ebooks logo journals logo reference works logo abstract databases logo
bullet  SIGN IN Register | Why Register? | Got a Voucher? alerts   marked lists   shopping cart 

informaworld

HOME   |   SEARCH   |   BROWSE
    Issues List       Latest Issue       Volume 13 Issue 2       Subscribe       Article       References       Related articles      
<< firstfirst   < prevprev   Table of contentstoc   next >next   last >>last
Publisher Logo Publication Cover
Search within this journal
iFirst
Coming soon to this journal

Seekers, sloths and social reference: Homework questions submitted to a question-answering community 

Author: R. Gazan a
Affiliation:   a Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA
DOI: 10.1080/13614560701711917
Publication Frequency: 3 issues per year
Published in: journal New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, Volume 13, Issue 2 January 2007 , pages 239 - 248
Formats available: HTML (English) : PDF (English)
Previously published as: Hypermedia (0955-8543) until 1995
Article Requests: Order Reprints : Request Permissions


Abstract

An increasing number of students are seeking homework help outside library structures and systems, such as on social reference sites, where questions are answered by online community members who rate one another's answers and provide collaborative filtering in place of traditional expertise. This paper reports the preliminary results of a participant observation and content analysis of homework questions submitted to Answerbag, a social reference site with over one million unique visitors per month. The results suggest that members of the online community are able to distinguish between questions submitted by Seekers—those who interact with the community and engage in conversation about their questions—and Sloths, those who post their homework questions apparently verbatim and interact no further. How the community reacts to these distinct types of questioners reflects values similar to those of professional reference providers, and the community structure also allows members to educate questioners about community standards and the ethics of information seeking.
view references (17)
Bookmark with:
  • CiteULike
  • Del.icio.us
  • BibSonomy
  • Connotea
  • More bookmarks
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Accessibility | RSS
FAQs in: English . Français . Español . 中文(简体和繁體)
© 2009 Informa plc