A Framework for Studying and Evaluating Collaborative Information Seeking Environments

Collaborative information seeking (CIS) does not happen in isolation; it encompasses some of the aspects of informa-tion retrieval/seeking, and it should be considered as a part of a larger collaboration. Due to this configuration, it is im-perative that we consider the context of the collaboration that a CIS process is a part of. Classically, CIS processes are laid out on time-space axes [6]. Golovchinsky et al. [3] identified intent and depth of mediation as additional dimen-sions for classifying CIS systems. We believe there are many more aspects and dimensions to consider while studying and evaluating CIS environments. We propose a new framework that incorporates the following 11 dimensions for a CIS pro-cess. They are depicted in two parts in Figures 1 and 2, along with rationale behind incorporating these dimensions, and a few examples