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Investigating Search Processes in Collaborative Exploratory Web Search INVESTIGATING SEARCH PROCESSES IN COLLABORATIVE EXPLORATORY WEB SEARCH by Zhen Yue B.S., Nanjing University, 2005 M.S., Peking University, 2007 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of School of Information Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2014 1 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Zhen Yue It was defended on April 1, 2014 and approved by Bernard J. Jansen, Ph.D., Associate Professor, College of Information Sciences and Technology, Pennsylvania State University Peter Brusilovsky, Ph.D., Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Ellen Detlefsen, D.L.S., Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Jung Sun Oh, Ph.D., Asistant Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Dissertation Advisor: Daqing He, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh 2 Copyright © by Zhen Yue 2014 3 INVESTIGATING SEARCH PROCESSES IN COLLABORATIVE EXPLORATORY WEB SEARCH Zhen Yue, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2014 People are often engaged in collaboration in workplaces or daily life due to the complexity of tasks. In the information seeking and retrieval environment, the task can be as simple as fact- finding or a known-item search, or as complex as exploratory search. Given the complex nature of the information needs, exploratory searches may require the collaboration among multiple people who share the same search goal. For instance, students may work together to search for information in a collaborative course project; friends may search together while planning a vacation. There are demands for collaborative search systems that could support this new format of search (Morris, 2013). Despite the recognized importance of understanding search process for designing successful search system (Bates, 1990; Hearst, 2009), it is particularly difficult to study collaborative search process because of the complex interactions involved. In this dissertation, I propose and demonstrate a framework of investigating search processes in the collaborative exploratory search. I designed a laboratory-based user study to collect the data, compared two search conditions: individual search and collaborative search as well as two task types through the study. I first applied a novel Hidden Markov Model approach to analyze the search states in the collaborative search process, the results of which provide a holistic picture of the collaborative search process. I then investigated two important components in the collaborative search process – query behaviors and communications. The findings reveal 4 the characteristics of query and communication patterns in the collaborative search. It also suggests that although the collaboration between two people on search did not achieve a higher performance than two individuals, the collaboration indeed make people feel more satisfied with their performance and less stressed. The results of this study not only provide implications for designing effective collaborative search systems, but also show valuable research directions and methodologies for other researchers. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 15 1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT ............................................................................. 15 1.2 CURRENT RESEARCH STATUS ................................................................ 19 1.3 SIGNIFICANCE ............................................................................................. 23 1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................................ 27 1.5 SCOPE DEFINITION .................................................................................... 29 1.6 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY DESIGN ...................................................... 30 2.0 RELATED WORK ................................................................................................. 32 2.1 INFORMATION SEEKING .......................................................................... 32 2.1.1 Information Seeking Process ...................................................................... 33 2.1.1.1 Macro-level Process Studies ............................................................. 33 2.1.1.2 Micro-level Process Studies .............................................................. 34 2.1.2 Exploratory Search ..................................................................................... 36 2.2 COLLABORATIVE INFORMATION SEEKING ....................................... 38 2.2.1 Collaborative Information Behavior .......................................................... 39 2.2.1.1 CIB Studies in the Web Context ...................................................... 39 2.2.1.2 CIB Studies in Academic Settings .................................................... 40 2.2.1.3 CIB Studies in other Settings............................................................ 41 6 2.2.1.4 Collaborative Information Seeking Process..................................... 42 2.2.2 Collaborative Search System and Evaluation ............................................ 44 2.2.2.1 Systems using Communication Mediation ....................................... 45 2.2.2.2 Systems using Algorithmic Mediation.............................................. 46 2.2.2.3 Evaluation ......................................................................................... 47 2.3 QUERY BEHAVIOR STUDIES .................................................................... 49 2.3.1 Query Behaviors in Individual Search ....................................................... 49 2.3.2 Query Behaviors in Collaborative Search.................................................. 51 2.4 COMMUNICATION STUDIES .................................................................... 53 2.4.1 Communications in Teamwork .................................................................. 53 2.4.2 Communications in Collaborative Search ................................................. 55 3.0 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................. 57 3.1 SYSTEM DESIGN .......................................................................................... 57 3.1.1 System Features .......................................................................................... 57 3.1.2 Design Rational for Process Collaboration ................................................ 59 3.1.3 Design Rational for Products Collaboration .............................................. 60 3.2 EXPERIMENT DESIGN ............................................................................... 61 3.2.1 Experiment Conditions ............................................................................... 61 3.2.2 Participants and Tasks ............................................................................... 61 3.2.3 Experiment Procedure ................................................................................ 64 3.3 DATA ANALYSIS METHODS ..................................................................... 64 3.3.1 Building the Groundtruth .......................................................................... 64 3.3.2 Performance Measurements ....................................................................... 65 7 3.3.3 Statistical Model.......................................................................................... 67 3.4 SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 68 4.0 SEARCH STATES IN COLLABORATIVE SEARCH ........................................ 69 4.1 MODELING SEARCH STATES USING HMM .......................................... 70 4.2 PROCEDURES OF APPLYING HMM ........................................................ 71 4.2.1 Categorizing User Interactions ................................................................... 71 4.2.2 Model Selection ........................................................................................... 74 4.3 HMM RESULTS ............................................................................................ 76 4.3.1 HMM Results for Individual Search .......................................................... 76 4.3.2 HMM Results for Collaborative Search..................................................... 78 4.3.3 Comparison of IND and COL .................................................................... 81 4.4 APPLICATIONS OF HMM ........................................................................... 83 4.4.1 Task Differences.......................................................................................... 83 4.4.2 Connections between Search Processes and Search Outcomes ................. 85 4.5 SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 87 5.0 QUERY BEHAVIORS IN COLLABORATIVE SEARCH PROCESSES ........... 89 5.1 QUERY BEHAVIOR MEASUREMENTS.................................................... 89 5.1.1 Query Vocabulary Features ....................................................................... 90 5.1.2 Query Reformulation .................................................................................. 91 5.1.3 Query Performance .................................................................................... 92 5.2 RESULTS .......................................................................................................
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