Collaborative Problem Solving in Emergency Situations: Lessons Learned from a Rescue Mission

The focus of this paper is on time-constrained collaborative problem solving using common web-based communication systems. The rescue action of a missing Polish kite surfer conducted with help of the kiteforum.pl community created a unique opportunity to investigate how people organize such actions in the Internet and how they collaborate under the enormous pressure of time. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of phenomena that occurred during the people's interaction, has been done with help of natural language processing techniques. A list of recommendations for the designers of collaborative problem solving systems and people involved in such action has been proposed.