Towards a Model of Collaborative Information Behavior

The research area of Collaborative Information Behavior (CIB) has received increased interest in recent years. Various studies conducted within organizational as well as non-organizational settings have provided us with many key insights about CIB. However, the research area is still relatively young and is at a pre-paradigmatic stage. Although there are a growing number of CIB-related studies, we still do not have a canonical definition of CIB. The demarcations among Collaborative Information Behavior, Collaborative Information Seeking (CIS) and Collaborative Information Retrieval (CIR) are not very clear. Consequently, there are a variety of perspectives on CIB. In this paper, we discuss both the Social and Technical perspectives within CIB, and present a model illustrating the various activities that make up CIB. Finally, we discuss the potential usefulness of the model in bridging the gap between the social and technical streams of CIB research, and ask for suggestions concerning subsequent improvements that could be made to the model. The contribution of this position paper is in developing an early CIB model and in envisioning CIB as a set of activities that occurs across multiple phases