DiLS Research: JISC JUSTEIS Report Cycle 1

6. STRAND A: USER BEHAVIOUR – RESULTS

The analysis has focused on a range of issues about user behaviour that affect planning and delivery of EISs and support services which are encapsulated in the following questions. For a later cycle, these may usefully be re-examined to assess the extent of any changes.

The main questions covered by the research with respect to different user groups are as follows:

Student body

What are the patterns of EIS use by new students? (Section 6.1)

What are the information strategies that might be expected of the undergraduate cohort, and how are these fostered? (Section 6.2)

What are the patterns of use by postgraduate students? (Section 6.3)

What do all students view as the benefits of electronic information services? (Section 6.4)

How is the provision of electronic information services affecting communication between staff and students, student-student communication, teaching and learning? (Section 6.5)

How do academic and LIS staff influence or coerce students to use EISs? (Section 6.6)

How does discipline or subject area influence students' use of EISs? (Section 6.7)
Academic staff

How do academic staff use EIS in their work and how do they view the problems and opportunities? (Section 6.8)
LIS Staff

How do LIS staff use EIS for themselves and for others? (Section 6.9)
Perceived problems

Are their particular problems in IT facilities which affect EIS use? (Section 6.10)

It should be noted that the subgroups are comparatively small and the emphasis is very much on some of the common themes (and anomalies) that emerge from the data, and wherever possible the qualitative and quantitative data are set against each other. There seem to be variations between institutions which cannot be associated with a single factor – a mix of technical and cultural factors seem to affect the information behaviour.

6.1 The new student

The following analysis is based transcripts and questionnaires for 1^st year undergraduates.

6.1.1 Patterns of use of EIS by new students

An analysis of the reasons for conducting the critical incident (where respondents were asked about one recent information seeking incident involving use of electronic information services), reveals that assignments and background research constitute the primary reasons, as would expected for first-year undergraduates(Table 6.1). Project work is relatively low for this group, but might be expected to be more important in later years. The low incidence of use of EIS for bibliographical checking might be highlighted and in some ways confirms students’ wishes for full-text material. There is a small problem in students’ interpretation of terminology surrounding assignments, papers, etc and the surprising appearance of a thesis.

The distribution of purposes varies between the e-mail and interview returns, partly as the question seems to have been answered more generally by the questionnaire respondents, whereas the interviewees were more likely to select one main purpose.

Purpose	New students only questionnaires n = 79 %	New students only interviews n = 23 %
Assignment	62.03	39.13
Background research	56.96	4.34
Planning	18.99	8.70
Project	15.19	17.39
Shopping	11.39	4.34
Paper	10.13	0
Bibliographic check	8.86	0
Revision	7.59	0
Job search	6.33	8.70
For someone else	3.80	4.34
Presentation	2.53	0
Thesis	1.27	0
Other	1.27	8.70

Table 6.1 Purposes for which information was sought by new students (critical incident)

Table 6.2 set outs the incidence of EIS use by first-year undergraduate students and (for comparison purposes) undergraduate students in subsequent years for their critical incident search. E-mail, the most obvious of a messaging service (see Appendix 1: Taxonomy), is included in the table although 1^st year undergraduate use is considered in detail in Section 6.1.2. The results show that the new student makes little or no use of certain EISs – most obviously those which are the responsibility of JISC and eLib. For example, there is no use of gateways; less than 2% used JISC negotiated services, e.g. BIDS, MIMAS, or Web databases; and there is little use of e-journals and the Web sites of other institutions. The rank order for undergraduate students in subsequent years is virtually the same, the main exception being a slight increase in the use of JISC negotiated services and Web databases. This raises questions about the relevance and promotion of these services (6.11.2).

The resources most used by new students are OPACs (perhaps a resource that all new students would have been introduced to, and yet less than a third have used for their search); local databases (another tangible resource and yet again, comparatively low use recorded); e-mail and the Internet which is predictably the preferred source (Table 6.2). The Internet includes search engines and Web sites but excludes institutional Web sites. Of possible concern is the decrease in use of OPACs after the first year with less than a quarter of students making use of them, but in many subject disciplines there is far less emphasis on literature in books after the first year. For the sciences the pattern is that students often buy their own textbooks, and use the library for access to journals.

EIS	1^st year undergraduates (n=102) %	Undergraduates other than 1^st year (n=284) %
Search engines	73.53	73.24
OPAC (own institution)	30.39	21.13
E-mail	28.43	23.94
Other Web EIS	22.55	20.77
Local EIS	19.61	14.08
Own HEI Web site	7.84	4.58
Other institutional Web sites	2.94	3.52
JISC negotiated services	1.96	13.38
Databases via Web	1.96	11.62
All e-journals	0.98	3.87
Gateways	0	0
Note: Questionnaires with response ’Internet’ have been counted as Search Engines

Table 6.2: EIS used in the critical incident search by 1^st year students (ranked by 1^st year use). See Appendix 1: Taxonomy for a full definition of EIS.

Not all the searches concerned academic work and, as the interviews indicated, the Internet is used for general information (e.g. train times, shopping, career or job-related) as well as course-related information.

‘I do quite a bit of shopping and stuff so...because it’s cheaper and yes, from that point of view...I ordered a DVD from an American site – still cheaper actually...so yes I mean as source of just general information I’d find it very difficult to survive without it’ [40120 from text units 41-45]

‘I have looked for jobs on the Internet, summer jobs. Walt Disney have on-line application forms.’ [36012 from text units 13-14]

‘spend a lot of time on the Internet doing a lot of things... Usually various TV programme Websites and computer stores, different organisations usually, vaguely to do with my subject...every few days when I’ve some spare time’ [28108 from text unit paragraph 25-26]

‘I do use the net for job searching...like ISAs...those sorts of things...books don’t know really...I can’t think of anything...I could do with a list of libraries in my area, that would be helpful...I live in (urban area some distance from own HEI)’ [32103 from text units 103-105]

The new student finds the Internet useful for background information and snippets of information for assignments. It is usually perceived as the first stop shop – speed, ease of access (if lucky), and easy printing or downloading.

‘I got some examples to put in my assignment, mainly for the bibliography, to show I’d done a bit more research and used different media. Yes, I got a few examples and just explained that there is more information on extreme sports, because it’s one of those kind of topics that it’s updated like every week because there’s no books on it really, the Internet the best place.’ [30103 from text units 69-76]

‘I think the link might have been quite useful actually...then all the time I was copying stuff onto a Word document so I could print it out, instead of printing an entire article, just like taking sections off it...once I printed it out I just read it and highlighted bits by hand...just wrote it down...quotes or whatever and then typed them up from my own notes into the essay’. [40119 from text units 109-110, 133-138]

‘...usually basic company information, case studies...it’s (searching EIS) mostly relating to work at the moment, we’ve got a lot on – a couple of assignments due in the near future and a test to revise for’ [40116 from text unit paragraphs 41-44]

‘...Yes, a good one (departmental Web site), it’s got your timetable on, all the modules you do and everything...(Interviewer: Library catalogue?)... Yeah, I use it occasionally, but it’s like a bit of an old system now, isn’t it!’[27102 from text units 107-111]

‘The Internet ... it's easy like for the law case we had to get we'd have had to sit in the law library for a good three hours reading, trying to find it first and then reading through it but we just got it straight up on the page, printed it off and took it home to work at our own pace. There are some quite interesting sites as well on there, I do go to some of the games sites as well, I do bingo, cash bingo. [40103 from text unit paragraph 41]

There are some students who are still uncomfortable with technology.

‘I didn’t know how to print it because I’m not that familiar with our computer system, so the words I needed I copied them out’ [11104 from text units 88-90]

‘I prefer a book or the up front dialogue. I find computers so cold and impersonal. (Interviewer: What about library catalogues?)...No, well, normally I go straight to the shelves because I know where they are now’ [35111 from text units 48-53]

‘Yes, I’d like to know how to use CD-ROMs. It’s just getting the information, it’s kind of a bind on other people if you’re saying "can you show me how to work so-and-so" and you never know who to approach, you tend to just put it off until you need to use it. I’d like to know how to use the Internet properly! I feel very old-fashioned, not knowing...(Interviewer: E-journals?)... Oh, yeah, now that’s a thing I’d like to know how to use, especially National Geographic, that’s something I’d like to look at, but I don’t know how to view it. If I knew how to use it I would look at that. Is that the same as the Internet then? [30103 from text units 161-177]

6.1.2 Use of e-mail by new students

In addition to the use of e-mail for the critical incident search, it is specifically mentioned by 50.98% of the undergraduate 1^st year questionnaire respondents as a regularly used service. The statistic for the new student is perhaps lower than expected given that the survey did not begin until October/November, a month into the first term. This is probably due to the fact that many students who were interviewed did not automatically think of e-mail as an EIS. It must also be remembered that just over one third of the questionnaire respondents come from one institution. An unexpected finding is the fact that there is no substantive increase in use over subsequent years (52.46%).

The primary use of e-mail seems to be for personal rather than for academic purposes; and there is an increasing use made of Web-based, non-university systems as these facilitate greater freedom of access, particularly outside the university itself.

‘Yes, I am a member of a discussion group...I joined 3 years ago and I'm still getting e-mails...it's in London it's...imagine Dungeons & Dragons, except you are the guy with a plastic/rubber sword beating other people...it was fun when I was 15/16...grown out of it a bit now...Don't use e-mail for academic use, definitely use it for personal use... e-mail friends.’ [28016 from text unit paragraph 44]

‘The Internet...I've got a Hotmail account...about...I don't really use the Hotmail account because I've got the university address...but a couple of times a week I would check on the Internet, but e-mail I would check at least once a day....to be honest that's only because it's free and cheaper than phone calls so if the university is going to provide that it's great, great...it keeps me in touch with people...thank you very much JISC!’ [20104 from text unit paragraph 24]

‘E-mailing my friends and keeping in contact. I use Hotmail...academic, not really..’ [11103 from text units 414-419]

‘(sites regularly used).. Web-based e-mail that’s all. I’m frequently not at university...I’ve got an e-mail address at home as well...so I can pick it up wherever I am’. [28108 from text unit paragraph 51]

The preference for Web-based e-mail systems expressed by the students is reflected in the following staff quote.

‘I am happy to e-mail students, you tend to find they have gone to Hotmail rather than the university address’ [11206 (library staff) from text units 274-276]

The rise in the use of Web-based e-mail systems is returned to in the Conclusions (6.11.2).

6.1.3 Learning about EIS by new students

The new student learns about EIS, and is prompted to use these primarily by academic staff and other students, and to a much lesser extent by LIS staff and courses run by the library.

‘They give you a handbook with the addresses in to look up for the extra information. For some of the modules last time he just gives you the address and says "I found this, it’s quite good, go and have a look at it", which I didn’t! But my friend did and she says it was quite good. But most of the things you’re given in a handbook and you can get on with it from your lecture, and your textbooks you can buy or take out the library. [24102 from text units 78-86]

‘Well, we’ve got one site where our lecturer, he puts all his notes there, so after the lecture we can just look up, that’s how we use that...and we’ve got other sites for European Studies...like- er...they’re connected with other sites, if you go on to our home page at the university, we can connect to other sites’ [11104 from text units 261-273]

‘I think, it might have been in one of computer lessons when, yes, we'd had a computer lesson and they gave us bits of information about using the computers for French and then they just leave us time to do it...if we want on the computers or we could leave and so I thought that I'd stay and look up the Samuel Beckett thing so there was a bit of prompting I suppose’. [11105 from text unit paragraphs 41-46]

Although guidance is available from various quarters, many students remain unaware of the resources available, and uncertain how best to use to them.

‘Nothing has actually been recommended to me, unless it's in the printed booklet that has been handed out. Nothing audible from the staff. I have got my own personal computer which I have had linked to the Internet for several years, so I have been using Yahoo for a while. Google is also good. I have been introduced to search engines by my friends, and when I go on to the Internet, I usually go through several search engines, to be able to look what there is, and also there is a good... by going to www.ask.com – it's Jeeves, and you ask it a particular question, and they give you the answer if they can. Sometimes it's focused towards the American market...’ [35110 from text units 17-24]

‘I don’t know where I should be searching – I think I’ll try the CD-ROMs, I’ll try the Internet but I’m not sure either of them will yield a result. [40118 from text units 117-121]

Expectations are sometimes hazy and the criteria for a successful search not well formulated.

‘... GeoBase is really helpful...if we didn't have that then I don't think we'd get very far. Only GeoBase and Libertas are the main things I use...that's about it really’. [28103 from text unit paragraph 47]

‘I got most of it, I didn't expect to have everything anyway, but I found most of it was helpful...I still did research outside as well.’ [28014 from text unit paragraph 27]

The issue of staff support for the use of EIS is discussed further in Section 6.6 below.

6.1.4 Time spent searching

The new student spends from two to five minutes for a quick reference enquiry. However, students find ‘an hour’ (sometimes longer) is an acceptable time for searching, a view which reflects that held by other student groups. Some 31% of all students interviewed spent an hour or longer searching.

‘It’s going to sound appalling – I did a computer A-level…it took about an hour’ [20104 text unit paragraph 13]

‘I played for about an hour and a half (laughter)’ [24102 text units 34-35]

‘About an hour and a half...I can explain it in two minutes’ [28102, text units 19-20]

‘it was a couple of hours...[11106 text unit paragraphs 62-63]

Sometimes students felt that successful searching should take a shorter time.

‘...if you know strategies and you say I’m only going to spend ten minutes looking at this and then, so you don’t actually waste so much time’ [11106 from text unit paragraphs 102-103]

Time restrictions on use of HE information services may also influence the time spent.

‘Probably about 3 hours...At that time it was really early on in the year before term started so there were spare computers everywhere...and I think there's no time limit anyway. It says just not to use e-mail between the hours of 10am-4pm if there's someone else needing the computer’ [20101 from text units 23-27]
6.2 The undergraduate

This section focuses on the whole undergraduate community, and in particular examines its use of EIS. In addition, it explores how they progress in knowledge and understanding of key skills in information technology. The longitudinal series of surveys of students at Duke University show that successive student cohorts are increasingly computer and EIS-literate, and that the same cohort increases in competence over time (Lubans 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2000). The exact skills will vary according to the discipline, and how these are specified by individual institutions for the purposes of their programmes, national standard, and QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) requirements. For the purposes of the report the key skills for all disciplines may be assumed to involve:

gaining familiarity with the scope of various sources (Section 6.2.1)
finding information (locating relevant sources) (Section 6.2.2)
problem solving (knowing what information is appropriate for which application) (Section 6.2.3)
presenting information (knowing how to manipulate information and present it for different audiences) (Section 6.2.4)

The tentative conclusion that might be drawn from the 1^st year undergraduate (new student) group is that awareness of sources was relatively low – but that might be expected, and some students were aware that they would move on to other more specialised resources in later years, and would receive support. This section explores in more detail some of the evidence.

6.2.1 Use of EIS for particular information purposes

Table 6.3 reveals that the academic assignment and background research remain by far the most popular reasons for conducting the critical incident. As anticipated the use of EIS for project work and revision were higher for undergraduates other than the 1^st years. In many cases, however, the purpose of the search was background research for an assignment – and could also be viewed as planning for an assignment.

Purpose	Undergraduate only questionnaires n = 300 %	Undergraduate only interviews n = 86 %
Assignment	58.0	38.37
Background research	50.67	8.14
Presentation	18.67	4.65
Paper	18.0	2.33
Project	17.0	24.42
Revision	16.67	5.81
Job search	16.33	5.81
Planning	16.0	6.98
Bibliographic check	13.0	5.81
Shopping	10.67	5.81
Thesis	10.33	4.65
For someone else	5.0	3.49
Other	0.67	6.98

Table 6.3 Purposes for which information was sought by undergraduates (critical incident)

The ‘recreational’ category was removed from the questionnaire as it seemed difficult to phrase this without implying that students might be searching pornography sites. Some might be honest but there was the possibility of getting unreliable answers to this and so the category was dropped. It is difficult to make further judgements, as the questionnaire returns are the result of large returns from three sites in the exception survey (60 from one, and over 180 from another two) (see institutions 35, 36 and 37 in Table 5.2).

6.2.2 Finding information

6.2.2.1 EIS used

The non-use of subject gateways, and the very low use of JISC negotiated services, electronic journals, and OPACs other than those of the local institution reflects the pattern for new students (6.1.1). A comparison of the result for new students and the whole undergraduate body reveals that there is not significant variation in the pattern of EIS use. Expectations that the new student would move on to use more sophisticated EIS in later years appears not to be borne out.

The predominance of Internet use, in particular search engines, by all undergraduate students is borne out in the returns. Search engines, e-mail and OPACs are the sources used most frequently (Table 6.4). Overall (questionnaires and interviews), search engines are the most frequently cited source used to answer the query considered as the critical incident. The questionnaire respondents may have tended to answer the question in the sense ‘what do you use’ rather than ‘what did you use on this occasion’, whereas the interviewees tended to be more specific in their conversation about one particular incident, which sometimes formed part of a larger search task. In the interviews it was possible to tease out the differences between the some of the electronic information services that might be considered simply the ‘Internet’ to the questionnaire respondent giving rise to a higher incidence of ‘Other Web EIS’.

EIS	Undergraduate questionnaires n = 300 %	Undergraduate interviews n = 86 %	Combined Undergraduate n=386 %
Search Engines	76.67	63.95	73.83
E-mail	29.67	11.63	25.65
OPAC (own institution)	28.67	8.14	24.09
Other Web EIS	14.33	47.67	21.76
Local EIS	18.0	9.30	16.06
JISC negotiated services	11.0	9.30	10.62
Databases via Web	11.67	2.33	9.58
All e-journals	4.67	11.63	6.22
Own HEI Web site	4.0	12.79	5.96
Other institutional Web sites	1.67	11.63	3.89
OPACs (other institutions)	1.0	6.98	2.33
Gateways	0	2.33	0.52
Note: Questionnaires with response ’Internet’ have been counted as Search Engines

Table 6.4 EIS used in the critical incident search by undergraduates

Interviewees and questionnaire respondents were asked about electronic information services used frequently, and which were their favourites, as a further check on the types of electronic information services perceived as important. Some respondents answered the ‘favourite’ without listing any other resource which means the results in Table 6.5 should be considered cautiously, and it must also be remembered that a high percentage (41%, 224/542) did not answer this question. Identification of ‘favourites’ and regularly used services in the transcripts was done by checking for phrases such as ‘I couldn’t do without’, ‘I probably use X most’, ‘Y – every day, nearly every day’.

The first two columns of Table 6.5 show the rank order of regularly-used EISs by undergraduates, with e-mail and search engines predominating, although OPACs and local electronic information services (e.g. own or institutional CD-ROMs) are also important; there is a correlation with the rank order of the favourites column. Both sets of data giving credibility to the findings in Table 6.4.

Rank order	Undergraduate questionnaires n = 300	Undergraduate interviews n = 86	‘Favourites’ from interviews (all students & staff)
1	Search engines	E-mail	E-mail
2	E-mail	OPAC (own institution)	Search engines
3	OPAC (own institution)	Search engines	OPAC (own institution)
4	Local EIS	Local EIS	Local EIS
5	Other Web EIS	Own HEI Web site	JISC negotiated services
6	Databases via Web	Other Web EIS	Databases via Web = Other Web EIS = All e-journals
7	JISC negotiated services	All e-journals

Table 6.5 Regularly used EIS and favourite EIS

The interviews offer some of the preferences, ‘wish lists’, and reasons for selecting certain services. They also indicate some of the problems in classifying electronic information resources and services. Most students use the search engines, sometimes bypassing other helpful routes supplied by the university, whereas others look specifically to Departmental sites, and some do not seem to be particularly sure how they get to the resource.

‘Departmental things, the Maths department in particular are very good usually for...there’s a wonderful thing I found at the end of last term, one of the lecturers had put on in a lovely format so that you could fit on three floppy discs, a version a PostScript viewer so that you can see Maths solutions, that was lovely. Quite a few people are putting their solutions online now so that’s good’ [34101 from text units 97-104]

‘I generally use a site called Sportscience.org and it’s...I’m not sure if it’s British but it’s a sports science Web page, I’m a member of that and you get daily updates from them and if there’s anything useful that’s related to my research I just tend to go in and check it out. I also use FirstSearch, you logon through the library, which is a good service for abstract searches to then go and find them in the British Library or whatever. Predominantly the Sportscience site, it’s got so many good links that you can generally find it all from that base.’ [30102 from text units 81- 91]

‘I probably couldn’t live without the catalogue in the library. They have online journals as well, one called PsychLit, which I use quite a lot, it’s very useful for journals. What are gateways?’ [19101 from text units 117-120]

‘(Own HEI Web site)...Yes, mainly for the psychology site for references and links to social sciences and suggested Web sites, course aims and objectives, exam timetable’ [20103 from text unit paragraph 47]

‘I could conceivably not need to use the Internet and not use e-mail...I mean if I hadn’t started using it then I wouldn’t think Oh I’d love to have e-mail...but it would be a lot more difficult not to have it...but personally I could do without it’ [20105 from text unit paragraph 36]

‘Well I went through most of the first year without reading electronic journals, I’d certainly find it more awkward to do without them but the university library has such a large collection that it’s not really a problem at all...It would be good if the university had more electronic journal subscriptions because a lot of the papers I sometimes find, if I’m doing a MEDLINE search, you can’t get hold of, because the university doesn’t have either a paper subscription or an electronic subscription’ [24103 from text units 175-190]

‘...yes I think the BIDS has the major type of sources I think all third years use, so I think we need BIDS a lot in order to find references. I think it would be really, really useful if they had larger abstracts in BIDS rather than that sort now’ [40110 from text units 88-90]

Sometimes the interviewees displayed a misunderstanding of the terminology that they were using.

I’ve been able to look at the journals, and mostly I think, journals like the ERIC, BIDS, things like that, so from the Website we are able to explore it. [27101 from text units 101-128]

Some desired services are available but students were unaware that they, or something very similar, existed. The lack of knowledge about the subject gateways was particularly noticeable, but even the subject gateways are unlikely to help students who are doing the newer popular subjects such as sports sciences.

‘I think a lot of it is, when you’re doing research, especially in college, because it’s only a very small library, they don’t always have the bits you need there, so it means that doing a search, especially for journal articles, to be able to find what they are and were we can get them from. I think, you know, if there was more access to them, electronically, the actual journal articles, sometimes you can send off for a lot of them, but if they haven’t got them that’s it really, so, if that was more computerised or whatever, it might make it a bit easier’ [14105 from text units 94-104]

There are no clear criteria for the selection of individual search engines, as is apparent from the quotations following Table 6.6.

Search Engine	Transcripts n=129 %
Yahoo	33.71
AltaVista	21.91
Lycos	12.92
Excite	11.24
Google	5.62
InfoSeek	5.62
AskJeeves	5.62
Northern Light	3.37
MetaCrawler	3.37
Dogpile	2.81
HotBot	2.81
UKPlus	1.69
WebCrawler	1.12
Go Crawl	0.56
NetSearch	0.56

Table 6.6: Search engine use

Table 6.6 shows the popularity of four main engines but a wide range of others used. Although there are no data to identify reasons for choice, there was a sense from the transcripts of institutional influence in some cases.

‘It brings up the [name] university Web site and it has links to all sorts of things but I just use the address at the top because we have Netscape, in the address box I just delete [university] and put in AltaVista.com’ [32104 from text units 183-185]

‘I just used the search engine that’s built into my access to the Internet...it’s just the one on AOL, its own search engine’ [14105 from text units 18-24]

‘Lycos I use a lot. Yahoo! Usually because they’re the first ones that come up’ [11102 from text units 468-469]

‘Usually. I find it's (Yahoo! the best, I find it's more accessible. I went into it and for my search I just wrote in 'KKK' (Ku Klux Klan) and got access to about twenty sites straight away, so it was great.’ [35107 from text units 15-17]

‘Infoseek is my personal preference...I’ve used Yahoo and the university has one that comes up straightaway ...yes Net Search’ [20105 from text unit paragraph 43]
6.2.2.2 Perceptions of, and attitudes to, EIS

One of the perceived advantages of using EISs, is the ability to produce different, more up-to-date references from those other students have found (or reproduced from module materials supplied). Such students see the use of EIS partly as a way of obtaining a better assessment grade.

‘If I’m writing up practical reports, it’s sometimes nice to go on to the Internet because everyone’s doing the same thing, and it’s nice to have something different. Or put different references in there. Because if everyone has the same references...it just gives the lecturer something else to think about when marking’ [11102 from text units 317-325]

‘The more information you get, the better it is...so I’m still looking’ [40110 from text unit 52]

‘I wanted more information that would look good on the bibliography, so I thought "Internet quotes"! So we went to the back of one of the textbooks and found a reference to where we would find more information, went to the computer, and found the Website, looked down and what were on it, the titles of the essays that we wanted...like mini-discussion papers the authors had written’ [14101 from text units 24-30]

When there are specific requirements for information skills in the programme, as there are for teacher training in England and Wales, this may affect attitudes towards ‘mastering the Internet’.

‘I sometimes use the Internet just to explore, just to sit and play, because I’ve got it at home now, I want to make myself more familiar with how to get to places and what to do [14104 from text units 95-113]...I want to be able to use it (the Internet), I want to be in a position where I can teach children how to use it effectively. So it’s like my own research, if you like. [14104 from text units 165-169]

Behavioural change in information seeking is difficult to identify, and one does not expect dramatic conversion; although some undergraduate interviewees did note that the resources found would be used again, and that they had learnt something that would alter their information seeking behaviour in future.

‘Because I come from Manchester I wanted to go and use the library there because we didn’t have the books that I needed. I wanted to know first if they had them there and I could get onto the catalogue on the Internet...[19101 from text units 13-16]...It wasn’t something I realised you could do, get on to other systems, like other catalogues. I guess now that I know of it, if I can’t get books here I’ll look for Manchester and then I can just go home and go there’ [19101 from text units 68-71]

‘I’ve used like CD-ROMs and stuff in the past for some, mainly to do with science specialism for information, but they tend not to be very detailed, but they’re all right as a starting point. I use the Internet quite a bit now, but I didn’t up until sort of last year. [14105 from text units 107-121]

‘...and it was the first experience I’d had of it (standards site)...You basically go in and pick a subject that you want and you can download a whole scheme, and go on to get more information, resources and things for it. It was very useful, considering that I’ve spent the last three years writing them all! [14102 from text units 25-30]...I’ll probably do it quite often, now that I know where to look [14102 from text units 76-77]

‘...I wasn’t really up on using the library very much until my dissertation started, I tend to buy the books I need...I’ve used (other libraries catalogues) ...through the university library catalogue here...they have online links to them, you can log on (nearby university), and ATHENS I sort of went on to and decided I didn’t have time. COPAC I’ve heard of but I don’t think I’ve ever used it. That’s the area I’m exploring soon. [24101 from text units 207-213]...But Philosophy, there is a lot of people who, big universities have proper sites dedicated to it, and discussion groups and all sorts, so I have used them, when I was doing an essay on Nietzsche’ [24101 from text units 231-235]

In some cases the intentions are there, but not yet realised.

‘With my work, I know it’s good to use the information on the Internet and there’s so much information there and I know we’re doing research studies and more and more and there’s lots of sites for occupational therapy, I know I should really get to use them more...[30101 from text units 84-90]

The Internet is the first resort for many students, used automatically as a fundamental source for all kinds of information.

‘No, I do this for most of my assignments...I go and look up on the Internet for other resources...you know, besides books all the time...it’s something alternative to do as well...No, it isn’t always work...my dad has a racehorse in training and I can look up under that to see the form and everything...it’s great, my sister showed me how to do that...what else...just things like holidays and things like that’ [35101 from text units 48-54]

‘I use the Web a lot more, especially for things like trying to learn how to do things, like (topic), these things are being taught as thoroughly as we’d like because it was a kind of emergency, not do this, do (topic) instead, teaching them how we’re going to do problems so they’ve like suggested, here’s numerous Websites that’ll help you with (topic), and a lot of the lecturers have stuff on their Websites, so I know one of them keeps us updated as to hints on the problem sheet, to get us to look on the Website, and then the actual questions we have to do [34102 from text units 146-156]

‘(Interviewer: Do you use the Internet for anything else, personal or anything?)...Yes, anything, like I might have seen something on the television. I really can't remember what it was, but there was a documentary on recently, I can't remember what it was about, but it was something about the Labour party being nepotists, and I thought it was quite interesting. So I think there was a Website listed, and I logged on to that. I think that was the BBC Website in general. I've been on that before a few times. It's quite good....(Interviewer: You do Internet searches for your coursework, is that the most common sort of information source you use?)...I don't really use anything else.’ [35108 from text units 58-67]

‘Rather than computers? Well, I suppose I could have found it from the shop itself, by asking the assistant, but I always feel uncomfortable doing that, because they are trying to sell you what they want to sell you. And I hope the computer is more narrowing down logically rather than through a sales thing.’ [35109 from text units 29-32]

‘When I can't find out either from people I know, or people I think might know somebody else, I tend to look on the Internet, or other means of research. [36104 from text units 55-57]
6.2.3 Search strategies

The emphasis in this section is on the navigation strategies used by students and the alternative routes followed if their first strategy does not work completely successfully, or if they perceive that alternative sources are necessary. Many of the interview transcripts deserve a more in-depth analysis than was possible for this cycle, with some validation through observation of actual searching behaviour. This is a matter that could be addressed in future cycles or else as a complementary project.

In many cases, there was little evidence of a coherent strategy being employed.

‘But no...I just tend to hit the search engines. They are pretty good...[17102 from text units 20-21]

Sometimes various resources were used, in a specific order.

‘The Encarta one and I can't remember what the other one was... it was the Collins one. Just to sort of get me started. And then Internet search."[11102 from text units 22-25]

‘I looked for some information on my assignment, physical chemistry, and CD-ROM, had Encarta 98, but that didn’t really give me much information at all. So I searched through...I put a lot of keywords in, didn’t have any information at all, and I went into the Internet, I went for a whole hour...went into Lycos...I’ve been there before and it’s quite fast, it gave me quite a few Web pages’ [11103 from text units 32-56]

Within the Internet, hypertext links are used, sometimes successfully, or at least with some hope of eventual success.

‘Logged on and got onto the Internet...got to Netscape and then went to the Yahoo search engine..I just find it easy to use, it's laid out nicely and a lot of the junk on the Internet isn't usually included on that search engine so it's a lot easier to find the information that I usually need. I usually use a variation but Yahoo is usually the one that I start with...if I can't find what I want there, then I'll go to one of the others. At Yahoo I typed in something like 'music Websites' or something of that description and it brought back a list of different sites. Off hand I can only remember two of them – ZZSounds.com and Music123.com – went there and had a look around, entered the free prize draws and so on, looked at the prices which were a bit cheaper than the high street prices for things but not a vast amount, and it was all in American dollars. Well I'm a musician anyway, so checking the prices of things is something I'm always doing – so it's ongoing...not that I'm ever buying any of them, I'm just monitoring them. [28108 from text unit paragraph 11].

‘I went into Netscape which is the Internet, and probably it was…could be Excite, either that one or Look Smart or something…I go into different ones maybe if there isn't information or whatever...then I typed in whatever…like "skin folds of men and women" in the search part of it and just waited then for all the different information, all different sites…visited various sites to see if they were any good…if not then I'd go back…I'd often to through all the sites, then at the bottom it said 'more sites like these' and then I'd go to that one…and if there was information I'd found I'd print it off.’ [35102 from text units 14-23]

Some students have well practised strategies for regular monitoring of particular subject areas.

The other thing I do quite often is go and look at the NASA Web sites because they have quite often got updates of things that you hear on the news and if you try and keep in mind what they are working on it gives you an idea of how it fits in with what you are learning. Gives you something to aim at eventually’ [17102 from text units 44-49]

Other students tend to use one search engine, often the first that comes up, and will use different search engines only if the first does not give enough information for the purpose.

‘Well, you go in and click on Internet resources, and that will bring up various search engines. I normally use Yahoo because they tell you that that is a good one to use in the computer handouts, and I use Lycos sometimes as well. Go into Yahoo and you have the choice of subjects available to you. Either go to Arts and Humanities and go in that way, or just 'Irish history' and 'enter' to search...It comes up with whatever results categories it has found, so you just flick through them and see what sites are available. (Interviewer: Did you go to other sites?)... Yes, you just go and see if it is pertinent to what you are doing. I found it was a bit too simplistic for what I was after, so I thought it would have to be books that I have to go to – unfortunately.’ [35108 from text units 13-24]

A few (but only a few) gave an account of alternative routes and revision of strategies, as in this search for the price of a car from the Netherlands.

Stage 1: Manufacturer's Web site
‘I went to the UK Website of the manufacturer...this was at home...I didn't use a search engine, I knew their Website, well guessed it more or less, and it was correct.
Stage 2: Branch sites
They had a link to their other branches, well their other country Websites, so I clicked on the Netherlands and it got me through to that and it was all in Dutch and I didn't have a clue! But I managed to muddle my way through it by clicking on all the links that were available...what I was looking for was pricing or links to local garages in the Netherlands.
Stage 3: Located specification sheets
I managed to get some specification sheets that were partially in English so that was OK...and I got the list of dealers in the Netherlands and they had hyperlinks to their relative pages..so basically, all the ones which had hyperlinks, I clicked on those and there was more Dutch! That was it really because at that stage I thought 'I don't understand any of this'
Stage 4: Contact by e-mail
but they all had e-mail addresses, so I sent them all an English e-mail asking them to send me information. I did have a little AltaVista tool for translation but it only works for French and German so it wasn't much use for Dutch... I just went for the manufacturer name – that's what I normally do .com or .co.uk first and then if that doesn't give me anything useful I'll use AltaVista. [28105 from text unit paragraphs 12-14]
Stage 1: Choice of search engine
‘I like the layout of that particular search engine, I find it more easy – other than Lycos or InfoSeek – so I like the layout and the way they show information and home pages – so that’s why I went to AltaVista.
Stage 2: Search terms
At AltaVista I just typed in "anti-viral therapy" because that was the topic and pressed enter. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any article or home page like a specific sort of publications and some other really, really irrelevant info like companies advertising their products and stuff like that so it was completely irrelevant – it wasn’t useful at all.
Stage 3: Move to JISC negotiated services
So I tried BIDS...I went to BIDS and still it wasn’t really successful...but it wasn’t helpful very much because what I got again was very specific journals – really, really specific like describing particular drugs but I just wanted general sort of information on the status right now of anti-viral therapy.
Stage 4: The library
So...then I went back to the library here and tried to find some books randomly and I was quite lucky, I found a couple of books on anti-viral therapy. I looked at the references and from the references I got back into BIDS – (laughs) what else could I do – I went back into BIDS and this time I was lucky because there was a person who was in the references and I looked for him and, apparently, he has written a couple of books on anti-viral therapy and I read the summary and they looked quite promising, and that was it basically.’ [40110 from text units 18-35]

For dyslexic students sequences can cause problems.

‘You can come down here (library) and use BIDS but that has lots and lots of sequences to go through and because I’m dyslexic...trying to remember sequences I find very very difficult and so it’s with fear and trepidation that I ever try and use these things...I would prefer to stand there and go through month after month copies of magazines looking for the title I want than try and use BIDS...I am phobic as far as BIDS is concerned...definitely...I hate it [28101 from text unit paragraph 20]

6.2.4 Information presentation

Many HEIs require coursework to be created electronically, and consequently one advantage of the use of EIS is the facility to download or cut-and-paste material directly into a piece of coursework. Thus, the ability to manipulate and present electronic text featured in some of the interview transcripts.

‘I have Encarta, which I use, that’s a nice reliable source that you can cut and past, I like that! It even references itself when you do it [24101 from text units 237-239]...if they made electronic information more reliable or referenceable, that’s not a word but I’ll use it, if they made it so I could quote it in an essay, I would use it gladly, it’s a much easier format, to take a quote you just highlight it and stick it in and that’s it done, you don’t have to worry about copying exactly word-for-word’. [24101 from text units 175-181]

‘All the information would have to be put on the programme, which is designed on computer in the first place...need things like name of the venue for one thing...what bands are playing...the paperwork and that is my forte...And then things like my DTP program comes in handy...(also) handy for front covers for assignments and so on, makes them look nice (Interviewer: Does it get you better marks?)...No they ignore it’ [28108 from text unit paragraphs 35-42]

‘Over the past week I’ve been writing out my lab formal account, for which I’m using Word and Excel, and plotting all my data and stuff...Finding data? I used it but not totally successfully, I was trying to find examples of other experiments, well the same experiment but that other people have done on the Internet. I had previous success with a previous experiment but not with the one I’m currently doing, but I have used it in the past couple of weeks, to look up, say in BIDS or something like that, that show there are better ways of doing my experiment than the way I did’. [34102 from text units 27-38]

The use of EIS may be influenced by the growth of individual and collaborative project work.

‘I think the reality is that with the change in the ways students are working, much more self self-paced, and also team work projects...they have to do group projects and so on...they’re increasingly having to use primary information from journals and datasets, particularly in the business area and languages’ [11401 from text unit paragraph 6]

For electronic journals, full text offers the advantage of instant accessibility.

‘Actually people expect it...they now get rather puzzled when they get a list of references...some of the students I mean, they look at you with the sort of look "What’s the use of this?" – well, I’m sorry, you’ve now got to wander round and find them’ [18401 from text unit paragraph 49]

‘I try to get as many journals as I can electronically because it’s just easier and I don’t have to pay the university’s extortionate photocopying charges...They charge 6 pence a sheet for photocopying and I can e-mail it to myself at home and read it on my computer, so I don’t bother. Anything I can get electronically I do’ [24103 from text units 23-31]

The downside for academic staff is the ease of plagiarism and the difficulty of checking whether the students’ work is their own. From the student perspective there are some quite attractive options between retrieving useful snippets or quotes and unattributed use of others’ work.

‘...so I copied about three quarters of the Website into Word, and captured about four pictures, then used that as the basis to write the report...made it look nice and printed it out using the laser jet’ [20104 from text unit paragraph 11]

‘On the Web you get sites to help you out with CVs, covering letters and that which I find quite hard...putting down "I’m so great", so the more help with that I can get the better’ [28110 from text unit paragraph 29]

‘...and my friend’s just discovered one (Website) where there’s lesson plans, so I might go and look at some of those, but the formats won’t be the same as ours’ [14101 from text units 111-114]

‘Well certainly full-text is very popular and they prefer that because if they find something they can get it straight away...full text in PDF format is their Valhalla’ [17401 from text unit paragraph 50-51]

This matter has featured for several years on discussion lists in the education sector, and individual HEIs should continue to address the issue. The wider availability of full-text material can only exacerbate the situation.

6.3 The postgraduate

6.3.1 Use of EIS for particular information purposes

Postgraduates should be able to search effectively and most, if they have recently graduated, could be expected to be familiar with a range of resources. Their patterns of information behaviour are likely to vary depending on whether they are pursuing a research degree (PhD, MPhil), a specialist Masters degree or an MBA type of programme. Table 6.7 suggests that their patterns of purpose and use of electronic information services do not differ markedly from those of undergraduates. Differences occur in the higher priority given to searching for jobs, but this is likely to be an effect of the time at which most questionnaire returns were obtained from the postgraduate group (June).

‘(Interviewer: Do you use things like job search sites?)...I use them all the time...TES is the best, you can put in your search criteria, and they e-mail you when any jobs in your field, in your age group, in the sort of geographical area you are looking for comes up’ [37106 from text units 76-81]

‘Well, in the legal field, I suppose we have got everything here, can’t really complain, everything’s available. I suppose one thing that would probably help would be...a lot of people don’t understand how the job searches...the companies out there such as Reed. I have just registered with them at home. If we had been told that here, it would have been better. They have really helped a lot as regards my own profession’ [36109 from text units 122-128]

Other differences are entirely predictable on the different type of work – more emphasis on theses, a slightly greater emphasis overall on background research, and less emphasis on revision, reflecting (presumably) more emphasis on course work or research rather than exam-based assessment (cf Tables 6.1 and 6.3).

Purpose	Postgraduate questionnaires n = 178 %	Postgraduate interviews n = 35 %
Assignment	55.06	14.29
Background research	53.93	17.14
Job search	34.83	8.57
Planning	28.65	11.43
Presentation	21.91	8.57
Bibliographic check	14.61	11.43
Paper	14.61	5.71
For someone else	12.92	8.57
Shopping	12.36	8.57
Project	11.24	17.14
Thesis	8.99	22.86
Revision	5.06	8.57
Proposal	4.49	5.71
Other	0	11.43

Table 6.7 Purposes for which information was sought by postgraduates (critical incident)

6.3.2 Finding information

In respect of their use of EIS, one might expect that postgraduates would make more use of databases and journal articles, and less use of the OPAC to find books than undergraduates. Searching might be expected to be more specific, and if that is the case, the pattern of searching may vary according to discipline. The sample size, particularly for the interviewees, is comparatively small and some extreme values might therefore be expected.

EIS	Postgraduate questionnaires n = 178 %	Postgraduate interviews n = 35 %
Search engines	76.40	48.57
E-mail	28.09	8.57
OPAC (own institution)	21.35	20.0
Local EIS	17.98	11.43
Databases via Web	13.48	5.71
Other Web EIS	10.67	54.28
JISC negotiated services	9.55	11.43
All e-journals	3.37	25.71
Other institutional Web sites	0	22.86
OPACs (other institutions)	0	8.57
Own HEI Web site	0	5.71
Gateways	0	5.71

Table 6.8 EIS used in the critical incident search by postgraduates

Table 6.8 reveals a pattern that is fundamentally no different to that of undergraduates (Table 6.4). This is perhaps unexpected given the high level of formal background research required, and the greater emphasis on projects and theses, in postgraduate education. For example, higher use of structured and quality-controlled EIS such as JISC negotiated services, e-journals and gateways might have been expected, compared with the use of search engines with their variable quality results. Within the table there appear to be some anomalies between the two groups of responses. The anomalies concern the use of electronic journals, institutional Web pages and Web EIS. Possibly there is a discipline and institutional effect – some of the anomalies, for example, may be accounted for by electronic journals being more popular in a few disciplines.

The sample of postgraduate interviewees was derived from a relatively small number of institutions (8), but did include a spread of disciplines and types of student (including foreign students).

Some foreign students, in particular, have to cope with learning a great deal about EIS in a short period of time, but may quickly find some personal benefits in the use of EIS, particularly to keep in touch with home events.

‘We don’t take a lot of time learning about these ones. It’s our first time and we’ve had them for a very short time, and we are finished with ICT now. (Interviewer: Do you use e-mail?)...Oh yes, that one I use very, very often, I use it to communicate with friends from other places, and you e-mailed me and I replied!...And although this one I am not so much sure with, there is lots of information out there anyway, we can get from all these places. I can sometimes read even newspapers, sometimes I like to read what’s happening in my country, (named), and I can do that on the Web...Actually, I don’t know what’s the difference, because you talk of Website and Internet and I don’t know, I cannot get the difference.' [27101 from text units 101-128]

‘I don’t know if it’s relevant or not...but since I’m Japanese and I also want to know about the situation in Japan' [40113 from text unit paragraphs 95-96]
6.3.3 Search strategies

Postgraduates may be focused and persistent in their searching but do not necessarily employ cohesive strategies.

‘I went straight to the Government pages. I knew where it was. I typed in what I was looking for...and I just looked for the nearest match and went through that (Interviewer: Was it an urgent search?)...Yes it was (Interviewer: About how long did you spend on it?)...Probably about an hour and a half, something like that. I think it was quicker because I knew where I was going’ [36110 from text units 14-30]

‘Generally if I have to find anything where I am not sure where it is going to be, I usually use Ask Jeeves, which is Ask.com, I use that all the time really because it’s quite an easy way to get through. It has been advertised recently on TV...Yes, it (topic of search) is in the textbook but the thing is, with that (Internet site) it breaks it down quite simply...It’s nice and simply laid out and it gives you quite good information [36106 from text units 16-30], (Interviewer: Was this search typical?) It was fairly typical. If I have a problem, I tend to look on the Internet [36106 from text units 56-57]..(Interviewer: E-mail, discussion groups?) ...I’ve got too much to do really, I don’t tend to sit at the computer and chat to people. I’m either looking for something for work or I’m looking for something in particular’ [36106 from text units 81-84]

‘Yes, that’s the one (search engine) that comes up. I don’t know much about them so I just use that one...[36107 from text units 25-26]...It’s the sort of thing that if you have an hour between lectures, you go on there looking for entertainment, news, sport, just if you want to find out something. I can never remember site names, I just go to one and click on to others, and hope it will take me to interesting ones’ [36107 from text units 59-63]

‘I go to whoever gives results – I try a few different search engines. I usually start with MSN and Excite, because they are the default on my particular service. I use Lycos quite a lot, and Ask Jeeves occasionally, AltaVista, although AltaVista isn’t that good for looking up British education as it’s so American oriented...One reason I can’t remember them all is that I have done a search on the term "search engines" and came up with this really useful list of different search engines I have never heard of, and tried a few...’ [37107 from text units 29-38]

‘So it’s necessary to do quite complex research then into what’s happening, and you need to get to the Microsoft Website and to look at the Websites for the manufacturers of your devices...very often those don’t work and then you have to start looking at newsgroups and discussion groups and discussion forums...very often you find stuff in magazines, there’s television channel called dot tv, where you can write into or e-mail and they will get a group of experts to discuss your problem...I don’t need to do the search myself, I could e-mail. But when I do the search myself, I feel happier because I am learning at the same time [37108 from text units 36-55]

Some need to ‘surf’ for their course work and others enjoy the act of surfing.

‘(Interviewer: How long did you spend on the search?)...About an hour or so. because I looked up statutes as well to look at the full text (Interviewer: Alternative sources?) ...It would probably have been in books or journals, but we are encouraged to use electronic sources and it is a lot easier than going to look up a book index. It’s a lot less time consuming, which I find good...I moved around when I changed my keywords to narrow down my search, because initially I came up with a ridiculous number of cases...I use the Web quite a lot, just to have a browse around. I have found some holiday Websites...I’m interested in equine things...and I heard from a friend that they (Badminton Horse Trials) have a site, so I looked on AltaVista to find that Website’ [36108 from text units 39-81]

Some postgraduate research students, as might be expected, have acquired experience of EIS and have learned which sources are appropriate for various purposes. Electronic journals are important resources for this group of users, but the majority use search engines routinely.

‘I usually use Google.com...(it) uses a stats method and it rules out all the unnecessary – and it is very precise I believe, in terms of academic searching...I know Northern Light, but it is more a commercial academic engine so I prefer Google, and it has a great searching facilities...including academic work pages [37105 from text units 22-30]...The general trend I go for is search engines for definitions, etc. but still for academic I have to search for electronic journals for papers [37105 from text units 81-83]...Before we used to have loads of interlibrary loans, quite a lot of books, but now we are moving from there. So now there is this vacuum in between, so they don’t buy books anymore ...and they say they have applied for electronic journals and that is only for those powerful departments if you look into it. So the other students in the middle are having real trouble getting hold of proper journals. They save so much time. Just load down the pdf and you can save it on your hard drive [37105 from text units 125-133]

‘Trying to find something on data mining issues...it might have started by reading a background reference on a paper and then I looked up that reference on the Internet and then a further search...going through Netscape Search, typing in the name of the conference it came from ...If I can’t find the information on the net then I might look at Libertas (library system OPAC) and then maybe BIDS’ [28107 from text unit paragraphs 7-14]

‘I probably started off with our local intranet, and had a look at the library’s Voyager system. That’s not bad to start for journals. Outside of that , the BIDS system, that’s not particularly useful for me, but that’s probably where I would go second. Failing that I would probably go to one of the big search engines – AltaVista or Excite, one of those [37103 from text units 14-18]...I haven’t found any (information sources) that are brilliant so far, I’ve got to be honest. It’s a pretty unusual field’ [37103 from text units 68-70]

‘Some of the papers are very difficult to get hold of, and I think, well I will try a little bit more, and there are universities that release working papers, conference papers free of charge, and I try and search for those. For example, at the moment I am working on a dataset that was derived from the University (name) and they have published a hell of a lot of working papers, so for things like that I just to into their Web page and search that way. [37102 from text units 84-90]

‘I’m rebuilding some equipment at the moment...I wanted to replace some cabling...so looked on the RS Website...had a look at their online catalogue and just looked it up by stock number to check the rating [15101 from text unit paragraphs 9-10]...the more (online journals) that get available the more you use them and the same with archive stuff’ [15101 from text unit paragraph 53]

Yet in spite of having completed a first-degree course, postgraduate students can still display a lack of skill in the use of EIS. This is apparent even though in some cases they may have been given training. This echoes the analysis of the findings of Table 6.8.

‘I use the Internet a lot, I like it, but there is so much information that it becomes frustrating when you are looking for something in particular and you could just go to the library... and just get a book’ [31107 from text units 19-22]

‘I was looking for information, articles, whatever on...into the intervention in Somalia...I think I need a lot of help with my Web technique of searching because I do get a lot of rubbish as well coming up, it’s hard to find the useful aspects, but I did get two or three interesting articles’ [40102 from text unit paragraphs 7-8]

‘It was BIDS...it was the first time I’d used it...I wanted to download a journal article because I couldn’t find it in the library [40114 from text unit paragraphs 21-22]...Yes we had in the second year on my undergraduate – a study skills module and we were introduced to BIDS, OCLC...I knew how to use the Internet, well, it’s quite an easy thing to use, isn’t it [40114 from text unit paragraph 26]...Well it’s funny...recently I’ve been using it (the Internet) more often because my boyfriend’s acquired this computer, so I’ve been having a look at DVDs and CD-ROMs...I mean it’s good if, in the end you get what you want, but you don’t always...I’m more a fan of books really’ [40114 from text unit paragraph 64]

One or two reflected on their use of information services at their previous university, and the changes they found at their postgraduate institution.

‘Much less now than I used to. When I was doing my first degree I had an Internet link in my college room with a 10Mb/s link into my computer straight on to JANET basically, and I had lightning fast access, and I just had the computer on with the connection all the time. All sorts of information...because it was there and it was free. Now, at home, I don’t have much time to do stuff other than college work, so if I need to look stuff up I would probably do it at the time...But I do get other information. I am in a band and I have been looking up some information on mosquitoes that’s part of some graphics I want to do for a CD cover. That was purely a visual search...I access the Internet every day, actually searching for information maybe once a day...actually connected ...three or four times a day. Patterns have changed so such, last year it would have been many, many more than that’ [31103 from text units 158-181]

6.4 Perceived benefits of EIS for students

In spite of responses indicating that searches were ineffective, ad hoc and often time consuming, the vast majority of the respondents (90.1%) claimed they had found the information they required and 82.18% claimed that the critical incident considered was a typical search.

One immediate difficulty in dealing with perceived benefits of EIS is that of the different level of expectations of users. Those who have had to do without are more appreciative of the benefits than those who expect nothing else, and the scale of values may be very different. Saving time is a priority for many, and ‘hours spent’ on a search may not be viewed positively, despite the fact that some learning may be taking place about sources.

‘I always waste time, it seems like I spend four hours just looking for things on the Web that I could probably have got in a lot quicker time if I was a bit more skilled at finding things...so yeah, it took...probably a few hours. But then I get distracted by the other things, mad conspiracy theories on it and stuff, so I waste time I suppose’ [40102 from text unit paragraph 20]

Curiosity is a motivation for some Internet searching, sometimes prompted by something seen on television or heard on radio.

‘...and the TS, rates of pay in the army because I am in the TA, I was checking changes to...I had actually seen an ad on TV and realised there was a Website and I thought, Oh, I’ll just check the rates of pay and I could access that, I could identify it so it was just out of interest really’ [28108 31108 from text units 11-17]

‘But when I go on the Internet, I tend to go and look for all sorts of weird and wonderful things, I usually go and look at football scores, because I’m into football, Manchester United’s page’ [35110 from text units 31-32]

‘Ritalin...it’s a drug for treating behavioural difficulties in children...I just knew there was some controversy with it and stuff, so I was just looking it up on the Internet...so I logged in and went to a search engine called Google...it’s a search engine I like...pulled up a list of sites... and one of them had the detail I wanted, it’s a newspaper article from somewhere in America, I think (Interviewer: What prompted this source, would it have been someone’s suggestion?...Well, we were talking about something in the lab. and about the behaviour of someone...saying they had to be on Ritalin...I started thinking I don’t know how this works, so during my coffee break I had a look to find out’ [40112 from text unit paragraphs 11-15]

Some respondents mentioned browsing, but Internet searches are often browsing more in the sense of foraging, exploring new pastures in the hope of finding something interesting and useful. In many cases the perception is that the Internet reaches sources other services do not reach.

‘Yes, I often, on a weekly basis, or even on a day to day basis I research things on the Internet...anything, materials to a lot of the work I do is landscapes, looking for views...I’ve got a vague idea what I’m looking for’ [31107 from text units 9-13]

‘By the time I’d had a look through it, and I thought, shall I print it off, and I didn’t, but I will go back and print some of it off, I was just scanning down really, just to have a general look at it really, so I know where it could where I could get it when it’s more urgent’ [14107 from text units 48-53]
6.5 Use of EIS for communication

Although there are a number of network technologies to assist interpersonal communication, the use of e-mail dominated. Both staff and students use e-mail extensively and the advantage of this form of EIS is that it appears to make contact with organisations (and some individuals within those organisations) easier. It can also add a degree of interactivity to Web-based information services.

Many, but not all, HEIs use e-mail to contact staff and students (and vice versa) as the norm for communication between the centre and students, particularly when administrative details are concerned.

‘(Interviewer: E-mail Websites?)...Like Hotmail and BT Websites – you can have as many e-mail addresses as you like now can't you – mobile phone Websites when I was looking to buy one and I use one now to send text messages to other phones (Interviewer: And these messages...these are personal – friends and family)... Yes, and then other social things like films and gossip – social Websites and that...Oh I use e-mail everyday – not necessarily the Internet as well [40115 from text unit paragraphs 59-62]

‘Well there’s all kinds of different things from looking at the staff directory which we have on the intranet...so you can click on their e-mail address and you are then able to send them an e-mail...I tend to use it all the time...Well, I did one and then as a result I called them’ [10301 from text units 11-24]

‘Usually if I want to see a lecturer I’ll go and try and find the person rather than contact them through e-mail. Usually it’s e-mail because I can’t find them’ [11102 from text units 422-425]

The use of institutional Web sites to identify potential contacts is something that students and staff are beginning to recognise although e-mail may not necessarily replace other forms of personal communication, however.

‘(Interviewer: So what do you use your e-mail for?)...Personal a lot of the time, every day. But quite often during the research stages of a project we will look for companies or people. If we find them on their Websites, they usually have a contact address, and we will go via the e-mail and we usually get good results. (Interviewer: Do you use it academically – do you contact your tutors?)...We have been given a couple of addresses, but I haven't felt the need to. We are in college every day.’[36105 from text units 89-96] ‘...I recently searched for a holiday for a group of six of us for the summer, on the Internet, and have since booked it. (Interviewer: Over the Internet?)...Well, no, because what you do is, you fill in your information. It came up with a request sheet and you fill in the information... and then the next day, through the post, or two days later it was, we got a brochure which had information about villas that suited our specific needs. And we went through and picked those and then rang 'em and did it over the telephone. It was really efficient.’[14104 from text units 18-31]

The shift towards use of Web-based e-mail systems by new students (6.1.2) appears to be reflected in the whole student body. This is perceived as a more convenient means of accessing their e-mails, wherever they are, than via the university-based system. Some may use Web-based systems for personal e-mail, and the university e-mail system to receive administrative and academic information.

‘I've got an e-mail address at (institution) and I also use Hotmail. A bit of a novelty! I use that mainly for contacting friends at other universities, and to keep me in touch with Mum.’ [14103 from text units 87-89]

‘We have got e-mail access here.. I don’t tend to use the College mail, I find that I use the free.. I’ve got a junk mail.. when I’ve been searching when you log onto a place they tend to recognise your e-mail, I don’t know how they do it, but you can get some real junk so I’ve got a Hotmail one which I tend to give out when I think there’s going to be some junk mail attached and I have a Yahoo! for more personal contacts. It doesn’t always help, though, I seem to get junk mail from somewhere on Yahoo! but hey...’ [30102 from text units 145-154]

‘...and also the communication thing particularly whilst I'm out there to keep in touch with e-mail, with people back in England. I will have to have another Hotmail address or something like that. [31108 from text units 137- 139]

A number of respondents intimated that their decision to use Web-based systems resulted from problems associated with the HEI mail server and student accounts.

‘(Interviewer: Do you use the University's Website?)...No, I have got e-mail on that as well, but it never works. I haven't been able to access it at all this year. You can never get into it, and I know that no-one else can either. That's why I have got a Hotmail account. That's why I don't use it, because I would only use it to get through to e-mail.’ [36107 from text units 92-97]

‘When I came here I tried to get a University address, and I couldn't, so I asked someone for help. They said it was down and to try again tomorrow, and I tried for days and days, and I still try occasionally now and I still can't get into it. So I have set up a Hotmail account for myself, and I have got my own home account but there's nothing like an icon on the screen where you click on for your e-mail’ [36108 from text units 118-122].

At the postgraduate research level use of e-mail for scholarly communication is more structured, but still tends to complement face-to-face communication.

‘Well, work related as I said, for my literature review, there's Science Direct, there's the University library, there's BIDS, there's the many universities throughout the land who do similar broad field work as me. On a personal front, it's quite important to keep communication up between friends across the country, through e-mail, university and Hotmail and so on. Because, for example, I have been away to different universities throughout Britain, and I have made lots of friends, and it's important to keep those contacts up. (Interviewer: Do you use your e-mail for academic purposes as well?)...I have done, yes. There is a gentleman who is working in a similar field to mine in Cardiff, so we keep in contact. There's certain people throughout Britain who have said like 'I am here and I am doing this', if you get any information on what I am doing, or if I get anything back, we will pass on that information to one another. That's about it really, there is no more than that, it's not a great deal of people, I can count them on one hand, but the majority of the work that is done in terms of communication happens at quarterly meetings which I have to attend, to say what we are doing and what advances we have made, and most of the work is done internally as well, within the University.’ [37102 from text units 175-194]

6.6 The influence of staff on the use of EIS

Academic and LIS staff recognise that use of EIS needs to be supported by policies for promoting awareness, training in the mechanics of using certain software and hardware, and educating students in the most appropriate use of electronic information services for their academic progress. That recognition has been supported through central initiatives (e.g. the NetSkills programme) and the CTI (Computers in Teaching Initiative) subject groups. The effectiveness of all these programmes is hard, if not nearly impossible to gauge, and there seems some uncertainty about how students themselves might integrate the help and support they could obtain, if indeed they are aware that such support is available. It might be supposed that the new students are more IT literate than previous cohorts and indeed some are, but they may take some time to learn to apply some of the discrete technical skills coherently to academic work. In addition widening access does have its consequences.

‘There’s no doubt that each year we say yes the new cohort...they’ll all be IT literate, and as the young ones come in...there are still those that aren’t...and then as we widen our access to...over groups in sciences to continuing education, they aren’t from the 18-25 bracket, they haven’t come through a system where the computers are in the school...so even though we think we’ve caught up a lot, we haven’t...I hate to make generalisations, but often it’s the mature students who have an IT phobia’ [14401 from text unit paragraph 8]

By their final year students should have a range of information skills and strategies, so that they know which can be applied when, so that a route can be found through the information problem. However, the support of academic and LIS staff is still essential.

For example, an extensive (‘[Took] Ages... about three or four days (in total time)) search by a 3^rd year science student involved the following strategies, which were supported by academic and LIS staff in different ways:

Search JISC negotiated services, requiring [seminars on BIDS and MEDLINE in 2^nd year]
‘First of all I used BIDS, can’t remember what that stands for, searching the databases. What I was searching for was quite hard to find anyway , so I tried MEDLINE..[11101 from text units 4-5]

‘(Interviewer: Why did you choose BIDS, MEDLINE:)...Basically, it’s what we’ve been introduced to in the second year, given seminars on using BIDS and MEDLINE...(Interviewer: Academic staff or library staff?)...Well, it was a sort of combination really) [11101 from text units 51-58]
Then try the Internet, requiring awareness that different search engines give different results
‘then tried just putting it on Yahoo! or something like that...Yahoo was better than the other two’ [11101 from text units 5-13]
As the required information had not been located, the student went to her supervisor for advice
‘I went to my supervisor and went ‘Can’t find anything’ and then he basically told me to use manual sources...I tried looking it up in the Chemical Abstracts, but I didn’t really get very because I didn’t understand how to use it’ [11101 from text units 34-40].
Informal sources were used as well, using e-mail.
‘I tried asking the LIS staff, the lady who like deals with life and health sciences wasn’t there so I was stuck, and then I couldn’t find her..’ [11101 from text units 79-81]

‘And then I’ve written to the drug company, who told me to write to the German arm of the company, and they haven’t got back to me as yet. I used the e-mail for that... [11101 from text units 42-45]

..I ended up ringing them up, in pigeon-German speaking to them and then sent two e-mails, ‘cause it was easier and cheaper than ringing them’ [11010 from text units [11101 from text units 177-179]

Obviously, this was an unusually lengthy search, but for routine searching some strategies can be encouraged in various ways. Sometimes the prompts to use electronic information services can be from assignment requirements, stated or unstated.

‘for essays and things, I mean, the more sources you use the better, it’s better, well, that’s what they’re looking for really this year’ [14107 from text units 78-80]

‘I think it’s just generally information, very much this year they like it very up-to-date and original data as well they’re wanting this year, it’s to try and access that really’ [14106 from text units 82-85]

‘Well I didn’t even know that we could get our hands on this sort of database (highly specialist biomedical database) until I had a word with one of my lecturers, who set the essay, and he said look at this’ [24103 from text units 57-60]

‘For this one it was part of our course, Professional Studies, it was designed to make us go and use the library. So we were given information about how to use it, yes’ [27013 from text units 92-96]

‘Well, because we have an American professor who gave an excellent lecture on bibliography and she started off with this (MLA) and...it struck me as being most useful to what I was looking for’ [32102 from text units 31-34]

Actively teaching students about the use of EIS requires a commitment, particularly in time.

‘Well, one objective I have as a lecturer/tutor is to teach my students how to use BIDS. I did a BIDS search with them last week. One of my aims is to help my students...my 2^nd year students are not familiar really with electronic...the power of electronic data searching so I spent last week’s tutorials going through BIDS searching’ [40310 from text units 69-73]

‘Teaching...you never have the time to spend which you would like on your teaching...there’s always so much more literature out there than you have a chance to look at to determine whether it would be useful for the modules you teach...the growth of Web-based resources particularly, tracking these, exploiting these without actually pointing students towards Web pages which are not only useless but positively counter-productive in terms of your teaching (referring to perpetuation of historical myths)’ [40307 from text unit paragraph 43]

‘Part of the problem is that I don’t yet know what I’m going to be doing myself and how much I’m going to be delegating to others...I am now employing a full-time IT officer to do a lot of nitty gritty work in setting things up...on the other hand, I will, no doubt be producing a lot of Web pages myself using HTML’ ...[20301 from text unit paragraph 39]...last year...I was able to set up a discussion room which I found not very effective because few students bothered to look at them or read them but I’m going to persevere and try again in the future [20301 from text unit paragraph 47]...my project is concerned with improving the quality of learning and teaching in (name of discipline) and related disciplines...I can get hold of people’s lecture notes and things like that...but what I do not get is any discussion or any product which is concerned with enabling people to improve the quality of the learning experience of their students...I had hope that my first product which people could inspect would be a distillation of all that is good in hard copy or on the network and I fear it’s going to be rather a blank page...academics tend to be overly eager to share their research ideas...whereas they are extremely secretive about their methodology and are very reluctant to let other people know what they do...and this has been exacerbated by the teaching quality system’ [20301 from text unit paragraph 56]

‘No, I’ve never used BIDS, shame on me, but what I have done, though, I have used some of the research money I have to get PhD students to do BIDS-based searches for me. Good research training for them and it saves me time...[40307 from text unit paragraph 64]

Students do recognise that an academic’s Web site (not necessarily at their own institution) may be more valuable than other Web sites.

‘(Interviewer: Lecture notes and courseware)...Yes they’re all on the intranet. It varies widely, some people put on a lot of information and some put none...Yes. In a small way I put some information on there which the students can access like the course outline, that’s the only thing I’ve put on so far’ [10301 from text units 207-210]

‘The second one was by a lecturer which was the main reason I chose the site...I thought it might be more use and it was. The page I went to was in the Web site and was on effect size...so I went back to the beginning to find out all about it in the introduction. I didn’t ask anyone for help because there wasn’t anyone but my second option would have been to ring my tutor’ [20103 from text unit paragraph 12]

‘I’ve just done an article in a journal which includes a couple of tables about instances of (topic) and what we tried to do was ...this was over a 25 year period...so rather than list each of the (topic) for each of the years, what we did was, we put in a reference to a Web page which the researcher and I had constructed which had full details...we were trying to do that. Unfortunately, we’ve now got a new Web page in (dept) and it’s proved impossible to find a suitable location within that for this...if I had a personal Web page, which I don’t have, I could do it there’ [40307 from text unit paragraphs 89-90]

Just what the quality of any improved learning experience might be is another question, and teaching/learning objectives may at times conflict with the promotional marketing aspects of a university or departmental Web site.

‘What else would help?...More celebrity lecturers would be nice! More cuddly multimedia kind of lecturing, not just one bloke standing at the front talking at you...I think if they could video the lectures and you could access them on a computer and watch them again, I wouldn’t have to spend all my time turning the tape over...or even transcripts of the lectures provided...you could have so much more information on the Web...interactive activities, worked problems on the Net’ 34102 from text units 190-220]

It is important for LIS and academic staff to ensure that references to EIS are relevant and that resources cited continue to be available. Also important for the appropriate support to be available for the student.

‘The second half of the essay is really difficult, mainly because the journal articles...He keeps giving us references and he doesn’t seem to realise that the articles aren’t in the library, we don’t stock them. I went on the Internet to see if I could get into the journals, and I could but it didn’t seem to work. I could get to the journals but it just had kind of where they were, or the abstracts of it, which library they were at or something, but I needed to be able to see the whole, which I don’t think everyone’s had time to put on. It would be much more useful for me if journals were on the Internet as opposed to books, because we can’t possibly stock all the ones that everyone’s going to need. [19101 from text units 98-111]

‘Sometimes (referring to University Website) there’s a...there was one where there was a whole thing that you had to go through so you could take it home, but it was very difficult to download...sometimes they make the files too big, so to try and get them down onto a floppy disk is really difficult and it’s a pity the lecturers don’t think about those sort of things’ [28101 from text unit paragraph 86]

‘...there’s also a BIDS thing...I’m not sure what it is but my tutor sent me some stuff on it – it scans the Internet or something, particular journals and things...like it gives you references – I used that for one essay a while ago (Interviewer: But you haven’t used it yourself?)...No, I just used the stuff my tutor had sent me’ [40119 from text units 194-198]

‘We’d been told about BIDS through our department, through the library as well, we have a time of research techniques in which we have to do that, you have to look on BIDS, but I’m not totally au fait about BIDS, I just muddle around until I find something. You go into it and type either researchers, lecturers’ names or keywords, that sort of thing, and it gives you a list of like journals and the ones you think are relevant you see if they’ve got those journals in the library, if they haven’t they have some method of getting them I think but I’ve never used that... and some you can just go and look up the journal and find it, that’s quite good. They’ve got something on the Internet as well that’s actually go a lot of journals on it, you just print them off, IGE-something?’ [34102 from text units 41-55]

Respondents were asked about what led them to use the EIS for their critical incident search. Table 6.9 reveals that academic staff (Tutor) were the most significant factor. with very low support from LIS staff and courses. The high number of ‘Other’ responses were largely associated with student prior knowledge or experience of the EIS used.

Factors leading to EIS use	Questionnaire	Interviews	All
Tutor	33.03	8.99	27.08
Student	24.54	2.81	19.17
Read about	16.79	1.12	12.92
Library course	12.18	3.93	10.14
Library staff	7.01	2.81	5.97
Other	42.80	10.67	34.86
No answer	3.14	72.47	20.28

Table 6.9: Factors leading to use of EIS for the critical incident

The reasons for the low incidence of library staff/course support are difficult to discern. Some of the responses were very positive but from others we can see that EIS courses are sometimes available but not attended and that library staff are frequently under considerable pressures which may not allow the development of courses or the provision of one-to-one help.

‘I think if I wanted to find out, if I wasn’t sure how to use...and I wanted to, there are people who would know and the Help Desk in the Library is very good for stuff like that.’ [14104 from text units 135-139]

‘I’ve tried to use the Internet here because before I had it at home but it’s a different system...and it’s very difficult when you don’t know how to use it and they just come and get you into what you want to be in rather than show you. They have specific sessions where you can have Internet training sessions but the timing is not convenient’ [28109 from text unit paragraphs 43-44]

‘(Interviewer: Factors affecting your getting things done?)...Yes, thousands of students coming to ask me questions! Members of staff now don’t assume I have a lunch hour...and so I’m tied up with an awful lot of teaching, and people come along for some information work, or helping with searches for them and I’m really pressed for time to do that and develop the teaching, which often includes developing a thread of worked through searches [34203 from text units 166-169, 188-192]

‘I haven’t had much luck asking librarians in the past so...Not with newspapers – they’ve been great with everything else but basically they don’t really know who’s got what where...or I’m asking the wrong people [20102 from text unit paragraphs 23-25]

There are varying LIS staff attitudes towards the type and degree of support which they can provide.

‘Although of course mostly you don’t do the searching for them, you tell them the sources to search and they go off and do it themselves. It’s only if they’re having problems with it in some particular way that you actually do it...I don’t do that much searching myself, I mean I suppose...it’s awfully variable...[11201 from text units 190-204]

‘Well there’s printed versions of the indexes and abstracts but that’s much more time-consuming and it’s much more difficult to show someone how to use it as well, ‘cause we have a computer in front of us, you just swivel it round to show the borrowers, so that they can then do this themselves’ [13204 from text units 38-43]

‘OK this is the way you do, and again I direct them through our library pages because the automatic thing when they go to a computer either her or in other labs round campus is that they will bring up the library homepage as the Netscape first page and so I link through to that page, through to information resources, through to the database and then give them bits of instruction’ [19201 from text units 65-72]

Apart from formal advice from academic and library staff, one of the most helpful sources seems to be fellow students (19.17%). This is borne out in the interviews.

‘(Interviewer: Did you ask anyone for help?)...Yes from a third year student who knew more about it than I did which was a bit embarrassing!...He ran me through the whole thing and gave me loads of useful addresses which I’d never heard of before.’ [14102 from text units 35-39]

‘(Interviewer: Did you ask anyone for help?)...No, no we (referring to friend in same class, they often work together) managed quite successfully for once!’ [14101 from text units 36-39]

‘Interviewer: Did you ever ask anyone for help...)...Um I don’t think so, I think other students ask ME for help! I’m usually the one that’s actually clued in to what we’ve got to do. I don’t necessarily know how to do it, but I know what we’ve got to do, so I think most people come to me and say "Ooh I don’t have a password for BIDS...I tell them how to do it.//...One person in the group actually knew how to do it and can program games, so he’s been going round teaching everyone else how to do it (QBasic). It’s a bit sad’ [34102 from text units 89-95, 281-284]

‘I knew that there would be something on them and we had a project and we divided the sources between us and I had look at them (newspaper CD-ROMs, institutional Websites)’ [40101 from text units 13-14]

Sometimes the nature of the support was casual, even haphazard.

‘(Interviewer: Were you on your own?)...No, my partner was there and he like...He doesn’t know much about my course, he’s not a biologist. I had all these words and he’s saying well, try a slightly different spelling or something like that...sometimes he can see things in a different way’ [11102 from text units 151-160]

‘(Interviewer: So you did have some help? And that was whom?)...Just the person (another student) sitting next to me’. [32015 from text units 38-41]

6.7 The influence of discipline and subject area on EIS use

An aim of the study had been to monitor the use of EIS by staff and students in different discipline clusters to detect whether there were any differences in the patterns of use of EIS between disciplines.

One of the difficulties in surveying such trends is that of pigeonholing staff and students into particular discipline clusters, even the broad groupings used in the JUSTEIS project. Newer and more popular subject areas for students such as Media Studies and Sports Science may be slanted different ways in different institutions. This is not a new problem as even single, traditional subjects such as Psychology, may be classed as a science in some departments and as a social science in others. The joint honours groupings are another difficulty. Some departments (and disciplines) have more students than others, and although care was taken to ensure that the original sample was representative, better responses from larger departments within a discipline cluster are likely to have biased the results, particularly when the response rates for the questionnaire survey varied so much.

For the study, the following five discipline clusters were agreed:

Pure and Applied Science (PAS)
Maths and Engineering (ME)
Pure and Applied Social Science (PASS)
Humanities and Arts (HA)
Clinical Medicine (CM)

The acronyms have been used in the following tables.

6.7.1 Use of EIS for particular information purposes

The distribution of purposes for the critical incident reflects the expected emphasis on assignment work (Table 6.10). Differences partly reflect terminology variations and assignment variations across disciplines. There is therefore more emphasis on projects in Maths and Engineering, and the greater emphasis on background research (and projects) in the Clinical Medicine cluster, as opposed to assignment work, might be expected from a group doing clinical practice part of their degree. The greater focus on evidence-based practice in the clinical sciences might account for the apparent predominance on research activities (comparatively high percentages for theses, papers, bibliography checking). The sample is small and it would be important to examine whether these responses are largely from postgraduates, staff, or undergraduates doing their clinical years. The fact that ‘proposal’ is also prominent suggests that this group is largely postgraduate.

The high figure for revision among one group (PASS, questionnaire) reflects the time of year these questionnaires were collected, i.e. during the exception plan and prior to final year examinations.

The use of EIS for job searching across all disciplines is higher than might have been predicted, and the differences between the questionnaire and interview responses are predictably those associated with the timing of the survey. Towards the end of the summer term when large numbers of the questionnaires were collected, job searching is likely to be priority for many students.

In the exception plan group there were fewer Clinical Medicine and Pure and Applied Sciences respondents, and their job searching needs are accordingly lower.

Purpose	PAS (Q) n=153 %	PAS (I) n=26 %	ME (Q) n=64 %	ME (I) n=25 %	PASS (Q) n=189 %	PASS (I) n=44 %	HA (Q) n=93 %	HA (I) n=38 %	CM (Q) n=40 %	CM (I) n=18 %
Assignment	51.63	26.92	28.13	12.0	59.26	22.73	62.37	36.84	30.0	11.11
Background research	53.59	11.54	39.06	12.0	52.38	11.36	56.99	5.26	65.0	5.56
Project	16.99	15.38	10.94	28.0	15.34	15.91	11.83	21.05	22.50	16.67
Thesis	8.50	0	3.13	8.0	11.11	11.36	8.60	5.26	20.0	0
Paper	19.61	7.69	14.06	0	17.99	0	19.35	0	30.0	5.56
Bib check	18.95	7.69	12.50	0	13.76	4.55	10.75	2.63	30.0	22.22
Revision	2.61	0	6.25	4.0	22.22	2.27	6.45	2.63	5.0	11.11
Presentation	11.11	0	7.81	4.0	23.81	4.55	34.41	2.63	10.0	11.11
Proposal	4.58	3.85	15.63	0	5.82	0	4.30	0	22.50	5.56
Job search	10.46	0	20.31	8.0	35.98	4.55	16.13	0	10.0	0
Planning	18.30	7.69	23.44	8.0	22.75	6.82	22.58	2.63	10.0	5.56
Shopping	8.50	0	14.06	4.0	12.17	2.27	8.60	5.26	7.50	0
For someone else	3.92	11.54	3.13	0	12.70	4.55	9.68	0	7.50	5.56

Table 6.10: Purpose of critical incident search among different discipline clusters

6.7.2 EIS used for finding information

Use of particular sources differs across discipline clusters, for both interviewees and questionnaire respondents (Table 6.11). The table shows only the most frequently used sources: gateways are notable for their absence, with only 6% of the CM discipline cluster interviewees having used gateways, and 2% of the ME questionnaire respondents.

Resources used	PAS (Q) n=153 %	PAS (I) n=26 %	ME (Q) n=64 %	ME (I) n=25 %	PASS (Q) n=153 %	PASS (I) n=44 %	HA (Q) n=93 %	HA (I) n=38 %	CM (Q) n=40 %	CM (I) n=18 %
Search engines	67.97	46.15	76.56	64.0	82.54	40.91	84.95	78.95	47.50	16.67
E-mail	21.57	3.85	31.25	24.0	33.86	4.55	29.03	10.53	22.50	5.56
OPAC (own institution)	28.76	11.54	15.63	0	25.40	15.91	27.96	0	22.50	5.56
Databases via Web	20.26	0	0	0	4.76	0	1.08	0	60.0	5.56
JISC negotiated services	26.14	23.08	14.06	4.0	1.06	6.82	1.08	0	47.50	16.67
Local EIS	17.65	3.85	7.81	4.0	20.63	9.09	16.13	5.26	20.0	11.11
Other Web EIS	15.03	38.46	21.88	56.0	14.81	43.18	9.68	65.79	10.0	44.44
All e-journals	5.23	15.38	6.25	0	4.23	13.64	2.15	2.63	2.50	0
Own HEI Web site	1.96	3.85	1.56	16.0	3.70	15.91	0	2.63	5.0	11.11
Other institutional Web sites	0	11.54	3.13	8.0	2.12	15.91	0	10.53	0	0

Table 6.11: EIS used in the critical incident search by different discipline clusters

Cautiously, one might remark on the following:

high use of search engines among the HA discipline cluster
relatively high use of search engines among the Pure and Applied Sciences, balanced by a much greater use of JISC negotiated services and Web databases than the PASS, HA discipline clusters
Clinical Medicine rely more on Web databases and JISC negotiated services than other groups, and (consequently?) use search engines relatively less frequently
use of local EIS, own HEI Website, institutional Websites, other Web EIS do not appear to follow any particular pattern (and may reflect institutional procedures and policies)
there may be more use of electronic journals among the Pure and Applied Sciences and Pure and Applied Social Sciences than for other discipline clusters.

It must also be remembered that the type of search described to the interviewer tends to be different to the search entered on the questionnaire (Section 6.4).

The factors leading an individual to use a particular EIS may vary according to discipline. Tables 6.12 and 6.13 show a uniformly high use of tutors across disciplines; the only possible exception is for ME but this might be accounted for by the comparatively small sample. There is a consistently low use of library staff which correlates with Table 6.9. It is intriguing that the PAS community appeared to make more use of library courses which is possibly associated with fact that these disciplines tend to have highly structured curricula that frequently integrate courses on research skills.

Factors leading to EIS use	PAS n=153 %	ME n=64 %	PASS n=189 %	HA n=93 %	CM n=40 %
Tutor	38.56	17.19	40.74	22.58	27.50
Student	32.03	10.94	29.10	17.20	15.0
Read about	15.03	21.88	17.99	16.13	12.50
Library course	20.26	9.38	7.41	10.75	12.50
Library staff	8.50	9.38	4.76	8.60	5.0
Other	34.64	54.69	40.74	49.46	52.50
Notes: 3.14% did not respond

Table 6.12: Factors leading to use of EIS (questionnaire returns)

Factors leading to EIS use	PAS n=26 %	ME n=25 %	PASS n=44 %	HA n=38 %	CM n=18 %
Tutor	15.38	12.0	2.27	5.26	33.33
Student	0	0	4.55	0	16.67
Read about	0	0	0	5.26	0
Library course	7.69	0	4.55	5.26	5.26
Library staff	0	4.0	2.27	2.63	5.56
Other	3.85	12.0	2.27	31.58	5.56
Notes: 72.47% of transcripts omitted this data

Table 6.13: Factors leading to use of EIS (interview returns)

6.8 Use of EIS by academic and research staff

As one would expect, academic and research staff use focuses on background research, papers, proposal and bibliographic checking with planning and projects not far behind. Unsurprisingly, none saw the need for revision! Table 6.14 shows the uses given for the critical incidence question by all academic staff (questionnaires and interviews).

Purpose	Interviews and questionnaires n=87 %
Background research	43.68
Paper	26.44
Bibliographic check	25.29
Proposal	21.84
Project	13.79
Planning	13.79
Presentation	10.34
For someone else	10.34
Job search	5.75
Other	5.75
Assignment	3.45
Thesis	3.45
Shopping	2.30
Recreational	1.15
Revision	0

Table 6.14: Purposes for which information was sought by academic staff (critical incident)

Table 6.15 sets out the use of the various categories of EIS by all academic and research staff for both interviews and questionnaires.

EIS	Interviews and questionnaires: Critical Incident n=87 %	Interviews and questionnaires: Frequent use n=87 %
Search engines	50.57	52.87
E-mail	19.54	45.97
Other Web EIS	36.78	40.22
JISC negotiated services	28.74	36.78
OPAC (own institution)	13.79	36.78
All e-journals	5.75	34.48
Local EIS	11.49	22.98
Own HEI Web site	8.05	20.68
Databases via Web	9.19	14.94
OPACs (other institutions)	4.60	12.64
Gateways	2.30	9.19
Other institutional Web	3.45	9.19
Data sets	0	6.89
SDI	0	1.14
Publisher sites	1.15	1.14
Other online services	0	0
Text archives	0	0
E-document delivery	0	0

Table 6.15: Use of EIS by all academic and research staff (sorted on frequent use)

Use of EIS for the critical incident and for frequent use is essentially similar. Whilst search engines and e-mail use predominate (e-mail slightly less so in the critical incident), as they do for students, the fundamental difference concerns increased use of JISC negotiated services, and electronic journals in the more anecdotal frequent use. This greater emphasis might have been anticipated, although it is interesting that incidence of use remains low with just over a third of staff making regular use of those resources. Only 36.78% of staff make use of the institutional OPAC which is somewhat surprising given its potential contribution to the teaching process (bibliographic checking for reading lists, etc) and to support research activities. There seems to be little difference between students and academic staff in use of gateways, with less than 10% making regular use of an EIS which is receiving particularly high professional consideration.

With respect to the non-use of EIS, common problems were identified, of which the following quote is indicative. These problems centred largely on time pressures.

‘Well I don't because my computer got replaced recently and I haven't got around to doing it again..it's one of the tasks I have when I don't have 286 e-mails on my computer...I just type in the addresses and logon that way...I used to have them all bookmarked but when they replaced my computer I have to set it all up again. [28301 from text unit paragraph 18]

6.9 Use of EIS by LIS Staff

Table 6.16 reveals a predictable pattern of regular use of EIS by LIS staff; the order given in parenthesis being order of preference in the critical incident (predominantly for bibliographic checking and ‘for someone else’). Local EIS and own OPAC feature highly as would be expected within the context of LIS work. The use of non-institutional OPACs is also predictably high. Although the figures for JISC negotiated services and gateways are higher than for other groups, the team felt that surprisingly low regular use is made of these resources.

EIS	Interviews n=27 %
	Frequent use	Ranked order for critical incident
E-mail	92.59	(4)
Local EIS	88.89	(2)
OPAC (own institution)	85.18	(5)
Search engines	81.48	(3)
OPACs (other institutions)	74.07	(6)
Other Web EIS	55.56	(1)
All e-journals	55.56	(8)
Own HEI Web site	44.44
Gateways	44.44	(8)
JISC negotiated services	40.74	(8)
Databases via Web	14.81	(8)
E-collection management	14.81	(8)
Other institutional Web sites	7.41	(6)
Publisher sites	7.41	(8)
Other online services	3.70
Text archives	3.70
E-document delivery	3.70
Data sets	0
SDI	0

Table 6.16: Frequent use of EIS by LIS staff

One notable difference between the searches by LIS staff and those of the student interviewees was that they were often conducted intermittently – around one third of the LIS staff interviewees noted that searching had involved coming back to the search after a break.

‘...I tried another one (database)...and it said it couldn’t find the disc...Then I did go back later on that afternoon and use the European Infobase and found the information I wanted..’ [13203 from text units 34-40]

‘(Interviewer: Any idea how much time you spent looking?)...I think about two weeks because you have to fit it with everything else, you know’ [14203 from text units 83-85]

Pressures on LIS staff time were evident, even in the planning of the survey work and this lack of time means that help provided to students in ‘one-off’ enquiries is likely to be very limited. This is reflected in the following response.

‘(Interviewer: Factors affecting your getting things done?)...Yes, thousands of students coming to ask me questions! Members of staff now don’t assume I have a lunch hour...and so I’m tied up with an awful lot of teaching, and people come along for some information work, or helping with searches for them and I’m really pressed for time to do that and develop the teaching, which often includes developing a thread of worked through searches [34203 from text units 166-169, 188-192]
6.10 Perceived problems in the use of EIS support facilities

Problems associated with the use of EIS support facilities (the computer environment) were not specifically queried in the interviews though some interviewees volunteered comments when asked about the relative success of their searching. It was clear that some interviewees had particular grouses about their institution and wished to use the opportunity to air these. (Conversely, one overseas postgraduate student was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the benefits he had gained from the ability to access EIS.)

‘The thing is with our computers...they are so slow, if someone sends you anything with an attachment it is a real nightmare to download anything...and then it messes it up’ [11107 from text unit paragraph 144]

‘I can criticise something – the computer department here...I’ve lost three assignments in probably this last term – the G drive keeps getting viruses in it and everybody’s work suffers’ [35104 from text units 86-87]

‘...you come to the library and it is crowded, all the computers are in use and you have to wait, and wait...and in our department, for example, there’s only one computer for the postgraduates...I’m number 27 so you can imagine’ [18101 from text units 68-73]

6.11 Conclusions

There are several themes that emerge from analysis of the data and these are discussed in depth in the following subsections. Both findings and methodology are considered. Reference will be made in Section 7 to the implications of these conclusions for JISC and HEIs.

6.11.1 Reasons for using EIS

With respect to the reasons for use of EIS in the critical incident, there appears to be a slight but significant development across the 1^st year, undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts. Whilst assignments and background research predominate throughout, there is an increased use for job searching, projects and revision. There was a low take up for bibliographic checking throughout all groups.

6.11.2 Use of different EIS

There appears to be no significant variation in the pattern of EIS use by undergraduate students over their years of study. Similarly, there appears to be little difference between undergraduates and postgraduates.

A major conclusion of the survey is the widespread use of e-mail among all user groups. E-mail is used to complement informal communication and provide an easy means of contacting organisations. This suggests that e-mail is supplementing rather than replacing other means of communication. Without it, communication might not be attempted as telephoning a foreign company might be deemed too daunting for some.

A particular issue raised regularly was the popularity of Web-based systems for personal e-mail which are more flexible and have better availability than HEI systems. This could hinder the use of e-mail for administrative and academic purposes.

There is no doubting the effect of the Internet on information seeking by staff and students at all institutions; search engines and known sites are the first resort for most academic queries, as well as for many personal domestic queries. Internet use has spread into the routine activities of daily living: travel, job searching, and shopping were all popular purposes of use, mentioned by interviewees at several institutions. Given the wide range of engines used and the haphazard nature of much of the searching, some thought might be given to ways of encouraging students to use the Internet more effectively.

The OPAC is used consistently across the student body and by academic staff. By contrast, the use of other OPACs is low. For LIS staff, however, there is a high incidence of use for both. It is a reasonable assumption that it is used not just for access to books but other resources and the manner in which the OPAC is used and the structure of the options offered may be worth more investigation in the second cycle.

With the exception of LIS staff and academic and research staff, the team felt that the use of Web databases and JISC negotiated services is low. Even for staff the actual incidence is lower than might be expected.

A significant finding is that subject gateways are notable only for the lack of mention among students and academic staff, although there is some use among LIS staff. There seems a possibility that, for the student audience, the subjects of the subject gateways do not meet the most popular subject needs. Benefits in terms of time saving may need to be promoted more, as time is a precious commodity to those students who do not expect, or cannot spare the time, to search for lengthy periods. The emphasis on quality resources is of less concern to students if they are simply looking for one or two appropriate references or answers to particular calculation problems. For them any example is better than none at all.

Gateways appear to be products looking for a market, which suggests that their marketing is deficient. The marketing of this form of EIS to students is not something that can be handled by the HEIs alone but will require attention by the RDN and the gateway managers. It is not simply a matter of promotion, it is also a matter of product (perceptions of service attributes, and benefits, targeting to needs), process (what is involved in using the product), people (who will use the product and their quality perceptions), place (where the product is used) and pricing (and costs in terms of time need to be considered as well as money costs).

6.11.3 Search strategies

There is little evidence of coherent search strategies used by students. Future research may wish to look at actual searching behaviour.

6.11.4 Differences between disciplines

While use of search engines, and e-mail are universally high, there seem some distinct differences among the various disciplines. Some disciplines make greater use of JISC negotiated services and Web databases than others (PAS and CM); particularly high use of search engines (HA); there may be more use of electronic journals among PAS and PASS.

For future cycles, it may be worthwhile investigating in more depth how staff influence student use of EIS in particular disciplines and monitor changes of use over time.

6.11.5 Benefits of EIS

Benefits of using EIS appear to focus around saving time although paradoxically many students would undertake prolonged and ineffective searches. Access to resources that cannot easily be located elsewhere was also important, and, possibly, the ease of manipulating the information (textual and image) into project and assignment materials. These should continue to be a focus for training.

The benefits to students of downloading and re-using electronic information also raises issues of plagiarism. HEIs will need to continue to monitor and address this problem.

6.11.6 Factors leading to EIS use

There is considerable evidence that students perceive academic staff as the first point of contact, should they have problems finding information required for assignments or project work, or as the primary medium for general guidance (Table 6.9). Guidance can be structured with clear expectations for assignments, and backed up with training in the use of particular services at the appropriate point in the degree programme. However, it is frequently unstructured, and in general, students may remain unaware of resources, or of how best to use them.

Another conclusion is that there is uniformly low use of LIS staff and courses that direct students to appropriate EIS. The interviews suggested that the system of support required is both formal and informal.

At some institutions the departmental Web pages, or academics’ own Web pages offer routes to EIS which students accept as relevant and authoritative advice, reinforced by the mention by some students that Web pages from academics in other institutions should be more helpful than other Web pages. This is another avenue to explore in more depth in the second cycle.

This page last updated 25 August 2000 10:03:19
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