Search results

Collaboration is often required for activities that are too complex or difficult to be dealt with by a single individual. Many situations requiring information-seeking activities also call for people to work together. Often the methods, systems, and tools that provide access to information assume that they are used only by individuals working on their tasks alone. This review points to the need to acknowledge the importance of collaboration in information-seeking processes, to study models, and to develop systems that are specifically designed to enable collaborative information seeking (CIS) tasks. This chapter reviews the literature from various domains including library and information science, human–computer interaction, collaborative systems, and information retrieval. Focus of the review is on the extent to which people work together on information seeking tasks and the systems and tools that are available for them to be successful. Since CIS occurs in the broader context of collaboration in general, a review of literature about collaborations is first undertaken to define it and place it into context with related terms such as cooperation and communication. A more focused review of research follows relating CIS to systems that have attempted to support such interactions. Included are identification and synthesis of a number of core issues in the field and how best to evaluate systems and collaborative tools. Key lessons learned from the review are summarized, and gaps in the literature identified to spur future research and study.

Purpose — This chapter illustrates and explains the ambiguity and vagueness of the term social search and aims at describing and classifying the heterogeneous landscape of social search implementations on the WWW.

Methodology/approach — We have looked at different definitions as well as the context of social search by carrying out an extensive literature review, and tried to unify and enhance existing ideas and concepts. Our definition of social search is illustrated by a general review of existing social search engines, which are analyzed and described by their specific features and social aspects.

Findings — The chapter presents a discussion of social search as well as a comparison of existing social search engines.

Social implications — The definition of social search and the comparison of social search engines summarize the many ways people can search the web together and allow for an assessment of future developments in this area.

Originality/value of paper — Although different attempts to define social search have been made in the past, we present an argumentation that unifies some existing definitions and which is different from other interpretations of the social search concept. We present an overview and a comparison of the different genres of social search engines.

Purpose — The purpose of this chapter is to give an overview of the context of Web search and search engine related research, as well as to introduce the reader to the sections and chapters of the book.

Methodology/approach — We review literature dealing with various aspects of search engines, with special emphasis on emerging areas of Web searching, search engine evaluation going beyond traditional methods and new perspectives on Web searching.

Findings — The approaches to studying Web search engines are manifold. Given the importance of Web search engines for knowledge acquisition, research from different perspectives needs to be integrated into a more cohesive perspective.

Research limitations/implications — The chapter suggests a basis for research in the field and also introduces further research directions.

Originality/value of paper — The chapter gives a concise overview of the topics dealt within the book and also shows directions for researchers interested in Web search engines.

This chapter outlines how search engine technology can be used in online public access catalogs (OPACs) to help improve users’ experiences, to identify users’ intentions, and to indicate how it can be applied in the library context, along with how sophisticated ranking criteria can be applied to the online library catalog. A review of the literature and the current OPAC developments forms the basis of recommendations on how to improve OPACs. Findings were that the major shortcomings of current OPACs are that they are not sufficiently user-centered and that their results presentations lack sophistication. Furthermore, these shortcomings are not addressed in current 2.0 developments. It is argued that OPAC development should be made search-centered before additional features are applied. Although the recommendations on ranking functionality and the use of user intentions are only conceptual and not yet applied to a library catalogue, practitioners will find recommendations for developing better OPACs in this chapter. In short, readers will find a systematic view on how the search engines’ strengths can be applied to improving libraries’ online catalogs.

Expert searchers engage with information in a variety of professional settings, as information brokers, reference librarians, information architects and faculty who teach advanced searching. As my recent research shows, the expert searcher’s information experience is defined by profound discernment of critical concepts about information, and a fluid ability to apply this knowledge to their engagement with the information environment. The information experience of the expert searcher means active and intentional participation with the processes and players that created that information environment. Expert searchers become an integral and seamless part of their information environment and also play a role in facilitating the information experiences of others.

In this chapter, after discussing my understanding of the concept of information experience, I outline how I used threshold concept theory to explore the information experience of expert searchers. Through the findings, I identify four threshold concepts in the acquisition of search expertise that provide new perspectives on the information experience of the expert searcher. These new perspectives have implications for search engine design and how advanced search skills are taught. Finally, I consider how the fresh insights about the expert searcher’s experiences contribute to wider understanding about information experience.

Both the theory and practice of corporate social responsibility (CSR) are foundational to the field of Business & Society (B&S). However, efforts to define and operationalize this construct have been undermined by definitional discord arising from the disparate sense-making assumptions and methods of competing North American and European research traditions. Scholars wedded to the North American research tradition have striven mightily to uncover “objective” evidence in support of the instrumental proposition that IF corporate executives were to invest more resources to enhance social and environmental performance, THEN the firm’s burnished brand image, reputation, and perceived legitimacy would elevate the firm’s long-term financial performance as well. However, the inconclusive statistical record has failed to move many corporate decision makers beyond the minimal social and environmental investments needed to create the impression of compliance with societal expectations. The proliferation of corporate scandals and the pattern of settling legal disputes without admitting guilt are also troubling. The muted impact of B&S research based on proving the instrumental proposition has prompted a new generation of European B&S scholars to explore the sense-making potential of the European research tradition, which seeks meaning and normative validity within a pluralist crucible of community discourse. This contested communicative space is filled with paradoxical tensions and contending stakeholder voices and narratives. With respect to CSR, this discursive sense-making process is animated by an aspiration toward constructing shared meanings that can guide a search for more collaborative approaches to addressing systemic challenges via stakeholder engagement and experiments in multisector collaborative problem-solving. Rather than try to scientifically “prove” a fact-based pre-existing condition, this approach embraces “an emergent and mediated form of strategic ambiguity” to keep open the possibility of “fulfilling often conflicting instrumental and social/ethical imperatives at the same time” (Guthey & Morsing, 2014, p. 556). This discourse-based search for shared meanings in support of a convergence of economic, social, and environmental values frames CSR as an aspirational cocreative process rather than as a pyramid of normative assertions loosely grounded on a search for validation in efforts to find correlations (or causation) within an assortment of “objective” facts. The discursive approach to constructing CSR also highlights the relevance of the emergence of institutional innovations that enable network interactions to address shared systemic problems. Ultimately, CSR may be expressed as a form of network governance seeking to assure the sustainable outcome of system health and vitality across micro-, meso-, and meta-levels of thought and action.

This study explores policies of collaborative governance between public and private actors through a specific case that sees the development of city areas previously abandoned or landlocked. It employs the case study methodology, analyzing the specific case of San Vincenzo’s Pier in the port city of Naples. The analyzed case reveals that a collaborative public–private approach might overcome typical bureaucratic-public hurdles to the development of cities, especially their abandoned areas.

Cases of public–private collaboration have strongly increased in the last decade in order to overcome classic public failure and to develop a more participated form of governance; therefore, the research question is aimed to understand which are the possible policies to put in action for an effective collaborative governance among public and private actors. It offers practical implications for public managers by demonstrating that the development of policy networks, comprising both public and private actors, is necessary for developing new ideas and for overcoming typical limits of both private and public administrations.

Writing is an act of expressive communication achieved through the medium of print. It is but one of three modes of linguistic communication. The other expressive mode is speaking, while listening and reading comprise the two receptive modes. The purpose of this chapter is to present the impact of a study in which students read and discussed expository poetry. Then they exchanged ideas relating to scientific concepts in the poems with students in a different group via pen pal letters. We analyzed these pen pal letters over four weeks to determine the influence of writing opportunities in an atmosphere rich in all four aspects of linguistic communication, involving authentic communication between students and within a community of learners.

Six of Brod Bagert’s unpublished poems concerned with science concepts were read by students in Collaborative Discover Groups (CDG) in two third-grade classes. After the groups discussed the poems, a mini-lesson on one of the Six Traits of Writing followed, and the students responded individually to a teacher-generated prompt related to the specific poem. The responses were in the form of pen pal letters to students in another class who had just read the same poem, received the same teacher-directed mini-lesson, and had had a similar discussion in their respective CDG. The data gleaned from these letters provide information demonstrating the effect of emphasizing all linguistic facets synergistically in a social, communicative setting. Both the processes and the findings will be discussed.

Analysis of the pen pal letters third-grade students wrote over four weeks showed the following patterns. (1) There was an increase in the discursive nature of the writing. (2) The incidence of rhetorical questioning, using A + B = C reasoning, and evaluative thinking was present in the fifth set of letters, and not in the first. Additionally, the number of sentences per letter increased from the first to the fifth, and the number of words per letter increased from approximately 50 words per letter to 75 words per letter. It appears that the linguistically synergistic communicative processes employed in this study are reflected in the increased sophistication and communicative nature of these writings.

The data revealed the importance of including the sociocultural tenants in the classroom, emphasizing that reading, writing, speaking, and listening are all a part of the same phenomenon. Together they strengthen and support each other.

Hunting for jobs is a socially, historically, and institutionally constructed process. Workers must learn how to find jobs and build careers but the ways in which they learn and the tools they have for doing so vary by class, race, gender, and cultural capital. In this paper, we analyze two organizations that teach clients job market behaviors that purportedly enable them to search for work. We argue that job search organizations (JSOs) can reinforce occupational and career inequalities. Focusing on the job market information and skills given to different occupational groups, messages about opportunity and mobility, and resources made available to clients, we show how JSOs prepare people to look for jobs along class-specific lines. These organizations discipline clients’ aspirations and shape their understandings of their occupational competencies and weaknesses. The study highlights the importance of this understudied type of labor market intermediary.