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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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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).

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