Exploring web browsing context for collaborative question answering

Abstract

Collaborative Question Answering (CQA) sites such as Yahoo! Answers and recent real-time CQA sites such as Aardvark, provide a promising approach for information seeking. Yet, the behavior of the answerers, especially the factors influencing the quality and timeliness of the answers, are not well understood. We hypothesize that the information context of the answerer at the time a question is received is an important factor in the effectiveness of CQA systems. As a first step in exploring this hypothesis, our study shows that the relevant web browsing context can have significant positive effects on the answerers' reported ability, effort, and willingness to answer questions.