Collaborative search has been an active area of research within the IR community for many years. While for "single-user'' research a variety of up-to-date open-source search systems exist, few "multi-user'' search tools are open-source and even fewer are being maintained. In this paper, we present SearchX, an open-source collaborative search system we are currently developing-and using for our research. We designed and built SearchX using the modern Web stack (and are thus not siloed by an operating system or a particular browser type), enabling efficient research across platforms (Desktop, mobile) and with online users (e.g. crowdworkers). A video, describing the demo can be found at https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf24m6p3vts. ... Read more

The field of Search as Learning addresses questions surrounding human learning during the search process. Existing research has largely focused on observing how users with learning-oriented information needs behave and interact with search engines. What is not yet quantified is the extent to which search is a viable learning activity compared to instructor-designed learning. Can a search session be as effective as a lecture video'our instructor-designed learning artefact'for learning? To answer this question, we designed a user study that pits instructor-designed learning (a short high-quality video lecture as commonly found in online learning platforms) against three instances of search, specifically (i) single-user search, (ii) search as a support tool for instructor-designed learning, and, (iii) collaborative search. We measured the learning gains of 151 study participants in a vocabulary learning task and report three main results: (i) lecture video watching yields up to 24% higher learning gains than single-user search, (ii) collaborative search for learning does not lead to increased learning, and (iii) lecture video watching supported by search leads up to a 41% improvement in learning gains over instructor-designed learning without a subsequent search phase. ... Read more

Collaborative search is an active area of research in the IR community (and has been for many years)—despite this, there is a lack of open-source tools available to jump-start research in collaborative search. It is common for collaborative search researchers to implement their own tooling, leading to unnecessary duplicate engineering efforts. In this work, we describe the design process and challenges in implementing SearchX, an open-source collaborative search system, built using modern Web standards. SearchX implements essential features of collaborative search as found in the literature. In the design process, we focused on providing support for modern research needs (such as running crowdsourcing experiments and fast prototyping). We open-sourced SearchX https://github.com/felipemoraes/searchx-frontend (front-end) and https://github.com/felipemoraes/searchx-backend (back-end). ... Read more