Individual and collaborative information behaviour of wikipedians in the context of their involvement with hebrew wikipedia

Introduction. This study aims to uncover how Israeli Wikipedians seek, evaluate, use, choose verify and share information when writing and updating entries for the online encyclopaedia, focusing on their individual and collaborative information behaviour. Method. This is a mixed methods study where the qualitative study preceded the quantitative study. The qualitative study consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews with Israeli Wikipedians and a content analysis of posts published on talk pages and sandboxes, subpages and drafts, while the quantitative study’s data were obtained through structured questionnaires. Analysis. A content analysis was performed on ten random posts published on talk pages and sandboxes, subpages and drafts of forty Wikipedians. The quantitative study’s data were obtained through structured questionnaires delivered to eighty Wikipedians. Data from interviews were analysed thematically by using framework analysis, and the data collected in the quantitative study were processed using descriptive statistics. Results. Wikipedians’ varied motivations for writing create information needs that determine their information seeking behaviour and lead them to employ independent and/or collaborative information seeking methods to locate diverse information sources. Conclusions. The study unveiled the individual and collaborative information behaviour of Israeli Wikipedians and how it supports them in their attempt to fulfil various tasks intended to help construct an important knowledge repository, Wikipedia.