Open AccessAn investigation of search processes in collaborative exploratory web search
Author(s) -
Yue Zhen,
Han Shuguang,
He Daqing
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
proceedings of the american society for information science and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1550-8390
pISSN - 0044-7870
DOI - 10.1002/meet.14504901197
Subject(s) - exploratory search , computer science , search engine , world wide web , information retrieval , web search query , semantic search
This paper presents a user study aiming to investigate search processes in collaborative exploratory Web search. Our analysis of search processes focuses on the distribution and transition of user search actions captured in a collaborative web search system called CollabSearch. The results show that a large proportion of users' actions in collaborative searches were related to explicit communication, which is one of the sources for users to obtain query ideas. This paper concludes with some insights on the range of behaviors and activities that a collaborative search system should support.