Enhancing Classroom Instruction with Online News

Purpose Investigate how school teachers look for informational texts for their classrooms. Access to current, varied, and authentic informational texts improves learning outcomes for K-12 students, but many teachers lack resources to expand and update readings. The Web offers freely-available resources, but finding suitable ones is time-consuming. This research lays the groundwork for building tools to ease that burden. Methodology This paper reports qualitative findings from a study in two stages: (1) a set of semi-structured interviews, based on the Critical Incident Technique, eliciting teachers’ information-seeking practices and challenges; and (2) observations of teachers using a prototype teaching-oriented news search tool under a think-aloud protocol. Findings Teachers articulated different objectives and ways of using readings in their classrooms; goals and self-reported practices varied by experience level. Teachers struggled to formulate queries that are likely to return readings on specific course topics, instead searching directly for abstract topics. Experience differences did not translate into observable differences in search skill or success in the lab study. Originality and Value There is limited work on teachers’ information-seeking practices, particularly on how teachers look for texts for classroom use. This paper describes how teachers look for information in this context, setting the stage for future development and research on how to support this use case. Understanding and supporting teachers looking for information is a rich area for future research, due to the complexity of the information need and the fact that teachers are not looking for information for themselves

An integrated model highlighting information literacy and knowledge formation in information behaviour

Purpose This paper reviews key models of people’s information behaviour (IB) exploring the integration of the concepts of information literacy (IL) and knowledge in their designs. Scholarly perspectives portray information literacy as providing individuals with capacity for good information practices that result in generating new knowledge. It is surprising that this important perspective is not reflected in the reviewed information behaviour models. This paper contributes to the literature base by proposing a new model highlighting IL and knowledge as important concepts within the information behaviour discourse. Approach A discourse of the integration of information literacy and knowledge, which are integral factors, associated with IB, in selected IB models. Findings Identifying a need for information and understanding its context is an IL attribute. IL underpins information behaviour in providing awareness of information sources; how to search and use information appropriately for solving information needs and leveraging generated new knowledge. The generation of new knowledge results from using information, in a process that combines with sense-making and adaption. Correspondingly, the knowledge that develops, increases capability for sense-making and adaptation of information to suit various contexts of need; iteratively. Originality/value A new model of information behaviour; the Causative and Outcome Factors of Information Behaviour (COFIB) is proposed. COFIB stresses that information literacy and knowledge are prominent factors within the general framework of people’s information behaviour. The model emphasises knowledge generation as the outcome of information behaviour, applied in solving problems within specific contexts

Awareness and Availability of Institutional Repository: Perceptions of Pakistani Research Scholars

Information has become a valued commodity in this age of globalization. Information centers all over the world are now better equipped to manage information due to advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this context, Institutional Repositories (IRs) provide a unique platform for information management through new ways of Information Storage and Retrieval (ISR) and digitization. The awareness regarding Open Access Publishing (OAP) and attitudes of IR users are very important contributing factors in success of any institutional repository. The paper is an attempt to highlight the necessary role of IR in building the academic capabilities of research scholars in South Asian region. This paper focuses on perception evaluation of research scholars regarding IR in terms of awareness, and availability of IR. A questionnaire based survey method has been employed to collect data from research scholars. It has been found that most of the participants are aware of the existence of the IR. They showed that they are capable to use IR. The study will be helpful in providing practical implications for other institutions to initiate IR

Awareness and Availability of Institutional Repository: Perceptions of Pakistani Research Scholars

Information has become a valued commodity in this age of globalization. Information centers all over the world are now better equipped to manage information due to advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In this context, Institutional Repositories (IRs) provide a unique platform for information management through new ways of Information Storage and Retrieval (ISR) and digitization. The awareness regarding Open Access Publishing (OAP) and attitudes of IR users are very important contributing factors in success of any institutional repository. The paper is an attempt to highlight the necessary role of IR in building the academic capabilities of research scholars in South Asian region. This paper focuses on perception evaluation of research scholars regarding IR in terms of awareness, and availability of IR. A questionnaire based survey method has been employed to collect data from research scholars. It has been found that most of the participants are aware of the existence of the IR. They showed that they are capable to use IR. The study will be helpful in providing practical implications for other institutions to initiate IR

Conceptualizing information need in context

Journal has a creative commons license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Situation Normality and the Shape of Search: The Effects of Time Delays and Information Presentation on Search Behavior

Delays have become one of the most often cited complaints of web users. Long delays often cause users to abandon their searches, but how do tolerable delays affect information search behavior? Intuitively, we would expect that tolerable delays should induce decreased information search. We conducted two experiments and found that as delay increased, a point occurs at which time within-page information search increases; that is, search behavior remained the same until a tipping point occurs where delay increases the depth of search. We argue that situation normality explains this phenomenon; users have become accustomed to tolerable delays up to a point (our research suggests between 7 and 11 s), after which search behavior changes. That is, some delay is expected, but as delay becomes noticeable but not long enough to cause the abandonment of search, an increase occurs in the “stickiness” of webpages such that users examine more information on each page before moving to new pages. The net impact of tolerable delays was counterintuitive: tolerable delays had no impact on the total amount of data searched in the first experiment, but induced users to examine more data points in the second experiment