Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet: PhD thesis

A French-language thesis on schoolchildren's concept of internet searching has just been put online.
Cordier, A. (2011) Imaginaires, représentations, pratiques formelles et non formelles de la recherche d'information sur Internet : Le cas d'élèves de 6ème et de professeurs documentalistes. UNIVERSITÉ CHARLES DE GAULLE – LILLE III. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00737637
I did not really spend enough time with it (considering my moderate French language skills) to give a good account of what it is about, but I think it is an investigation into 11-12 year old French schoolchildren's experiences of searching the internet, contrasting this experience with what the school librarians have as their goal for information literacy teaching. The latter are urged to pay more attention to the pupil's practice with information and technology.
This is the French abstract "L'objectif de ce travail est d'apporter une meilleure connaissance des imaginaires, représentations et pratiques non formelles développées par les élèves de 6ème sur la recherche d'information sur Internet, et d'effectuer un parallèle et une confrontation avec les pratiques de formation mises en oeuvre par les professeurs documentalistes. Pour ce faire, une étude qualitative, combinant entretiens semi-directifs et observation distanciée, a été menée au sein de trois établissements scolaires français. L'adoption d‟une éco-posture pour analyser la recherche d‟information sur Internet permet de considérer les pratiques de recherche et de formation de manière située, en tenant compte des contraintes opérées par les espaces d'action identifiés. Le sentiment d'expertise personnellement ressenti en matière de recherche sur Internet joue pour les deux types d'acteurs un rôle fondamental à la fois dans l'appropriation de l'outil et dans l'appréhension des séances de formation. L'étude révèle un écart important entre les pratiques de recherche ordinaires des élèves et les pratiques prescrites par les professionnels."
Photo by Sheila Webber: yet more anemones, October 2012

2 short research papers: Social Media as Information Source, and; Developing an IL game

Kim, K., Yoo-Lee, E. and Sin, S. (2011) Social Media as Information Source: Undergraduates’ Use and Evaluation Behavior. In: Proceedings of the 74rd ASIST Annual Meeting Retrieved 18 September 2012 from http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/submissions/283_FINAL_SUBMISSION.pdf
An interesting short paper that reports on a survey of what sources students used, what they used them for and what evaluative strategies they used. For example Wikipedia was used for initially scoping a topic, and evaluated through looking at the links and sources, whereas Youtube was used for recreation and for instructions on how to do things, and was evaluated through the video quality and people's opinions.

Markey, K. and Leeder, C. (2011) The Effect of Scoring and Feedback Mechanisms
in an Online Educational Game. In: Proceedings of the 74rd ASIST Annual Meeting. Retrieved 18 September 2012 from http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/submissions/38_FINAL_SUBMISSION.docx

This describes the stages of piloting this information literacy game, and the changes that needed to be made as a result.

I discovered these 2 papers (and further interesting ones) as part of the October 2011 ASIST annual conference proceedings; http://asist.org/asist2011/proceedings/openpage.html.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Blackheath Farmers' Market, September 2012

New articles in Reference Services Review

The latest issue of (priced publication) Reference Services Review is online: volume 40 issue 4 2012. As with all issue 4s of this journal, it includes the useful annual annotated bibliography of articles on information literacy (522 identified this year).
- Library Instruction and Information Literacy 2011 by Anna Marie Johnson, Claudene Sproles, Robert Detmering, and Jessica L English.
Other articles include
- Development of the Graduate Library User Education Series by Lori Critz, Mary Axford, William Matthew Baer, Chris Doty, Heidi Lowe, and Crystal Renfro
- Working Together: Library and Writing Center Collaboration by Elise Ferer
- Information Seeking Behaviors of Music Students by Kirstin Dougan
Journal home page at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: Hawthorne branch, late sunshine, Hellingly September 2012

Using Flickr for scientific discovery

Not sure whether this is information literacy, but it is an example of knowledge being extended and disseminated using the internet. It is also an example of the power of browsing and encountering as information behaviour strategies, as the taxonomist came across the new species because he randomly browses pictures of insects on Flickr.

Winterton, S., Ping Guek, H. and Brooks, S. (2012) "A charismatic new species of green lacewing discovered in Malaysia (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae): the confluence of citizen scientist, online image database and cybertaxonomy." ZooKeys, 214, 1–11.
In fact the title gives you the idea: a taxonomist spotted a picture of an insect on Flickr, thought it was a new species of green lacewing (though it must be said there are 1200 different species), contacted the photographer in Malaysia who was able to capture a specimen a year later and send it to the taxonomist, who verified that it was new. Also, the authors used Google Docs to write the article, and the journal this article is published in is open access. However, you have to pay to publish, a minimum of 300 Euro, with some discounts (but I will write about my opposition to the author-pays model of publishing another time...)
http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3220/a-charismatic-new-species-of-green-lacewing-discovered-in-malaysia-neuroptera-chrysopidae-the-confluence-of-citizen-scie
The photo is by me, and is not a lacewing (the photographer does not alllow embedding or downloads) but a bee in my garden in Sheffield a week ago.

IFLA #wlic2012 Inspiring and empowering women through access to information

Today one of the sessions at at the IFLA World Library and Information Conference in Helsinki, Finland, focused on Inspiring and empowering women through access to information. I have linked to the four full text papers at the bottom of this post.
I will say a few words about the presentation Sources and channels of information access and use in the information and knowledge society: a case study of informal sector women entrepreneurs of Hlabisa Local - Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This study looked at women with small businesses, and their information needs. This mixed-methods PhD study surveyed 118 informal sector women traders, with trades like making attire, craft work, selling food etc. 23% had not had any formal education and 86% were sole breadwinners. The research looked at why they were working and what kinds of possessions/ information channels they had. In terms of their needs, they needed government information (e.g. training opportunities), business, market and financial information. Social visits, face to face communication, mobile phone and telephone were the main ways of getting infpormation. Libraries and internet cafes did not rate high. In terms of barriers, these included foreign language documents, lack of education and skills, lack of time (with the women overworked and exploited). For conclusions, there is obviously much to do: libraries need to be brought phyically nearer in some way, and have a more demand-driven collection (e.g. not in foreign language), promotion of services, and changing the image of libraries (seen as not being a place for working people but rather "wasting time"). Developing financial literacy of women is important.
As well as the paper linked below, you can also look at the PhD thesis itself: go to http://uzspace.uzulu.ac.za and search for the thesis (author family name is Jiyane)

- Women empowering through access to information: the strategic roles on NGOs in Nigeria: ADETOUN A. OYELUDE & ALICE A. BAMIGBOLA (University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria)
- Sources and channels of information access and use in the information and knowledge society: a case study of informal sector women entrepreneurs of Hlabisa Local - Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: VELI JIYANE, and MABEL MINISHI-MAJANJA (University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa) and JANNEKE MOSTERT and DENNIS OCHOLLA (University of Zululand, KwaDlangezwa, South Africa)
- Women as leaders of culture and change: a paper on BRAC’s Multi-purpose Community Learning Centre (MCLC): NAZRUL ISLAM and ARCHI BISWAS (Brac Education Programme, Dhaka, Bangladesh)
- Providing information to women in Croatia: improvements inspired by feminist groups' initiatives: EDITA BAČIĆ (University of Split, Split, Croatia)
Photo by Sheila Webber: Ferry boat, Helsinki, August 2012

relationship between Internet user type and user performance when carrying out simple vs. complex search tasks

New-ish article: Singer, G. et al. (2012)'The relationship between Internet user type and user performance when carrying out simple vs. complex search tasks' First Monday, 17 (6).
"It is widely known that people become better at an activity if they perform this activity long and often. Yet, the question is whether being active in related areas like communicating online, writing blog articles or commenting on community forums have an impact on a person’s ability to perform Web searches, is still unanswered. Web searching has become a key task conducted online; in this paper we present our findings on whether the user type, which categorises a person’s online activities, has an impact on her or his search capabilities. We show (1) the characteristics of different user types when carrying out simple search tasks; (2) their characteristics when carrying out complex search tasks; and, (3) the significantly different user type characteristics between simple and complex search tasks. The results are based on an experiment with 56 ordinary Web users in a laboratory environment. The Search–Logger study framework was used to analyze and measure user behavior when carrying out a set of 12 predefined search tasks. Our findings include the fact that depending on task type (simple or complex) significant differences can be observed between users of different types."
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3960/3245
Photo by Sheila Webber: cherry blossm, March 2012

German study in web-skill differences when looking for health info

Feufel, M. and Stahl, S. (2012) "What do web-use skill differences imply for online health information searches?" Journal of Medical Internet Research, 14 (3). http://www.jmir.org/2012/3/e87/ This was a German study (undertaken by 2 researchers at the Harding Center for Risk Literacy, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin) involving 10 people under 30 who were more skilled in web search, and 12 people aged 50 and over who were less skilled. Participants did a digital literacy test as well, and education was another demographic factor. The researchers observed participants doing 3 web searches "to identify health information seekers’ cognitive strategies and attitudes". There were differences between less skilled and skilled users e.g. before going online the less skilled were worried about overload and their ability, whilst more skilled expressed awareness of quality issues, but interestingly "although people voice concerns about data quality issues, once they access a website, even skilled Web users are preoccupied with processing website contents" (i.e. once they actually found something that seemed relevant, the quality issue faded to the background).
Image is a Tagxedo of the article.

Poster: let she who does not Google cast the first stone!

I've got a bit fed up with student-bashing about search habits. There is an Infographic that loads of people are tweeting at the moment that crams in some statistics about search habits, plagiarism etc., and when I looked at it I thought ... hmmm.
For one thing, I don't think it is a terribly good infographic: it is rather more like several Powerpoint slides one on top of the other (as opposed to something which conveys a clear message in a powerful graphic style; see e.g. Edward Tufte, the godfather of information graphics).
Secondly, although I too experience students who start by thinking they know more about searching than they actually do etc. etc., they are human, they learn, and it should be remembered that the vast majority of them do not plagiarise.
And thirdly, I use Google every day, loads of people use Google every day. I know it's also about how you use Google, and I grumble about the way Google search is going, but still ... the fact remains that you often find good stuff via Google. Using Google is often a rational choice.
So I made this graphic/ poster. If you like it, feel free to download etc., under a non-commercial Creative Commons licence from here.
P.S. "numpty" is an expressive Scottish word meaning fool or idiot (I'm not Scottish but I lived there for a while).

Reference Services Review: twittering

There's a Twitter focus in the latest issue (vol 40 no 2) of Reference Services Review:
- Libraries atwitter: trends in academic library tweeting: by Darcy Del Bosque, Sam A. Leif, Susie Skarl (pp. 199 - 213)
- To tweet, or not to tweet? by Susan Jennings (pp. 214 - 216)
- Students tweet the darndest things about your library – and why you need to listen. by Steven Bell (pp. 217 - 220)
- Just the right tweet at just the right time. by Ameet Doshi (pp. 221 - 223)
- Beyond broadcasting: Customer service, community and information experience in the Twittersphere. by Lyndelle Gunton, Kate Davis (pp. 224 - 227)
Other articles include:
- Reference Services Review: content analysis, 2006-2011: by Katy Mahraj (pp. 182 - 198) This analysis confirms that the vast majority of authors are from the academic sector, with 83% from the United States, and "information literacy and instruction" is the topic with the biggest share of articles.
- Information literacy on Facebook: an analysis. by Donna Witek, Teresa Grettano (pp. 242 - 257)
- Student preference for tutorial design: a usability study. by Lori S. Mestre (pp. 258 - 276)
- Engaging undergraduates in discipline-based research. by Heidi Gauder, Fred Jenkins (pp. 277 - 294)
This is a priced publication: here is the home page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?issn=0090-7324
Photo by Sheila Webber: York castle with bluebells, 2012

The ways that young people experience information

Marian Smith gained her PhD from Loughborough University in 2010, with an interesting dissertation about children's perceptions of information (I was external examiner at her viva) entitled "Young people: a phenomenographic investigation into the ways they experience information". Mark Hepworth, who supervised Marian at Loughborough, recently did a blog post in which he outlines the framework she identified, that could be used to guide information literacy teaching to children. His blog post is here: http://markhepworthsblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/young-peoples-perception-of-their.html and Marian's full dissertation is here: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/6632
Photo by Sheila Webber: Wildflowers, Maryon Park, May 2012

New Libri

There's a new issue of Libri (2012, Volume 62 issue 1). Articles include:
- Keller, A. "In Print or On Screen? Investigating the Reading Habits of Undergraduate Students Using Photo-Diaries and Photo-Interviews" (pp 1-18)
- Bankole, O. M., Oshinaike, A. B.and Banwo, C. O. "HIV/AIDS Knowledge, Attitudes and Sources of Information among Librarians in Southwestern Nigeria (pp 41-51)
- Tan, S., Gorman, G. and Singh, D. "Information Literacy Competencies among School Librarians in Malaysia" (pp 98-107)
The Libri website is at http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/libr (priced journal).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Daffodils, Botanic Gardens, Sheffield, April 2012.

Library Trends: 2nd infolit special issue

The 2nd special issue of Library Trends (volume 60, issue 3, 2012) to focus on information literacy has been published. This is a priced journal at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/
Articles include:
Exploring health information use by older Australians within everyday life by Christine Yates et al.
Information and health literacy in the balance: findings from a study exploring the use of ICTs in weight management by Audrey Marshall et al.
Supporting informed learning in the twenty-first century by Christine Bruce et al.
The information world of parents: a study of the use and understanding of information by parents of young children by Christopher Walker
Teen content creators: experiences of using information to learn by Mary Ann Harlan et al.
Helping the non-scholar scholar by Lark Birdsong and Jennifer Freitas
From Lampitt to libraries: formulating state standards to embed information literacy across colleges by Jacqui Weetman DaCosta and Eleonora Dubicki
Student learning and workplace IL: a case study by Barbara D’Angelo
Photo by Sheila Webber: Garlic mustard, Hailsham, April 2012.

Undergraduate information behaviour: 2 new articles

Latest issue of Information Research (volume 17 no. 1), the open access journal,includes:
A study of the information search behaviour of the millennial generation by Arthur Taylor. "The longitudinal study discussed here examined the information behaviour of undergraduate college students who were members of the millennial generation. Data were collected from the students using surveys throughout an information search process as part of an assigned research project. [...] Statistically significant findings suggest that millennial generation Web searchers proceed erratically through an information search process, make only a limited attempt to evaluate the quality or validity of information gathered, and may perform some level of 'backfilling' or adding sources to a research project before final submission of the work."
Information resource selection of undergraduate students in academic search tasks by Jee Yeon Lee, Woojin Paik and Soohyung Joo. "A self-generated diary method was employed with 233 undergraduate students in achieving their academic search tasks. [...] This study reaffirmed recent information usage trends that online sources are preferred by university students in their academic searches. This study identified twenty nine factors in four different dimensions, including information type, resource feature, search strategy, and interaction with others. Moreover, perceptions of users were investigated quantitatively focusing on usefulness, credibility, accessibility, familiarity with source, satisfaction, and intention of continuous use."
Go to http://informationr.net/ir/17-1/infres171.html
Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Botanic Gardens, March 2012.

Wikipedia and the University, a case study

Thanks to Lyn Parker for alerting me to this new article (priced):
Knight, C. and Pryke, S. (2012)"Wikipedia and the University, a case study."
Teaching in Higher Education. (Currently listed as a "forthcoming article, available online DOI:10.1080/13562517.2012.666734)
I was interested to see that "use of Wikipedia is highest amongst trainee teachers, a finding that corresponds to our perception based on anecdotal observation that use of the encyclopaedia is widespread; possibly even a predominant resource, for teachers and children within British schools" since this has some relevance to the research into school children's information behaviour being carried out here in the iSchool. Another interesting finding was that a good number of lecturers who forbid their students to use Wikipedia, use it themselves, feeling that they are able to discriminate when to use Wikipedia, whereas their students aren't.
The abstract reads "This article discusses the use of Wikipedia by academics and students for learning and teaching activities at Liverpool Hope University. [...] Based upon a sample of 133 academics and 1222 students, our principal findings were: (1) 75% of academics and students use Wikipedia; (2) student use is typically confined to the initial stages of assessments; (3) a quarter of academics provide guidance on how to use Wikipedia and (4) 70% of academics use Wikipedia for background information for teaching purposes, something that it is not influenced by whether student use is tolerated or not. Our conclusion is that whilst Wikipedia is now unofficially integrated into universities, it is not ‘the’ information resource as feared by many and that an enlightened minority of academics have attempted to assimilate it into their teaching."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Spring in the park, Sheffield, March 2012

Children searchers; First year students

Articles in the latest issue of the priced journal, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology:
- Foss, E. et al. (2012) "Children's search roles at home: Implications for designers, researchers, educators, and parents. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63 (3), 558–573. "This paper presents the results of a large-scale, qualitative study conducted in the homes of children aged 7, 9, and 11 investigating internet searching processes on Google. Seven search roles, representing distinct behavior patterns displayed by children when interacting with the Google search engine, are described, including Developing Searchers, Domain-specific Searchers, Power Searchers, Nonmotivated Searchers, Distracted Searchers, Rule-bound Searchers, and Visual Searchers. Other trends are described and selected to present a view of the whole child searcher. These roles and trends are used to make recommendations to designers, researchers, educators, and parents about the directions to take when considering how to best aid children to become search literate."
- Gross, M. and Latham, D. (2012) "What's skill got to do with it?: Information literacy skills and self-views of ability among first-year college students."Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63 (3), 574–583. "This study replicates a previous study based on work in psychology, which demonstrates that students who score as below proficient in information literacy (IL) skills have a miscalibrated self-view of their ability. Simply stated, these students tend to believe that they have above-average IL skills, when, in fact, an objective test of their ability indicates that they are below-proficient in terms of their actual skills. This investigation was part of an Institute of Museum and Library Services-funded project and includes demographic data about participants, their scores on an objective test of their information literacy skills, and self-estimates of their ability. Findings support previous research that indicates many students come to college without proficient IL skills, that students with below-proficient IL skills have inflated views of their ability, and that this miscalibration can also be expressed by students who test as proficient. Implications for research and practice are discussed."
Photo by Sheila Webber: Forsythia, March 2012

Report: Search Search Engine Use 2012

A new report from the Pew Internet project is:
Purcell, K., Brenner, J. and Rainie, L. (2012) Search Engine Use 2012. Washington: Pew Research Center.
The sample of Americans consisted of 2,253 adults, who were surveyed via telephone interview in Jan/Feb 2012. Apart from the fact that use of search engines has increased and the dominance of Google has increased, a few findings are:
"65% say… It’s a BAD thing if a search engine collected information about your searches and then used it to rank your future search results, because it may limit the information you get online and what search results you see. 29% say… It’s a GOOD thing if a search engine collected information about your searches and then used it to rank your future search results, because it gives you results that are more relevant to you"
"91% of search engine users say they always or most of the time find the information they are seeking when they use search engines. 73% of search engine users say that most or all the information they find as they use search engines is accurate and trustworthy. 66% of search engine users say search engines are a fair and unbiased source of information."
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Search-Engine-Use-2012.aspx

Photo by Sheila Webber: Nigel's room, photoshopped, March 2012.

Teens, Virtual Environments and Information Literacy

In the new issue of the ASIST bulletin (free online): Beheshti, J. (2012) "Teens, Virtual Environments and Information Literacy." Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 38(3). http://asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-12/FebMar12_Beheshti.pdf
"EDITOR’S SUMMARY: As digital natives, the vast majority of teens are used to cellphones, text messaging, social networking sites and other forms of electronic communications and technologies. Though rooted in the digital world for many of their daily activities, teens lack basic information literacy skills for academic tasks and other demands. Specific instruction through the educational system may not be feasible, but it may be possible to build teens’ information competence through interactive virtual learning environments. Game-style virtual environments are highly motivating and engaging, providing opportunities for repeated practice and reward for persistence and achieving goals. A virtual reality library, VRLibrary, was constructed, collaboratively designed by young teens and adults, based on the metaphor of a physical library. Teens could wander the virtual space and browse links to age-appropriate websites presented as virtual books. VRLibrary was very positively received and succeeded at engaging teen users. A librarian avatar could be incorporated to provide help as needed with a user’s information seeking"
Photo by Sheila Webber: Winter tree, Blackheath, January 2012

Short articles: PBL; Twitter; Discovery tools; QR codes

A new issue of SCONUL Focus (Number 53, 2012) has, as usual, numerous short and readable articles about academic libraries. These include:
- 'Twitter ye not?' by Emma Cragg (aka 'ekcragg') & Antony Brewerton (aka 'librarian boy')
- Focusing on students' discovery tool preferences by Sarah Elsegood
- Introducing problem-based learning into one-shot information literacy instruction at Waterford Institute of Technology Libraries by Alan Carbery & Nora Hegarty
There is also an item by one of the students currently on our MA Librarianship programme, written about the library where he was a trainee: Using QR codes in the library at Leeds Metropolitan University by John Bottomley
http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletter/53/
Photo by Sheila Webber: birch and winter sky, January 2012