Role-specific behaviour patterns in collaborative information seeking

Introduction: Collaborative Information Seeking is a common practice for solving complex tasks. In distant collaboration scenarios, system support is necessary to carry out the process efficiently.
Methods: The paper presents research on roles for distant collaborative search to contribute to the efficiency of the teams and raise group awareness. This is done via two field studies and by applying a mixed methods approach.
Analysis: The analysis shows some noticeable indications for search actions specific for certain groups of participants.
Results: The integrated interpretation of the data led to the development of five different role patterns: Facilitator, Observer/Editor, Implementer, Pathfinder and Compiler.
Conclusion: The findings can help to support distant collaboration by making it more efficient and effective and raise users’ satisfaction. Further studies are planned to test the findings in quantitative approaches.