Collaborative Information Seeking Behavior: Concepts and Theories

Background and Aim: Collaborative information seeking is an interaction among members of a group who purposefully try to access and share joint information. Although collaboration is a key component of information seeking behavior, but most of the studies in this area are focused on individual information seeking behavior and collaborative aspects are considered much less. As a result, there is a need for understanding conceptual features as well as supportive technical methods of information behavior in collaborative activities. Method: The present review article has studied concepts and theories of collaborative information behavior using library method. Results: In this research, firstly, the concept of collaboration is explained and differences with other concepts like communication, coordination and cooperation are explained. Moreover, the concept of collaborative information behavior and collaborative information seeking behavior are discussed from different viewpoints and suggestions are offered for future research. Conclusion: collaborative information behavior is one of the most important concepts in human information interaction studies and it can be known as dynamic activities in a group including searching, combining, publishing and producing information.