Uptake and use of electronic information services: trends in UK higher education from the JUSTEIS project

Abstract

Urquhart, C., Lonsdale, R.,Thomas, R., Spink, S., Yeoman, A., Armstrong, C. & Fenton, R. (2003). Uptake and use of electronic information services: trends in UK higher education from the JUSTEIS project. Program, 37(3), 167-180. Sponsorship: JISCThe aim of the JUSTEIS project over the first three cycles (1999-2002) was to examine the uptake and use of electronic information services in higher education in the UK, so that planning of JISC services could be informed by trends in usage and evidence of specific needs. The objectives were to: 1) examine what services were used by students and academic staff, and how senior library staff planned services to purchase content and support its use; and 2) examine how library and information services promoted services through their Web pages. Results over the three years explained the growing popularity of electronic journal services, the acceptance of the search engine model for information retrieval and the important role academic staff play in the promotion of electronic information services for student learning. Conclusions and recommendations concern the need for library and information staff to make their approach to integration of information skills into the curriculum appropriate for the discipline, the type of institution, and its strategy for implementation of any virtual or managed learning environment software.Peer reviewe

Cognitive economy and satisficing in information seeking: A longitudinal study of undergraduate information behavior

“…(P4Y1T1) Thus we can see that she is using a variety of different techniques to finding information. Her reliance on other people for advice confirms Urquhart et al (2003)'s finding that students rely on the opinion of peers when searching for information. Indeed, we found that throughout the study students regularly reported using particular strategies or resources because they knew their peers were doing so.…”

“…Although numerous other studies of information seeking have used undergraduate students as their participants, including , Whitmire (2002), Fescemyer (2000, Kim (2003), Wilson et al (2002aWilson et al ( , 2002b, , Cothey (2002), Cole et al (2005), Urquhart et al (2003Urquhart et al ( , 2005, and Urquhart , they have tended to concentrate on how specific search tasks are carried out rather than tracking change over time. Although Whitmire (2002) studied the way that information seeking is related to the development 5 of epistemology in undergraduates, she focused on the results of the process, rather than its early development, and thus took final year undergraduates as her sample.…”

“…Urquhart and her research team (Urquhart et al, 2003(Urquhart et al, , 2005 carried out a large scale longitudinal study of the use of electronic information resources in UK higher education over a five year period. They used various qualitative and quantitative sampling methods, and included undergraduates, postgraduates, librarians and academics.…”

Profiling information behaviour of nursing students: part 2: derivation of profiles

“…Student reactions to what they find are classically considered under the relevance of information retrieval research, although relevance is a multi-dimensional construct (Schamber et al, 1990) and -for students, at least, gets mixed up with convenience of access to full text (Connaway et al, 2011, Urquhart et al, 2003b). Steinerová's (2008) conclusion that relevance is linked to 'value', 'utility', and 'importance' may be diluted by the convenience of availability, and pertinence a more accurate description than relevance.…”

“…This range of sources was used to try and obtain the right information for a particular task as found elsewhere (Urquhart et al, 2004, Urquhart et al, 2003b. All students in this research used physical sources (reference/reading lists, books, journals) and subscribed resources (databases), with books and journals the primary targets.…”