Crowdsourcing Literature Reviews in New Domains

A standard approach to exploring a domain is to conduct a literature review. However, conducting a literature review in a new domain presents unique challenges. Whereas in an existing domain, researchers can use established classifications of knowledge to guide their search for and interpretation of the literature, this is not the case for a new domain that lacks such classifications. In a new domain, the literature is typically broad, fragmented, and, at the same time, growing quickly. The task of the researcher is to make sense of evidence when it does not fit existing models and classifications. Encountering such evidence forces them to extend existing knowledge.