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Searching for expertise

Published: 06 April 2008 Publication History

Abstract

It is well established that there is a need to find experts to get answers or advice. A variety of expertise locator tools have emerged to help locate the right person. But there is little systematic study on what people are really looking for when such systems are used and how external factors such as job role may shape that search. We conducted a study of 75 employees who were current users of an expertise locator system. An analysis of the reasons for their search revealed that people in client facing roles are primarily seeking to have a dialog with an expert, while others are just as likely to seek answers to technical questions. We also surveyed various tools for finding experts and found that corporate directories and personal networks were most often cited as alternatives to an expertise locator. We discuss the implications of these results for the design of tools for finding experts and expert knowledge.

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Ehrlich, K. Locating expertise: Design issues for an expertise locator system. In M. S. Ackerman, P. Volkmar and V. Wulf (eds.): Beyond Knowledge Management: Sharing Expertise. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (2003), 137--158.
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Cited By

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  • (2024)Driving Innovation Ecosystem Transformation via Digital Platforms and Knowledge Co-CreationAI and Data Analytics Applications in Organizational Management10.4018/979-8-3693-1058-8.ch005(80-107)Online publication date: 16-Feb-2024
  • (2023)Knowledge Gaps Implementing Electronic Content Management in the Third SectorKnowledge Management in Organisations10.1007/978-3-031-34045-1_3(17-37)Online publication date: 30-May-2023
  • (2022)The Deskilling of Domain Expertise in AI DevelopmentProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517578(1-14)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2008
    1870 pages
    ISBN:9781605580111
    DOI:10.1145/1357054
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Publication History

    Published: 06 April 2008

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    Author Tags

    1. expertise locator tools
    2. expertise search
    3. personal networks

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    CHI '08 Paper Acceptance Rate 157 of 714 submissions, 22%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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    View all
    • (2024)Driving Innovation Ecosystem Transformation via Digital Platforms and Knowledge Co-CreationAI and Data Analytics Applications in Organizational Management10.4018/979-8-3693-1058-8.ch005(80-107)Online publication date: 16-Feb-2024
    • (2023)Knowledge Gaps Implementing Electronic Content Management in the Third SectorKnowledge Management in Organisations10.1007/978-3-031-34045-1_3(17-37)Online publication date: 30-May-2023
    • (2022)The Deskilling of Domain Expertise in AI DevelopmentProceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3491102.3517578(1-14)Online publication date: 29-Apr-2022
    • (2021)Expert Recommendation for Answering Questions on Social MediaApplied Sciences10.3390/app1116768111:16(7681)Online publication date: 20-Aug-2021
    • (2020)“I Would Just Ask Someone”: Learning Feature-Rich Design Software in the Modern Workplace2020 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)10.1109/VL/HCC50065.2020.9127288(1-10)Online publication date: Aug-2020
    • (2019)Expert Finding Considering Dynamic Profiles and Trust in Social NetworksElectronics10.3390/electronics81011658:10(1165)Online publication date: 15-Oct-2019
    • (2019)Nomadic Knowledge Sharing Practices and Challenges: Findings From a Long-Term Case StudyIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2019.29169037(63564-63577)Online publication date: 2019
    • (2019)Hot topic prediction considering influence and expertise in social mediaElectronic Commerce Research10.1007/s10660-018-09327-221:3(671-687)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2019
    • (2017)Belief Measure of Expertise for Experts Detection in Question Answering CommunitiesProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2017.08.099112:C(622-631)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2017
    • (2016)Design and Usability of Interactive User Profiles for Online Health CommunitiesACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/290371823:3(1-33)Online publication date: 6-Jun-2016
    • Show More Cited By

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