The Daily Image Information Needs and Seeking Behavior of Chinese Undergraduate Students

A survey was conducted at Beijing Normal University to explore subjects’ motives for image seeking; the image types they need; how and where they seek images; and the difficulties they encounter. The survey also explored subjects’ attitudes toward current image services and their perceptions of how university libraries might provide assistance. Based on the findings, this article summarizes the features of Chinese undergraduate students’ daily image needs and their information behavior related to images. The findings reveal the need to improve the image services offered by academic libraries and strengthen undergraduates’ information literacy with respect to image search and use

Search by Image Through the Internet: An Additional Method to Find Information

Offers an overview of an ongoing assessment of search by image through the Internet. This is a relatively new method for information retrieval, in which a query does not consist of text but of an image file. Various tests have been performed. The results show that search by image is evolving to a powerful, additional method to meet information needs that are difficult to handle with other, more classical methods. Various types of applications are presented

Information needs and utilization among social science undergraduates in Nigerian universities

Information is a means through which knowledge about a phenomenon derived from observation, study experience or instruction and collection in varying ways. However, failure rates continue to increase in some universities in Nigeria, and information dissemination is not improving. This study, therefore, examines the information needs and utilisation of undergraduates in the Departments of Accountancy and Business Administration within three selected Nigerian Universities based on ownership. The study adopts qualitative research approach using interview method to collect data in the federal, state and privately owned universities. The research adopted snowball sampling method as it was difficult to determine the specific sample frame due to non-availability of intake records. The study therefore recruited ninety respondents for an interview from the three universities covering various disciplines in social sciences including Business Administration, Accounting, Economics and Finance. The study was guided by Wilson’s 1991 information behaviour model using it major variables of information needs, seeking, awareness, utilisation and outcome. Findings revealed that students require relevant information that will assist them to succeed in their academic career. It also found that information needs of students vary depending on their course of study. Students, however, utilise information for various purposes including academic work, social networking, community development and lifelong learning experience

A Systematic Literature Review on Image Information Needs and Behaviors

Purpose: With ready access to search engines and social media platforms, the way people find image information has evolved and diversified in the past two decades. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the literature on image information needs and behaviors. Design/methodology/approach: Following an eight-step procedure for conducting systematic literature reviews, the paper presents an analysis of peer-reviewed work on image information needs and behaviors, with publications ranging from the years 1997 to 2019. Findings: Application of the inclusion criteria led to 69 peer-reviewed works. These works were synthesized according to the following categories: research methods, users targeted, image types, identified needs, search behaviors, and search obstacles. The reviewed studies show that people seek and use images for multiple reasons, including entertainment, illustration, aesthetic appreciation, knowledge construction, engagement, inspiration, and social interactions. The reviewed studies also report that common strategies for image searches include keyword searches with short queries, browsing, specialization, and reformulation. Observed trends suggest common deployment of query analysis, survey questionnaires, and undergraduate participant pools to research image information needs and behavior. Originality: At this point, after more than two decades of image information needs research, a holistic systematic review of the literature was long overdue. The way users find image information has evolved and diversified due to technological developments in image retrieval. By synthesizing this burgeoning field into specific foci, this systematic literature review provides a foundation for future empirical investigation. With this foundation set, the paper then pinpoints key research gaps to investigate, particularly the influence of user expertise, a need for more diverse population samples, a dearth of qualitative data, new search features, and information and visual literacies instruction

Information Literacy Skills and College Students: A Mixed-Methods, Action Research Study of Students’ Knowledge and Self-Efficacy for Applying Information Literacy Skills to Their Academic and Social Lives

The purpose of this action research was to examine information literacy skills in undergraduate students. In particular, this research investigated students’ knowledge and self-efficacy of information literacy skills. Furthermore, this study explored students’ application of information literacy and how students apply information literacy skills to their academic and social lives. By developing a greater understanding of students’ knowledge, self-efficacy and the use of information literacy skills, it allows librarians to tailor information literacy instruction to fit students’ needs. The three research questions that guided this study were (1) What are undergraduate students’ knowledge of information literacy at the University of South Carolina Columbia campus?; (2) What are undergraduate students’ self-efficacy beliefs about their information literacy?; (3) How do undergraduate students use information literacy skills in their academic and social lives? The data for this study was collected via quantitative and qualitative measures. An electronic questionnaire was administered to undergraduate students at the University of South Carolina (n= 72) . The quantitative questionnaire focused on students’ knowledge and self-efficacy of information literacy skills. At the end of the questionnaire, students were able to select if they would like to participate in a focus group interview by providing their email. After the quantitative questionnaire closed, focus groups were created. There were two focus groups broken up by academic year (i.e., freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior). The focus groups were focused on all three research questions and thus investigating students’ knowledge, self-efficacy, motivation, and use of information literacy skills (n= 4). The qualitative findings of this study found that how their information needs impact students’ search for information. Further, students\u27 research methods vary depending on their academic and social lives. Additionally, students felt that being able to find and access information was a fundamental human right. Lastly, the qualitative findings highlight that students ‘ self-efficacy of their information literacy skills varied depending on the skill they were utilizing

Image search: an investigation of factors affecting search behaviour of users

Searching for images can be challenging. How users search for images is governed by their information need. Nevertheless, in fulfilling their information need, users are often affected by subjective factors. These factors include topic familiarity, task difficulty, relevance criteria and satisfaction. This thesis focuses on three research questions exploring how image information needs together with these factors affect online web users' searching behaviour. The questions are: 1. How does image information need affect the criteria users apply when selecting relevant images? 2. How do different factors in image retrieval affect users' image searching behaviour? 3. Can we identify image information needs solely from user queries? In addressing these challenges, we conducted both user studies and proxy log analysis to complement each other. User studies are conducted in a laboratory setting and the needs are artificial, while proxy log captures users' actual needs and behaviour in the wild. The main user study involved 48 students of various disciplines from RMIT University. In the study, we represent image information needs as types of tasks. Data were collected from questionnaires and screen capture recordings. The questionnaire was used to collect data on criteria users find important when judging image relevance and perception on the effects of subjective factors to their searching. Screen capture recordings of their search activities were observed and time stamped to identify and measure search and retrieval behaviour. These measures were used to evaluate the effects of subjective factors on users' image search behaviour. The results showed in judging image relevance, users may apply similar criteria, however, the importance of these criteria depend on the types of image. Similarly, ratings of users' perception on aspects of performing image search show they were task dependent and that effect of different aspects were related. Users were more affected by familiarity and satisfaction when performing difficult image search tasks. Results of correlation suggest that users' perception of aspects of performing image search did not always correspond with their actual search behaviour. However, for some subjective aspects of user search behaviour, we have identified particular objective measures that correlate well with that aspect. The examination of users' queries in proxy logs, shows that users search for unambiguous images more frequently compared to conceptual images. Their sessions are short with two to three terms per query. When analysing queries from logs, we are actually making a guess of what users were searching for. However, by examining the way users modify/reformulate their queries may give an indication of their information need. Results show, that users frequently submit new queries or replace terms from their previous query rather than revising the query into more depth or breadth. Similar findings were found when compared with the user study data, whereby users in both settings exhibit similarity in the number of queries, terms and reformulation type. This thesis concludes that given similar image information needs, ordinary users make relevance judgements similar to specialised users (such as journalists, art historians and medical doctors) despite giving attention to different criteria of relevance. Moreover, only certain measures of search behaviour used in text retrieval are applicable to image retrieval due to the difference in judging the relevance of textual information and image. In addition, visual information needs can be better inferred when analysing series of queries and their reformulation within a search session