Accelerating problem solving in collaborative social networks
Yi Chen, Tao Shu, Xifeng Yan · 2011
Problem solving is ubiquitous in organizations such as companies, institutions, and government agencies. Problems can be diverse in nature, including IT problems, expert finding, information search, decision making, etc. In large organizations, it is sometimes extremely difficult to pinpoint the right problem resolver due to the great diversity of problems and people’s expertise. Typically, when an expert is assigned with a problem, she tries to diagnose and resolve it using her own knowledge. If the problem cannot be resolved, she will then forward it, along with her diagnosis, to other experts she considers capable of resolving it. The problem may continue being routed among experts until it is resolved by the right person. The problem solving processes are social computing tasks performed in a social network, in which a node represents an