1. Overview
2. Introduction
3. Objectives
4. Themes
5. CFP
6. Organizers
7. Accepted Papers
8. Program
9. References
10. Flyer [PDF]
11. Resources

The notion that information seeking is not always a solitary activity, and that people working in collaboration for information intensive tasks should be studied and supported, has become more prevalent in the recent years than ever before. The field of collaborative information seeking is re-emerging, and bringing many researchers and practitioners from various disciplines. We invite you to join a small and motivated set of such participants in a workshop with the theme of "Collaborative Information Seeking: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Practice". The workshop will focus on theoretical foundations of collaborative information seeking (CIS) as well as its applications, and provide an excellent platform for learning about collaborative/social aspects of information seeking as well as discuss various challenges and opportunities.

The workshop is organized as a highly interactive event. Participants will have an opportunity to briefly present their current research on CIS, we will have discussions and break-out sessions on the topics, and one goal will be to outline a research agenda for future CIS. This format will provide an ideal ground for seasoned researchers and practitioners as well as beginners such as graduate students. So bring your questions and curiosity!

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Objectives

The workshop seeks to bring together researchers with backgrounds in CSCW, social computing, information retrieval, library sciences, and HCI to discuss the research challenges associated with the emerging field of collaborative information seeking. By engaging such participants, we hope to explore a variety of important questions that relate to bridging the gap between theory and practice. Some examples are listed below.

1. How does collaboration fit into existing solitary information seeking activities?
2. How do we move from single-user information seeking models to those for multi-users (collaborative)?
3. The concepts of collaborative information handling and sharing are used in an unclear way. What is the distinction between them?
4. How to integrate collaborative seeking into everyday life and professional environments?
5. What should be required and desired characteristics of a CIS system?

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Themes

• Theories and models for Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS) and related areas. 

• Methodologies for studying various CIS issues, particularly, user behavior in CIS environments, collaborative information processes and task-related CIS.

• Integration of CIS models and frameworks into existing theories, models, tools or applications.

• Application of CIS in different domains – requirements, issues and benefits.

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CFP

We are seeking participants from academia and industry who are conducting research in collaborative information seeking and behavior. This includes conceptual and technical research on collaborative information seeking, search, retrieval, and sensemaking. We would ideally like to have 12-15 participants.

The workshop participants will be asked to prepare a brief 10-minute presentation. The presentation should include a short overview of their accepted position paper/research in the area of collaborative information seeking, important research questions that remain unanswered, where they see the research headed in the next few years and what their personal research agenda is in this area. Each presentation will be followed by 5 minutes for questions. 

Potential attendees are encouraged to submit a brief position paper. The paper should be two to four pages long in ACM format. Please email .pdf or .doc versions to Chirag Shah by 5:00pm PST on September 5, 2011.

Also, while position papers are not due until September 5, we ask that you inform us about your intention to participate as early as you can (before September 3) to help us with the organization and planning. By notifying us early, we will try to confirm your space at the workshop in time for you to take advantage of the ASIS&T early registration deadline (September 4).

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Organizers

Dr. Chirag Shah is an assistant professor in the School of Communication & Information (SC&I) at Rutgers University. He has been actively involved in research related to collaborative information seeking, leading to his PhD dissertation at UNC Chapel Hill on “A Framework to Support User-Centric Collaborative Information Seeking” done under the supervision of Gary Marchionini. With Jeremy Pickens and Gene Golovchinsky at FXPAL, he won the best paper award at ACM SIGIR 2008 conference, with a paper on algorithmically mediated collaborative information retrieval. He organized the first workshop on CIS with Madhu Reddy (PSU) and Michael Twidale (UIUC) at the ACM Group 2010 conference. He is interested in developing new models and systems for supporting CIS in online information seeking environments.

Preben Hansen is a senior researcher at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science – SICS. He is working with applied research closely with the Swedish industry as well as participating in EU-projects (Promise, ASSETS, Companions, DELOS NoE and Clarity). His research includes developing models of IS&R processes as well as empirical studies of users and use of interactive information access systems. Currently his focus is on collaborative information handling processes within different domains.

Dr. Robert Capra is a post-doctoral fellow and research scientist in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include human-computer interaction, personal information management, and collaborative and exploratory search interfaces. He has been on the organizational committee for a series of workshops on Personal Information Management, co-edited a special issue of ACM Transactions on Information Systems, and served as Program Chair for the 2010 HCIR Workshop. He is interested in developing tools to help support CIS that integrate with existing workflows.

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Accepted Papers

Capra, R., Sams, B., & Seligson, P. Self-Generated Versus Tasks in Collaborative Search [Paper][PPT]

Efron, M. A Game with Many Purposes: Improving Information Retrieval Through Pleasurable Competion [Paper][PPT]

Golovchinsky, G., Driye, A., & Pickens, J. Designing for Collaboration in Information Seeking [Paper][PPT]

González-Ibáñez, R., Shah, C., & Haseki, M. A Method to Evaluate the Synergic Effect in Collaborative Information Seeking [Paper][PPT]

Hansen, P. Granato, G.L., & Santucci, G. Collecting and Assessing Collaborative Requirements [Paper][PPT]

Meloche, J. & Dalton, S. Collaborative Information Seeking. [Paper][PPT]

Saleh, N. Investigating Collaborative Information Behaviour in Undergraduate Educational Setting: A Position Paper [Paper][PPT]

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Preliminary Program

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References

1. Belkin, N. J. (1980). Anomalous states of knowledge as a basis for information retrieval. Canadian Journal of Information Science, 5, 133-143.
2. Denning, P. J. and Yaholkovsky, P. (2008). Getting to “We”. Communications of the ACM, 51(4):19–24.
3. Hansen, P. and Jarvelin, K (2005). Collaborative information retrieval in an information intensive domain. Information Processing and Management, 41, 1101-1119.
4. Grudin, J. (1994). Groupware and social dynamics: eight challenges for developers. Communications of the ACM, 37(1), 92-105.
5. Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991). Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User’s Perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 42(5), 361-371.
6. Morris, M. R. (2008). A survey of collaborative web search practices. In Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI, pages 1657–1660, Florence, Italy.
7. Rodden, T. (1991). A Survey of CSCW Systems. Interacting with Computers, 3(3), 319-353.
8. Shah, C. (2008). Toward Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS). In Proceedings of JCDL 2008 Workshop on Collaborative Exploratory Search, Pittsburgh, PA.
9. Twidale, M. B. and Nichols, D. M. (1996). Collaborative browsing and visualisation of the search process. In Proceedings of Aslib, volume 48, pages 177–182.

Chirag Shah, Rutgers University

Preben Hansen, Swedish Inst. of CS

Rob Capra, UNC Chapel Hill

Important dates

September 3, 2011: Intention to participate emailed to the organizers

September 4, 2011: Early registration

September 5, 2011: Position papers due

September 9, 2011: Notifications

October 12, 2011: Workshop