565 research outputs found
Studying Academic Lawyers' Information-Seeking to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries
We report findings from the initial phase of our study on legal information seeking, which comprised a series of semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations of academic law students and staff looking for electronic legal information. This study has the long-term aim of informing the design of digital law libraries. Participants found it difficult to use digital law libraries, arising from poor knowledge of the digital library system rather than from poor general electronic research skills. Hazy and faulty system-related knowledge were rife, suggesting the need for academic lawyers to understand more about the digital library systems that they use (within-systems knowledge). These lawyers chose to rely primarily on one major digital law library for legal information seeking. Their preference was often based upon vague or flawed rationale and suggests the need for academic lawyers to appreciate the situations in which different electronic resources might be useful (between-systems knowledge)
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Information encountering re-encountered: A conceptual re-examination of serendipity in the context of information acquisition
Purpose
In order to understand the totality, diversity and richness of human information behavior, increasing research attention has been paid to examining serendipity in the context of information acquisition. However, several issues have arisen as this research subfield has tried to find its feet; we have used different, inconsistent terminology to define this phenomenon (e.g. information encountering, accidental information discovery, incidental information acquisition), the scope of the phenomenon has not been clearly defined and its nature was not fully understood or fleshed-out.
Design/methodology/approach
In this paper, information encountering (IE) was proposed as the preferred term for serendipity in the context of information acquisition.
Findings
A reconceptualized definition and scope of IE was presented, a temporal model of IE and a refined model of IE that integrates the IE process with contextual factors and extends previous models of IE to include additional information acquisition activities pre- and postencounter.
Originality/value
By providing a more precise definition, clearer scope and richer theoretical description of the nature of IE, there was hope to make the phenomenon of serendipity in the context of information acquisition more accessible, encouraging future research consistency and thereby promoting deeper, more unified theoretical development
An open source MATLAB program for fast numerical Feynman integral calculations for open quantum system dynamics on GPUs
This MATLAB program calculates the dynamics of the reduced density matrix of
an open quantum system modeled by the Feynman-Vernon model. The user gives the
program a vector describing the coordinate of an open quantum system, a
hamiltonian matrix describing its energy, and a spectral distribution function
and temperature describing the environment's influence on it, in addition to
the open quantum system's intial density matrix and a grid of times. With this,
the program returns the reduced density matrix of the open quantum system at
all (or some) moments specified by that grid of times. This overall calculation
can be divided into two stages: the setup of the Feynman integral, and the
actual calculation of the Feynman integral for time-propagation of the density
matrix. When this program calculates this propagation on a multi-core CPU, it
is this propagation that is usually the rate limiting step of the calculation,
but when it is calculated on a GPU, the propagation is calculated so quickly
that the setup of the Feynman integal actually becomes the rate limiting step
for most cases tested so far. The overhead of transfrring information from the
CPU to the GPU and back seems to have negligible effect on the overall runtime
of the program. When the required information cannot fit on the GPU, the user
can choose to run the entire program on a CPU.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, 22 reference
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Ideation as an intellectual information acquisition and use context: Investigating game designersâ information-based ideation behavior
Human Information Behavior (HIB) research commonly examines behavior in the context of why information is acquired and how it will be used, but usually at the level of the work or everyday-life tasks the information will support. HIB has not been examined in detail at the broader contextual level of intellectual purpose (i.e. the higher-order conceptual tasks the information was acquired to support). Examination at this level can enhance holistic understanding of HIB as a âmeans to an intellectual endâ and inform the design of digital information environments that support information interaction for specific intellectual purposes. We investigate information-based ideation (IBI) as a specific intellectual information acquisition and use context by conducting Critical Incident-style interviews with ten game designers, focusing on how they interact with information to generate and develop creative design ideas. Our findings give rise to a framework of their ideation-focused HIB, which systems designers can leverage to reason about how best to support certain behaviors to drive design ideation. These findings emphasize the importance of intellectual purpose as a driver for acquisition and desired outcome of use
Studying Lawyersâ Information Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries
In this paper, we describe our ongoing work which involves examining the information seeking behaviour of legal professionals. This work involves studying the behaviour of both academic and practicing lawyers with the long-term aim of integrating user-centred legal information seeking support into digital law libraries. We report preliminary findings from the initial phase of the study, which comprised a series of semistructured interviews and naturalistic observations of academic law students looking for information that they require for their work. This group of academic lawyers often found it difficult to find the information that they were looking for when using digital law libraries. A potential symptom of this difficulty was that hazy and incorrect knowledge of the digital library system and information sources within the system were rife. This suggests the need for students to understand more about the digital library systems that they use (within-systems knowledge). We also found that although this group of academic lawyers often used several electronic resources in a complementary fashion to conduct legal information seeking, they often chose to rely primarily on one of either the LexisNexis or Westlaw digital law library platforms. Their preference was often based upon vague or sometimes flawed rationale and suggests the need for students to appreciate the situations in which different electronic resources might be useful (between-systems knowledge)
Studying Law Studentsâ Information Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Digital Law Libraries
In this paper, we describe our ongoing work which involves
examining the information seeking behaviour of legal
professionals. This work involves studying the behaviour of both
academic and practicing lawyers with the long-term aim of
integrating user-centred legal information seeking support into
digital law libraries. We report preliminary findings from the
initial phase of the study, which comprised a series of semistructured interviews and naturalistic observations of academic
law students looking for information that they require for their
work. This group of academic lawyers often found it difficult to
find the information that they were looking for when using digital
law libraries. A potential symptom of this difficulty was that
hazy and incorrect knowledge of the digital library system and
information sources within the system were rife. This suggests
the need for students to understand more about the digital library
systems that they use (within-systems knowledge). We also
found that although this group of academic lawyers often used
several electronic resources in a complementary fashion to
conduct legal information seeking, they often chose to rely
primarily on one of either the LexisNexis or Westlaw digital law
library platforms. Their preference was often based upon vague
or sometimes flawed rationale and suggests the need for students
to appreciate the situations in which different electronic resources
might be useful (between-systems knowledge)
âIâll just Google it!â: Should lawyersâ perceptions of Google inform the design of electronic legal resources?
Lawyers, like many user groups, regularly use Google to find
information for their work. We present results of a series of
interviews with academic and practicing lawyers, where they
discuss in what situations they use various electronic resources
and why. We find lawyers use Google due to a variety of factors,
many of which are related to the need to find information quickly.
Lawyers also talk about Google with a certain affection not
demonstrated when discussing other resources. Although we can
design legal resources to emulate Google or design them based on
factors perceived to make Google successful, we suggest this is
unlikely to better support legal information-seeking. Instead, we
suggest the importance of taking a number of inter-related
tradeoffs, related to the factors identified in our study, into
account when designing electronic legal resources to help ensure
they are useful, usable and used
A Study of Legal Information Seeking Behaviour to Inform the Design of Electronic Legal Research Tools
Our work is motivated by the desire to support digital library users in ?getting to grips? with electronic resources. More specifically we are motivated by the desire to support users in understanding how to use, and in which situations it is appropriate to use, particular digital library or electronic resources. This work focuses on lawyers as a specific category of user; Callister [5] highlights that lawyers been traditionally regarded as having poor research skills. Electronic research skills are no exception: Howland and Lewis [8] surveyed U.S. law firm librarians to examine the quality and extent of the electronic legal research skills of summer clerks and first-year associates. They found that these graduates were unable to efficiently or effectively research issues that appear routinely in actual legal cases and concluded that they were not efficient or cost-effective users of LexisNexis and Westlaw (the two biggest digital law libraries in terms of case, legislation and journal coverage). This was despite all of the students having received some training on how to use the libraries while in law school. Digital libraries have traditionally been regarded as difficult to use [4] and based on our contextual observations with academic lawyers, digital law libraries such as LexisNexis Professional and Westlaw are no exception. We believe that this difficulty of use contributes to the problems that lawyers face with electronic legal research. Furthermore, we argue that developing better research skills goes hand-inhand with developing an understanding of the electronic environments in which these skills must be practiced. Our current work is focused on gaining a better understanding of legal academics? and professionals? information seeking behaviour when using existing electronic resources. This understanding will then be used to inform the design of user-centred support tools for digital law libraries (and potentially the design of the libraries themselves)
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More than Words: The Impact of Memory on How Undergraduates with Dyslexia Interact with Information
Despite the prevalence of dyslexia and the challenges it poses for seeking, assessing and using information, there has been relatively little research on the challenges people with dyslexia face when interacting with information. What existing research there is has mostly focused on the impact on information comprehension and spelling. However, people with dyslexia often face considerable memory impairment that can affect their learning. This paper reports findings from retrospective think-aloud (RTA) observations with 13 undergraduates with dyslexia, focusing on the memory-related barriers they face and the workarounds they use to overcome these barriers. An enhanced understanding of the full range of barriers faced by information-seekers with dyslexia can inform the design of dyslexia-aware digital information environments and information literacy programs. These can âlevel the information playing fieldâ by helping to break down barriers to information and, in turn, to knowledge creation
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This is what I'm doing and why: reflections on a think-aloud study of digital library users' information behaviour
Many user-centred studies of digital libraries include a think-aloud element â where users are asked to verbalise their thoughts, interface actions and sometimes their feelings whilst using digital libraries to help them complete one or more information tasks. These studies are usually conducted with the purpose of identifying usability issues related to the system(s) used or understanding aspects of usersâ information behaviour. However, few of these studies present detailed accounts of how their think-aloud data was collected and analysed or provide detailed reflection on their methodologies. In this paper, we discuss and reflect on the decisions made when planning and conducting a think-aloud study of lawyersâ interactive information behaviour. Our discussion is framed by Blandford et al.âs PRET A Rapporter (âready to reportâ) framework â a framework that can be used to plan, conduct and describe user-centred studies of digital library use from an information work perspective
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