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The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast research on collaborative information seeking (CIS) and expertise seeking (EXS) to identify focal themes, blind spots, and possibilities for cross-fertilization.

Existing research was reviewed. The review consisted of a content analysis of 70 (CIS) and 72 (EXS) studies with respect to the context, scope, process, and setting of CIS and EXS, supplemented with a bibliometric analysis of the references in the reviewed studies.

In CIS, the context is a group of actors collaborating on a shared task. In EXS, the information need is held by an individual but resolved by consulting other people. While the typical scope of EXS studies is source selection, CIS studies mostly concern the consultation of the sources and the use of the obtained information. CIS and EXS studies also attend differentially to the information-seeking process. Only 4 percent of the references in the reviewed studies are cited in both CIS and EXS research. The author concludes that, at present, CIS and EXS are different discourses about similar issues.

Increased interaction between CIS and EXS will advance research in both areas and prevent duplication of effort. Topics for future research are identified. It should be noted that the findings are limited to the 142 studies reviewed.

By analyzing CIS in the context of EXS, and vice versa, this study provides a fresh look at the information-seeking research that attends to collaboration.

Many governments worldwide are now promoting the importance of research-informed efforts at improvement. At the same time research is yet to make sustained impact on the practices of teachers. Given the importance of the issue and the lack of progress in this area, the purpose of this paper is to examine what drives teachers’ perceptions that their school: first, encourages the use of research evidence to support improvements to teaching; and second, whether school improvement strategies are grounded in research on effective practice.

Reviewing extant literature, the authors hypothesize that teachers’ perceptions of research use are related to their perceptions of: the presence of in-school organizational learning (OL) factors; whether they work in high-trust environments; and also to the frequency and quality of their “expertise-seeking” interactions. Using a survey instrument to measure OL, trust, and school research use climate, the authors gather data from 828 teachers in 43 schools. The authors then use social network analysis to quantify teachers’ professional relationships; with hierarchical linear regression employed to explore multilevel relationships between variables. Social network diagrams are also used to visualize the patterns of relationships between teachers/study variables.

The analysis indicates that teachers who report the climate of their schools to be focussed on learning, experimentation, and valuing new ideas, tend to also report more use of research/evidence. Likewise, teachers who had more frequent and useful interactions around teaching and learning also report more research/evidence use (RE Use) in their schools. Finally, and perhaps most powerfully, is that higher levels of perceived trust in the school are also associated with reporting higher levels of RE Use.

The results illustrate the importance of learning and trust in facilitating the types of relations needed to provide teachers with access to the research/evidence centered social capital that resides within a school. The work expands the notions of what is necessary to support the use of research/evidence in schools by placing more relational elements of the improvement equation front and center.

The principal aim of the present study was to identify and model the subject structure of the research area on collaborative information behaviour (CIB).

A qualitative, inductive and exploratory approach was adopted, and the method of thematic analysis was used. This study was based on the analysis of 79 publications selected from the Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database in April 2019.

Collaborative and collective information behaviours were differentiated, and the subject structure of the CIB research area was identified to contain collaborative activities oriented to both information access and content, their various conditions, means of conducting, experiences of selected communities and metascientific research on the area itself.

The limitations result primarily from relying on the research material selected from the database (LISTA) focussed mainly on the issues of library and information science.

This study contributes by proposing an original model of the CIB research area representing its subject structure and providing a coherent list of subjects of interest to CIB researchers. Hopefully, it will also contribute to the harmonisation of terminology related to this research area and thus facilitate communication between CIB researchers and accelerate the cumulative development of scientific knowledge on CIB.

The purpose of this paper is explore career management strategies used by information technology (IT) professionals full‐time employed in offshore outsourced IT firms in Sri Lanka; and to evaluate those against hierarchical plateau, job content plateau, firm size, and individual demographic characteristics that may predict the use.

Survey methodology was used and a random sample of 119 IT professionals responded. Multiple regression was used for the data analysis.

Career management strategies used by IT professionals could be broadly categorised into four areas. Hierarchical career plateau and age significantly predict the use of career strategies.

The study provides useful information for both practitioners and academics to better understand career strategies used by IT professionals in managing their own careers and factors that predict the use of career strategies.

The ever-increasing pressure for school improvement has led to a related increase in research-practice partnerships (RPPs) that address problems of practice. Yet, little research has centered on how the myriad challenges to such partnerships can be overcome, such as bridging the cultural divide between universities and their school-based partners. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine how social capital was developed among the members of a steering committee in a RPP between a university and a 12-district consortium of predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders.

Data for this phenomenological single case study were collected over a one-year period through participant observations, document analysis and semi-structured interviews with ten steering committee members. Data were inductively and deductively coded through multiple rounds of analysis, which drew on the structural and cognitive elements of social capital (Uphoff, 2000). Findings were triangulated and member checked for trustworthiness.

The analysis of the data revealed three key ways in which social capital was developed among members of the steering committee to overcome the cultural challenges of RPPs to develop and implement a professional development initiative for rural school leaders: providing an open but focused structure, ensuring inclusive and respectful discussion and negotiating roles and ideas.

The findings provide a fine-grained illustration of how intentional efforts to develop social capital among members in a co-design team can assist in bridging the cultural boundaries often encountered in RPPs.

Government information and services are increasingly delivered online through the Internet or other digital means. To benefit citizens, such electronic government (e-government) must be incorporated in their government-related information behavior. This study reviews citizens' information behavior in relation to e-government.

Following procedures for systematic reviews, this study reviews 53 papers about citizens' e-government information behavior.

The review finds that citizens (1) employ a rich set of quality, accessibility and non-utilitarian criteria in their perception of e-government; (2) use e-government in combination with offline channels; (3) choose channels on the basis of demographic and situational factors; (4) make frequent use of interpersonal sources and (5) may or may not achieve the intended outcome of their e-government information behavior. E-government information behavior has a lot in common with information behaviors in other domains, but it also accentuates certain facets of information behavior, such as the simultaneous use of multiple channels. In addition, mixed findings are common.

Interpersonal sources, both lay and professional, are integral to citizens' e-government information behavior. Yet, theoretical frameworks for understanding information behavior tend to focus on the individual citizen.

On its own, e-government is most suited for simpler problems. More complex problems require an information behavior that combines e-government with interpersonal sources.

E-government shapes how citizens satisfy their government-related information needs. This study provides an overview of the otherwise scattered research on this information behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to show how different approaches to information literacy, such as are mediated through web‐based tutorials, are used as tools in negotiating the information‐seeking expertise of university librarians.

A textual analysis of 31 web‐based Scandinavian tutorials for information literacy has been conducted. The similarities and differences identified are analysed as linguistic expressions of different approaches to information literacy. The approaches are seen as constructions based on a dialogue between the empirical data and the theoretical departure points.

Four approaches to information literacy emerge in the results: a source approach, a behaviour approach, a process approach, and a communication approach. The approaches entail different perspectives on information literacy. They impart diverging understandings of key concepts such as “information”, “information seeking” and the “user”.

A reflective awareness of different approaches to information literacy is important for both researchers and LIS practitioners, since the approaches that come into play have practical consequences for the operation of user education.

The present study supplements the information literacy research field by combining empirical findings with theoretical reflections.