We report on our user study on the information seeking behavior of cultural heritage experts and the sources they use to carry out search tasks. Seventeen experts from nine cultural heritage institutes in the Netherlands were interviewed and asked to answer questionnaires about their daily search activities. The interviews helped us to better understand their search motivations, types, sources and tools. A key finding of our study is that the majority of search tasks involve relatively complex information gathering. This is in contrast to the relatively simple fact-finding oriented support provided by current tools. We describe a number of strategies that experts have developed to overcome the inadequacies of their tools. Finally, based on the analysis, we derive general trends of cultural heritage experts’ information seeking needs and discuss our preliminary experiences with potential solutions.

Tagging systems such as del.icio.us and Diigo have become important ways for users to organize information gathered from the Web. However, despite their popularity among early adopters, tagging still incurs a relatively high interaction cost for the general users. We introduce a new tagging system called SparTag.us, which uses an intuitive Click2Tag technique to provide in situ, low cost tagging of web content. SparTag.us also lets users highlight text snippets and automatically collects tagged or highlighted paragraphs into a system-created notebook, which can be later browsed and searched. We report several user studies aimed at evaluating Click2Tag and SparTag.us. Categories and Subject Descriptors

ABSTRACT: The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry can generate tremendous value by improving design processes. Observed case studies and design literature suggest that processes can improve through collaboration, sharing and understanding (defined here as Design Process Communication). Industry has not widely adopted process communication techniques, though other research fields provide points of departure for promoting better communication. Organization Science studies how institutions exchange information and knowledge. Human Computer Interaction, informed by Cognitive Science, explains how computers can aid and supplement human’s ability to find and manage information. Process Modeling research shows how to best represent design processes. The paper links this research to develop a specification for a social and technological environment- a Design Process Communication Methodology. The environment is computable, distributed, embedded, modular, personalized, scalable, shared, social, transparent, and usable. The Methodology lays the foundation for improving building design process efficiency and effectiveness from concept to construction documentation. 1

Abstract. Several studies have addressed the issue of what makes information on the World Wide Web credible. Understanding how we select reliable sources of information and how we estimate their credibility has been drawing an increasing interest in the literature on the Web. In this paper I argue that the study of information search behavior can provide to social and cognitive scientists an extraordinary insight into the processes mediating knowledge acquisition by epistemic deference. I review some of the major methodological proposals to study how users judge the reliability of a source of information in the World Wide Web and I propose an alternative framework inspired by the idea that–as cognitively evolved organisms– we adopt to this aim strategies that are as effortless as possible. I argue in particular that Web users engaging in information search are likely to develop simple heuristics to select in a computationally viable way trustworthy sources of information and I discuss the consequences of this hypothesis and related research directions.

Collaborative visual analysis tools can enhance sensemaking by facilitating social interpretation and parallelization of effort. These systems enable distributed exploration and evidence gathering, allowing many users to pool their effort as they discuss and analyze the data. We explore how adding lightweight tag and link structure to comments can aid this analysis process. We present CommentSpace, a collaborative system in which analysts comment on visualizations and websites and then use tags and links to organize findings and identify others ’ contributions. In a pair of studies comparing CommentSpace to a system without support for tags and links, we find that a small, fixed vocabulary of tags (question, hypothesis, to-do) and links (evidencefor, evidence-against) helps analysts more consistently and accurately classify evidence and establish common ground. We also find that managing and incentivizing participation is important for analysts to progress from exploratory analysis to deeper analytical tasks. Finally, we demonstrate that tags and links can help teams complete evidence gathering and synthesis tasks and that organizing comments using tags and links improves analytic results. Author Keywords Information visualization, asynchronous collaboration, social data analysis, tagging

Prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, several foreign nationals enrolled in US civilian flying schools to learn how to fly large commercial aircraft. They wanted to learn how to navigate civilian airlines, but they were not interested in landings or takeoffs. They all paid cash for the lessons. So, the 9/11 investigations raised questions about whether intelligence agencies could have connected the dots and prevented the attacks. 1 But how do you connect these seemingly isolated dots and reveal the hidden story? One clue might lie in the differentiation between puzzles and mysteries that Malcolm Gladwell made in a recent New Yorker article on stories about Enron’s collapse. 2 To solve a puzzle, Gladwell writes, you need a specific piece of information; but to solve a mystery, you

Within corporations, opportunities are missed and efforts can be duplicated due to the relevant information not being known by the appropriate individuals. Often, an employee does not even know that relevant information might be uncovered by searching the corporate intranet. In this paper we present a context-sensitive aid to sensemaking by providing relevant information to an individual in an unobtrusive form, allowing the user to maintain focus on their current task, but to still be aware of related documents. We gather the relevant information based on keywords extracted from the user’s currently-displayed email message and filter the results using the user’s history and profile information. The information is displayed in the periphery of the user interface.

CWI is a founding member of ERCIM, the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics. CWI's research has a theme-oriented structure and is grouped into four clusters. Listed below are the names of the clusters and in parentheses their acronyms.

New models of information-seeking support systems offer two advantages: They move us from prescientific conceptual frameworks about information seeking to more rigorous scientific theories and predictive models while, at the same time, expanding the kinds of things we study and develop. These are exciting times for scientists, designers, and engineers in the field of information-seeking support systems (ISSSs). New technology continues to fuel a staggering growth of available information, which in turn affects our lives by providing resources for adapting to an increasingly complex world, as well as new ways of being entertained. We are witnessing an efflorescence of new ways to interact with—and produce—rich content. National efforts, such as the US Cyberinfrastucture initiative (www.nsf. gov/news/special_reports/cyber/index.jsp), aim to produce even more fertile platforms for information. This evolving domain offers science a great opportunity because there is so much new territory to explore and explain, so many new ideas about how to do so, and so much potential for having an impact on innovative engineering and imaginative design.

In this article, we identify, compare, and contrast theoretical constructs for the fields of information searching and information retrieval to emphasize the uniqueness of and synergy between the fields. Theoretical constructs are the foundational elements that underpin a field’s core theories, models, assumptions, methodologies, and evaluation metrics. We provide a framework to compare and contrast the theoretical constructs in the fields of information searching and information retrieval using intellectual perspective and theoretical orientation. The intellectual perspectives are information searching, information retrieval, and cross-cutting; and the theoretical orientations are information, people, and technology. Using this framework, we identify 17 significant constructs in these fields contrasting the differences and comparing the similarities. We discuss the impact of the interplay among these constructs for moving research forward within both fields. Although there is tension between the fields due to contradictory constructs, an examination shows a trend toward convergence. We discuss the implications for future research within the information searching and information retrieval fields.