Conference proceeding
Tell me about my family: a study of cooperative research on ancestry.com
Proceedings of the 2012 iConference, pp 303-310
07 Feb 2012
Abstract
Q&A forums for the exchange of genealogical information are becoming increasingly common on the web. Yet, relatively little is known about the socio-technical dimensions of genealogists' interactions in such forums. This study examined exchanges between genealogists on a popular Q&A message board on Ancestry.com. Our findings suggest that the web context shapes the types of exchanges and cooperative activities in which genealogists engage. Research has found that in face-to-face exchanges genealogists tend to help other genealogists by providing instructional guidance both on a one-to-one and a many-to-one basis. Our findings suggest that the presence of online genealogical data and the affordances of interactive computer technologies may be pushing answerers away from providing instruction on how to find family history data and pushing them toward providing those data outright. Answerers worked cooperatively to provide family data, suggesting that the web context is leading many genealogists to engage in cooperative research not collaborative instruction.
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19 Record Views
10 citations in Scopus
Details
- Title
- Tell me about my family
- Creators
- Heather Willever-Farr - Drexel UniversityLisl Zach - Drexel UniversityAndrea Forte - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the 2012 iConference, pp 303-310
- Conference
- iConference '12: iConference 2012 (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 07 Feb 2012–10 Feb 2012)
- Series
- iConference '12
- Publisher
- ACM
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Information Science
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-84857681425
- Other Identifier
- 991020531952404721