Where can teens find health information? A survey of web portals designed for teen health information seekers

The Web is an important source for health information for most teens with access to the Web (Gray et al, 2005a; Kaiser, 2001). While teens are likely to turn to the Web for health information, research has indicated that their skills in locating, evaluating and using health information are weak (Hansen et al, 2003; Skinner et al, 2003, Gray et al, 2005b). This behaviour suggests that the targeted approach to finding health information that is offered by web portals would be useful to teens. A web portal is the entry point for information on the Web. It is the front end, and often the filter, that users must pass through in order to link to actual content. Unlike general search engines such as Google, content that is linked to a portal has usually been pre-selected and even created by the organization that hosts the portal, assuring some level of quality control. The underlying architecture of the portal is structured and thus offers an organized approach to exploring a specific health topic. This paper reports on an environmental scan of the Web, the purpose of which was to identify and describe portals to general health information, in English and French, designed specifically for teens. It answers two key questions. First of all, what portals exist? And secondly, what are their characteristics? The portals were analyzed through the lens of four attributes: Usability, interactivity, reliability and findability. Usability is a term that incorporates concepts of navigation, layout and design, clarity of concept and purpose, underlying architecture, in-site assistance and, for web content with text, readability. Interactivity relates to the type of interactions and level of engagement required by the user to access health information on a portal. Interaction can come in the form of a game, a quiz, a creative experience, or a communication tool such as an instant messaging board, a forum or blog. Reliability reflects the traditional values of accuracy, currency, credibility and bias, and in the web-based world, durabililty. Findability is simply the ease with which a portal can be discovered by a searcher using the search engine that is most commonly associated with the Web by young people - Google - and using terms related to teen health. Findability is an important consideration since the majority of teens begin their search for health information using search engines (CIBER, 2008; Hansen et al, 2003). The content linked to by the portals was not evaluated, nor was the portals’ efficacy as a health intervention. Teens looking for health information on the Web in English have a wide range of choices available but French-language portals are much rarer and harder to find. A majority of the portals found and reviewed originated from hospitals, associations specializing in a particular disease, and governmental agencies, suggesting that portals for teens on health related topics are generally reliable. However, only a handful of the portals reviewed were easy to find, suggesting that valuable resources for teens remain buried in the Web

Genres of search: A concept for understanding successive search behaviour

The paper presents Genres of Search, a concept that contributes to our understanding of the successive search phenomenon. The concept is explained in the context of a case study that used naturalistic methods to explore the information-seeking behaviour of 10 participants, aged 16 to 18, as they searched for, selected, and used information for a school-based inquiry project on a topic related to the history of Western civilization. The study found an array of sub-searches, or Genres of Search, embedded within the information problem solving process, each genre representing a distinct information need. The Genres of Search concept is useful for mapping irregularities in successive searching and provides insight into the nature of the tasks involved in the search process

‘Confused, scared, hopeless, unsure’: teens looking for information about COVID-19

Presents findings from an online questionnaire investigating teens’ information-seeking about COVID-19.Methods. Online questionnaire completed by 26 teens, ages 15 to 19 years, living in Brooklyn, New York, in June 2020. Responses include quantitative data (ranking and checklists) and qualitative data (free writing). The questionnaire explored information themes in relation to COVID-19, such as information sources and platforms, credibility and disinformation, teens’ roles in information intermediation, affective aspects of their information behaviour, as well as what would have helped teens find COVID-19 information. Teens experienced anxiety as they looked for reliable information about COVID-19. They served as their family’s language brokers and technology experts, taking on the responsibilities of information intermediator. Teens used social media platforms and legacy media as information sources. Nevertheless, teens indicated a wish for institutional support and guidance from governments (municipal, state, federal) and schools. Libraries were not an information source. The results of this study have implications for research into teen mental health in relation to the COVID-19 global pandemic, as well as reframing the meaning of ‘everyday life information seeking’ during a time of crisis, when everyday life is not normal.Peer Reviewe

Web Portal Design Guidelines as Identified by Children through the Processes of Design and Evaluation

The Web is an important source of information for school projects, but young users do not always find it easy to locate relevant material. A critical factor in success is the portal through which they search or browse web content. Traditionally web portals have been designed by adults with young users in mind, but there is very little evidence that the latter make use of them. In this paper design guidelines are elaborated for such portals that are based upon focus group and operational evaluations by elementary school students of two prototype web portals designed by two intergenerational teams, each comprising elementary school students and adult designers. The evaluations offer strong support for involving children throughout the design process for portals that both in presentation and functionality reflect the cognitive and affective needs of young users rather than adults

Youth Data Literacy: Teen Perspectives on Data Created with Social Media and Mobile Devices

This paper examines how American teens conceptualize the term data in the context of social and mobile media like Instagram and Snapchat, or text messaging and cell phone video. Using interview and ethnographic data from a series of interviews with teens, 11 to 18 held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania public libraries over 2016-2017, we report findings about how teens learn about data through the use of social media platforms, the creation of mobile media, and the ownership of mobile devices; the implications that using networked platforms and wireless technology has for contemporary understandings of data literacy; and finally, what this means for teaching and researching the acquisition of data skills. The paper presents findings about how teens learn and acquire knowledge about the interactive and social processes of the data life cycle in public spaces and in online platforms, particularly learning about data awareness through sharing, aging, and owning mobile computing devices

Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Aspects of Teen Perspectives on Personal Data in Social Media: A Model of Youth Data Literacy

In this study, we explored the interplay between teens’ Affective states (A), Behavioral states (B), and Cognitive states (C) in relation to the personal data they generate in social media, applying the “ABC model” from the social psychology domain. The data was collected from semi-structured interviews with 22 US teens in three library branches of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, USA. Results from content analysis suggest that: 1) Young people are positive about their data skills, while feeling negative or insecure about data privacy issues; 2) young people with negative affective states related to data privacy are more likely to make an effort to secure their social media accounts and profiles. Given the results, we suggest librarians, educators and software developers apply a range of strategies in reaction to teens’ different ABC states to the design of data literacy programs, services, and software applications

Archival Document Packets: A Teaching Module in Advocacy Training Using the Papers of Governor Dick Thornburgh

Archivists have been involved for a long time in working with educators at all levels to use archival sources. Having graduate archival studies students work on documentary teaching packets is also a way for students preparing for archival careers to learn how to become advo- cates for archives. At the University of Pittsburgh—in a course called Archival Access, Ethics, and Advocacy—students drew on the extensive Governor Dick Thornburgh Papers to con- struct document teaching packets. This article provides background in the use of such pack- ets in archival advocacy and public education, discusses the successes and challenges of such an assignment, and offers insights for graduate archival education. Whether or not the final products were useful is not important, as the students learned about how to be advocates and the nature of large archival collections

Web Portal Design Guidelines as Identified by Children through the Processes of Design and Evaluation

The Web is an important source of information for school projects, but young users do not always find it easy to locate relevant material. A critical factor in success is the portal through which they search or browse web content. Traditionally web portals have been designed by adults with young users in mind, but there is very little evidence that the latter make use of them. In this paper design guidelines are elaborated for such portals that are based upon focus group and operational evaluations by elementary school students of two prototype web portals designed by two intergenerational teams, each comprising elementary school students and adult designers. The evaluations offer strong support for involving children throughout the design process for portals that both in presentation and functionality reflect the cognitive and affective needs of young users rather than adults

Co-designing data labs at the public library: Data literacy with, for, and by teens

Abstract. This poster presents research investigating youth data literacy at the public library. The Data Literacy with, for, and by Youth project is framed by principles of participatory design, and asks, how might an informal STEM learning environment such as the public library, support the development of the skills, knowledge, and dispositions that young people need for them to take charge of their data lives, from data creation to data use – to be, in short, data literate. The problem of how to approach something as complex as data literacy in the voluntary drop-in setting of informal, after-school sites of learning - the public library being one such place - guides this study. The aim of the project is to design, build, test, and evolve theory and practice around informal data literacy education alongside youth, with the goal of building a holistic, humanistic, and youth-oriented model of data literacy which incorporates social-awareness, critical approaches, and “goodness of fit” into STEM learning about data

Training librarians of tomorrow: Collaborations between Brooklyn Public Library’s teen internship program and Pratt Institute’s MSLIS program

The paper presents the Librarians of Tomorrow project, a teen internship program at Brooklyn Public Library that engages Master of Library and Information Science students from Pratt Institute in New York City. The teen internship program draws from the local youth population, with one goal being to build a pipeline of future librarians drawn from the community. A second feature of the program is that it provides Library and Information Science graduate students with a practice-based learning experience in the highly diverse and global context of Brooklyn. The Librarians of Tomorrow project, in collaboration with Pratt Institute’s School of Information, offers one example of how to bring a global perspective to LIS education. The paper discusses the methods for integrating this learning experience into course content within the MSLIS degree and concludes with preliminary observations about the Pratt/Librarians of Tomorrow collaboration and the practice-based learning experience