Student digital information-seeking behaviour in context

Purpose - This study provides evidence on the actual information-seeking behaviour of students in a digital scholarly environment, not what they thought they did. It also compares student information-seeking behaviour with that of other academic communities, and, in some cases, for practitioners.Des...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of documentation 2009-01, Vol.65 (1), p.106-132
Main Authors:	Nicholas, David, Huntington, Paul, Jamali, Hamid R, Rowlands, Ian, Fieldhouse, Maggie
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Academic libraries College students Colleges & universities computer-assisted research Education electronic journal Electronic periodicals Exact sciences and technology Graduate students Information and communication sciences information retrieval Information science. Documentation Information seeking behavior Information seeking behaviour Internet resources Learning Library and information science Library and information science. General aspects Literature reviews Public television Research methodology research tools Sciences and techniques of general use Search engines Social networks Social research Students Studies Transaction log analysis Use and user studies. Information needs
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Summary:	Purpose - This study provides evidence on the actual information-seeking behaviour of students in a digital scholarly environment, not what they thought they did. It also compares student information-seeking behaviour with that of other academic communities, and, in some cases, for practitioners.Design methodology approach - Data were gathered as part of CIBER's ongoing Virtual Scholar programme. In particular log data from two digital journals libraries, Blackwell Synergy and OhioLINK, and one e-book collection (Oxford Scholarship Online) are utilized.Findings - The study showed a distinctive form of information-seeking behaviour associated with students and differences between them and other members of the academic community. For example, students constituted the biggest users in terms of sessions and pages viewed, and they were more likely to undertake longer online sessions. Undergraduates and postgraduates were the most likely users of library links to access scholarly databases, suggesting an important "hot link" role for libraries.Originality value - Few studies have focused on the actual (rather than perceived) information-seeking behaviour of students. The study fills that gap.
ISSN:	0022-0418 1758-7379