Elicitation support requirements of multi-expertise teams

Tools to support knowledge elicitation are more and more used in situations where employees or students collaborate using the computer. Studies indicate that there exist differences between experts and novices regarding their methods of work and reasoning. However, the commonly preferred approach tends to deal with team members as a single system with ¿common ¿, shared preferences. The question is to what extent this approach is optimal. From literature potential difficulties with uniform knowledge elicitation support for workplace or workplace-alike settings of teamwork can be derived. We carried out two studies to investigate whether support tools for knowledge elicitation should explicitly take into account the expertness of team members. In order to gather qualitative data concerning critical factors of effective knowledge elicitation support of professional teamwork a Delphi study with known experts has been conducted. The experts accentuate the significance of a context-fit of supportive action over content or functionality. In their opinion prompting must be tailored to the task at hand, team characteristics, team culture and context. In a second study we gathered qualitative insights into user-elicitation preferences, especially in relation to a user¿s proficiency in the field. Subjects of this study were graduate students studying for a profession as social worker. Respondents¿ elicitation preferences didn¿t correlate significantly with the expertness dimension. Further interpretation and comparison of the results from both studies seem to indicate that it is not so much the proficiency of the team members as well as the attunement with the surrounding context that is critical for the effect of elicitation support.