"Ask before you search" peer support and community building with reachOut

This paper presents ReachOut, a chat-based tool for peer support, collaboration, and community building. We describe the philosophy behind the tool and explain how posting questions in the open directly benefits the creation, distribution, and use of organizational knowledge, in addition to enhancing the cohesion of the community involved. ReachOut proposes new methods of handling problems that include locating, selecting, and approaching the right set of potential advisers. We discuss the advantages of public discussions over private, one-on-one sessions, and how this is enhanced by our unique combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication. We present and analyze results from a pilot of ReachOut and conclude with plans for future research and development.