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David I. Stokes | Doctoral Student, School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

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David I. Stokes is a doctoral student in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. He examines collaboration, particularly, collaborative information-seeking behaviors and the use of retrieval systems in group settings where the goal is consensus. His dissertation focuses on experts in the scientific community and how they judge, recommend, and negotiate knowledge. Dave has presented and conducted grant-funded research internationally. Most recently, he presented at an A.I. symposium hosted at the University of Cambridge, and at a doctoral colloquium hosted by the Association of Internet Researchers. He holds a MLIS from the University of Washington’s (UW) Information School and a graduate certificate in International Development Policy and Management from its Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. At UW, he studied information and communication technologies, and was Co-President of the student chapter of the American Library Association. He has worked and interned in various information settings including Lockheed Martin, ACLU, and the Library of Congress where he received the Certificate for Special Achievement and Incentive award. At UCLA, he assists with teaching courses including Digital Cultures and Societies, and Description and Access. He is a recent Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Presentation Abstract

Increases in group differences lead to questions about collaborative information behaviors, which are “activities that a group or team of people undertakes to identify and resolve a shared information need” (Poltrock et al., 2003, p. 239). Collaborative information behavior drives group decision-making processes and outcomes (Shah, 2010). Furner (2002) considered both information-seeking behavior and information retrieval in electronic systems, highlighting judgment and recommender systems as parts of the collaborative process. Lievrouw (2010) stated: “From Otlet to Google’s Brin and Page today, visionaries have insisted that the challenge of breakneck scientific discovery and publication can only be met by greater reliance on large-scale databases and automated search and retrieval techniques, and less on human judgments about information quality and relevance, personal advice and recommendation, and interaction with trusted colleagues (unless those judgments and recommendations themselves can be “harvested”, automated, and fed back into the system to advance organizational control and efficiencies, along the lines of so-called knowledge management techniques).”

This presentation will address knowledge negotiations among experts in the scientific community. I will discuss preliminary insights on the ways in which small groups of scientists and research specialists come to agreement about scientific knowledge, and how the development of consensus has been operationalized in recent history with human-human and human-computer interactions among different contexts.

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Run Time: 5:09 | Transcript