Do nondomain experts enlist the strategies of domain experts?

This second part of a two-part article establishes a model of the mediating factors that influence student information behavior concerning the electronic or digital information sources used to support learning. This part discusses the findings of the Joint Information Systems Committee User Behavior Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004) and development of a model that includes both the individual (micro) and organizational (macro) factors affecting student information behavior. The macro factors are information resource design, information and learning technology infrastructure, availability and constraints to access, policies and funding, and organizational leadership and culture. The micro factors are information literacy, academics' information behavior, search strategies, discipline and curriculum, support and training, and pedagogy. We conclude that the mediating factors interact in unexpected ways and that further research is needed to clarify how those interactions, particularly between the macro and micro factors, operate.

Section: Student Searching Strategiessupporting

confidence: 77%

Understanding student information behavior in relation to electronic information services: Lessons from longitudinal monitoring and evaluation, Part 2

Urquhart

Rowley

2007

“…All four schemes essentially bring like items together in different ways, but the Associative Index also creates a cognitive vehicle for the user to put together his/her thinking, thus creating the prior conditions necessary for information need identification and successful information searching to occur (cf. also, Ellis, 1989;Drabenstott, 2003).…”

Section: The Information Need Identification Systemmentioning

confidence: 95%

Putting it together online: Information need identification for the domain novice user

Cole

Leide

Large

et al. 2005

Domain novice users in the beginning stages of researching a topic find themselves searching for information via information retrieval (IR) systems before they have identified their information need. Pre-Internet access technologies adapted by current IR systems poorly serve these domain novice users, whose behavior might be characterized as rudderless and without a compass. In this article we describe a conceptual design for an information retrieval system that incorporates standard information need identification classification and subject cataloging schemes, called the INIIReye System, and a study that tests the efficacy of the innovative part of the INIIReye System, called the Associative Index. The Associative Index helps the user put together his or her associative thoughts-Vannevar Bush's idea of associative indexing for his Memex machine that he never actually described. For the first time, data from the study reported here quantitatively supports the theoretical notion that the information seeker's information need is identified through transformation of his/her knowledge structure (i.e., the seeker's cognitive map or perspective on the task for which information is being sought).

“…Several small-scale interview and focus-group-based studies examined how students perceive their information behavior and search strategies (Becker, 2003;Drabenstott, 2003;Valentine, 1993;Wildemuth, 2004). If information seeking and learning are intertwined, then some of these studies produce puzzling findings, with little evidence of learning about information seeking.…”

Section: Student Information-behavior Researchmentioning

confidence: 98%

Understanding student information behavior in relation to electronic information services: Lessons from longitudinal monitoring and evaluation, Part 1

Rowley

Urquhart

2007

This two-part article establishes a model of the mediating factors that influence student information behavior concerning electronic or digital information sources that support their learning. The first part reviews the literature that underpinned the development of the research methodology for the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) User Behavior Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, as well as the literature that has subsequently helped to develop the model over the 5 years the Framework operated in the United Kingdom, in five cycles of research that were adjusted to meet the emerging needs of the JISC at the time. The literature review attempts to synthesize the two main perspectives in the research studies: (a) smallscale studies of student information behavior; and (b) the studies that focus on the quantitative usage of particular electronic information services in universities, often including implications for training and support. As the review indicates, there are gaps in the evidence concerning the browsing and selection strategies of undergraduate students and the interaction of some of the mediating influences on information behavior. The Framework developed a multimethod, qualitative and quantitative methodology for the continued monitoring of user behavior. This article discusses the methods used and the projectmanagement challenges involved, and concludes that at the outset, intended impacts need to be specified carefully, and that funding needs to be committed at that point for a longitudinal study. A research project on information behavior, intended to inform current policymaking on infrastructure provision, is inherently difficult as behavior changes lag behind provision.