Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of smartphones among young people in everyday life, focusing on the activity of online search. This paper addresses the following research questions: What framings of the smartphone can be identified in the way that young people use, and describe, smartphones? What is the role of online…

Google is a multinational technology company whose massive advertising profits have allowed them to expand into many areas, including education. While the company has increasingly faced public scrutiny, the use of Google software and hardware in schools has often resulted in little debate. In this paper, we conduct a technoethical audit of Google…

Using data from seven R1 and R2 universities in Ohio, this study seeks to determine the extent of usage of full-text e-journal articles stored across multiple platforms. Specifically, COUNTER 5 data is presented from five major academic journal publishers (Taylor & Francis, SAGE, Oxford, Wiley, and Springer), looking at usage within each of…

The development, use, and timely promotion of Open Education (OE) has been effective in addressing myriad educational concerns, including inclusivity, accessibility and learning achievement, among many others. However, limited information exists in the literature concerning how OE could enhance Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), which is…

Google Scholar and academic library discovery systems are both popular resources among academic users for finding scholarly information. By conducting an online survey with 975 users from more than 20 public research universities across the United States, this study comparatively investigates how and why academic users use these two resources.…

This longitudinal study at a large public university surveyed students of the 2008 freshmen cohort over four years about their use of websites and library resources for their research papers. The three goals of the study were to track changes in reported research behavior over time, to see if students' reported source choices were associated with…

Academic libraries are turning increasingly to unified search solutions to simplify search and discovery of library resources. Unfortunately, very little research has been published on library user search behavior in single search box environments. This study examines how users search a large public university library using a prominent, single…

Purpose: The study aims to investigate the use of cybercafe for internet access by students of Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach: Using descriptive design, 382 copies of a structured questionnaire were administered to students of the Rufus Giwa Polytechnic, Owo, who were using the institution cybercafe as at the…

Background: Obesity presents major challenges to public health in the United States. Trials of web-based interventions for weight control suggest that the Internet is a promising option for program delivery. Purpose: This study sought consensus among experts regarding critical components of successful weight control and to systematically examine…

For those receiving funding from the UK HEFCE-funded Open Educational Resource Programme (2009-2012), the sustainability of project outputs was one of a number of essential goals. Our approach for the hosting and distribution of health and life science open educational resources (OER) was based on the utilisation of the WordPress.org blogging…

Web-scale discovery systems are gaining momentum among academic libraries as libraries seek a means to provide their users with a one-stop searching experience. Illinois State University's Milner Library found itself in the unique position of having access to two distinct discovery products, EBSCO Discovery Service and Serials Solutions' Summon.…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the extent and level of internet access and use among scientists at Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU), Ago Iwoye, Nigeria, its impact on their academic activities and the constraints faced in internet use. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire survey with all the 125 scientists in the Faculty of…

The aim of this study is to investigate if providing mathematics education pre-service teachers with animated library tutorials on library and database searches changes their searching practices. This study involved the completion of a survey by 138 students and seven individual interviews before and after library search demonstration videos were…

In the Fall of 2009, the Moraine Valley Community College Library, using guidelines developed by Jakob Nielsen, conducted a usability study to determine how students were using the library Web site and to inform the redesign of the Web site. The authors found that Moraine Valley's current gateway design was a more effective access point to library…

The article proposes a self-study system which suggests web links to learners. The suggestions depend upon the learner's chosen competences selected from a competence structure for a particular knowledge domain. Three experiments were conducted, where the first compared the perceived usefulness and value of the links generated by different…