Role of available and provided resources in sensemaking

Making sense of a topic often involves appropriating information and organizing themes from various existing resources. We studied how sensemakers appropriated from available online resources as well as artifacts provided by another person directly. We found that both available and provided resources affect sensemaking activities. Sensemakers added more structure in their work when online resources were easily available, but added less structure and information when they were provided relevant sensemaking artifacts from another person. We also studied how early and mature artifacts provided by another person were appropriated differently and found that mature artifacts were rated better and used more but resulted in lesser structure and information being added by the recipient. These findings have implications for the support of sensemaking activities using resources available online as well as artifacts provided by others including co-workers and friends.