A study of the use of electronic information systems by higher education students in the UK

Abstract

This paper reports findings from the first annual cycle of a three‐year research project on the provision and use of electronic information systems (EIS) within higher education in the UK. The project, JISC User Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS), was funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and undertaken at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UWA). Students, academics and library staff in 25 universities were surveyed using critical incident and critical success factors methodologies to ascertain the range and nature of EIS use. Provision of these systems by higher education institutions was also investigated via an analysis of their library websites. The findings reported in this paper focus on student use and the purposes for which EIS are employed, and reveal the limited array of EIS used and the ad hoc nature of search strategies adopted across undergraduate and postgraduate bodies within a range of disciplines. There appears to be little or no variation in the pattern of EIS use by the various student groups studied – the effect of the Internet on information seeking by students is hugely significant and the more formal resources, such as JISC‐negotiated resources are little used. There is little evidence of coherent search strategies used by students. Recommendations for both the JISC and higher education are offered.

Going outside the box: skills development, cultural change and the use of on-line resources

“…Multi-institutional studies of HE students' use of on-line resources (Armstrong et al, 2001;Rowley et al, 2002) have found that learners frequently search the Internet for information related to their studies, whereas dedicated electronic information systems for the HE community were little used. Calverley and Shephard (2003) contend that the successful uptake of on-line resources requires collaboration between two professional groups with different perspectives: information specialists and academic teaching staff.…”

Managing change and embedding innovation in academic libraries and information services

“…Commentators such as Brophy (17 Á/19) have pointed to the trend to 'disintermediation' with users by-passing librarians and the library in their search for information. The reliance of students and academic staff on internet search engines such as Google rather than on 'quality assured' resources such as the library OPAC or the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) has been reported by projects such as JUSTEIS (20), leading to potential under use of expensive services and possible dangers of 'shallow learning'.…”

Comparative Study of Internet Usage Among University Students: A Study of the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

“…A research was conducted to explore the purposes of internet usage by the students (Aiken, Vanjani, Ray & Martin, 2003). In a study, it was found that 75% of Americans of ages between 18 and 29 and 65% of ages between 30 and 49 regularly accessed internet to search (Armstrong et al, 2001). …”

“…36.7% of the respondents were partially satisfied and merely 31.7% of respondents were fully satisfied in case of using internet (Rajeev & Amritpal, 2004). A research showed that the information seeking processes were mostly performed using electronic resources and the internet was the most important information channel among the students (Armstrong et al, 2001). The study also revealed that the students search for the information especially in the university library.…”