this post is inspired by libby’s dissertation abstract post earlier this evening. i initially wrote the abstract below for a talk that i’ll be giving next week. it isn’t as enjoyable to read as libby’s, but my writing style is a bit more matter-of-fact i think. things are going well at the moment — and i’ll write more about that in a week or so when the last of my experiment data are in — but for now, here’s the abstract:
Group information repositories are systems for storing and organizing digital information in a central location that all members of a workgroup or team can access. Despite the importance of the information stored within them, users of group information repositories (like shared folders and content management tools) often struggle to adhere to explicit rules or structures for information labeling and organization. Instead, as content accumulates over time, repositories become more and more disorganized and users have an increasingly difficult time finding the information they need. A group information repository is not a communication system in the same way as instant messaging or email are; nevertheless, words are chosen to represent the contents of documents, and also to suggest relationships among groups of documents. People can effectively communicate and share information with each other face-to-face (for the most part)—why is it so difficult to label and organize documents so that a relatively small group of teammates can find them? Might a social process, like common ground, be at work when the communication is mediated by a group information management system? In this dissertation, I focus on understanding social influences on information labeling, organization, and finding by people in situations that involve some form of collaboration or collective action. Using a qualitative case study of a group information repository and evidence from an experiment, I argue that social factors affect how the information structure of a repository grows and evolves over time, and that the choices and behaviors of users when producing or contributing content determine what can be found and accessed.
