Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Patterns of interactions: user behaviour in response to search results

This paper presents patterns of users’ interaction when working with digital libraries. It focuses on strategies developed and applied by users over time to achieve their goals. Results show that users choose different patterns of interaction depending on their evaluation of results, particularly in terms of the number of results returned from a search. This study gives indications about how the user interface could better support users in developing different search strategies

Investigating the information-seeking behaviour of academic lawyers: From Ellis's model to design.

Information-seeking is important for lawyers, who have access to many dedicated electronic resources.However there is considerable scope for improving the design of these resources to better support information-seeking. One way of informing design is to use information-seeking models as theoretical lenses to analyse users’ behaviour with existing systems. However many models, including those informed by studying lawyers, analyse information-seeking at a high level of abstraction and are only likely to lead to broad-scoped design insights. We illustrate that one potentially useful (and lowerlevel) model is Ellis’s - by using it as a lens to analyse and make design suggestions based on the information-seeking behaviour of twenty-seven academic lawyers, who were asked to think aloud whilst using electronic legal resources to find information for their work. We identify similar information-seeking behaviours to those originally found by Ellis and his colleagues in scientific domains, along with several that were not identified in previous studies such as ‘updating’ (which we believe is particularly pertinent to legal information-seeking). We also present a refinement of Ellis’s model based on the identification of several levels that the behaviours were found to operate at and the identification of sets of mutually exclusive subtypes of behaviours

Responses and Influences: A Model of Online Information Use for Learning

Introduction. This paper explores the complexity of online information use for learning in the culturally diverse ICT-intensive higher education context. It presents a Model of responses and influences in online information use for learning that aims to increase awareness of the complexity of online information use and support information literacy development. Background. Despite increasing integration of information literacy into university curricula there are evident limitations in students’ use of information associated with an information literacy imbalance between well developed IT skills & uncritical approaches, compounded by differences in cultural and linguistic experience. Influences. This model draw insight from models of: information behaviour/seeking (Wilson, Foster, Kuhlthau), information literacy (Bruce), cross-cultural adaptation (Anderson), reflective online use (Hughes, Bruce & Edwards). The model. Incorporates behavioural, cognitive & affective responses with cultural & linguistic influences in an action research framework that represents online information use - envisaged as the experience of engaging with online information for learning - as holistic, dynamic and continuous. Conclusion. The model represents the synergy between information use and learning. It supports the development of inclusive reflective approaches to information literacy that address identified learning challenges related to information literacy imbalance and cultural & linguistic diversity

A study of the information needs of the users of a folk music library and the implications for the design of a digital library system

A qualitative study of user information needs is reported, based on a purposive sample of users and potential users of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, a small specialist folk music library in North London. The study set out to establish what the user’s (both existing and potential) information needs are, so that the library’s online service may take them into account with its design. The information needs framework proposed by Nicholas (2000) is used as an analytical tool to achieve this end. The demographics of the users were examined in order to establish four user groups: Performer, Academic, Professional and Enthusiast. Important information needs were found to be based on social interaction, and key resources of the library were its staff, the concentration of the collection and the library’s social nature. A collection of broad design requirements are proposed based on the analysis and this study also provided some insights into the issue of musical relevance, which are discussed