeker is an
individual. Recently, researchers have begun to challenge this assumption, and
to explore the collaborative dimensions of information seeking. Studies of
collaborative information seeking, within various contexts (McDonald and
Ackerman, 1998; Koschmann and Stahl, 1998; Twidale and Nichols, 1998)
have begun to emerge, and within the computer supported collaborative
work (CSCW) domain, experimental technology to support collaborative
information seeking activities have been developed (Cohen et al., 1998; Romano
et al., 1999).
This paper presents details of a qualitative study of the collaborative
dimensions of information seeking. The study describes the collaborative
information seeking behaviours performed by a working group created to
perform the command and control support (C2S) study. The C2S study was a
large and complex review of the Australian Defence Force's (ADF) command
and control capability, and was conducted over three years. The C2S study
working group performed all the information collection and analysis that made
up the C2S study. This paper codifies the collaborative information seeking
behaviours of the C2S working group as they collected the information needed
for the C2S study.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The author wishes to thank Dr Leoni Warne for her invaluable help and guidance.
#Commonwealth of Australia.
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