Much has been written about why students engage in academic studies at university, with less attention given to the concept of disengagement. Understanding the risks and factors associated with student disengagement from learning provides opportunities for targeted remediation. The aims of this review were to (i) explore how student disengagement…

Nonscience majors often rely on general internet searches to locate science information. This practice can lead to misconceptions because the returned search information can be unreliable. In this article the authors describe how they used the social media site Twitter to address this problem in a general education course, BSCI 421 Diseases of the…

Usability testing on library search tools was conducted with ten students and eighteen library staff members at Syracuse University. The study addressed three research questions: (1) Do the ways in which librarians carry out search tasks on the library Web site vary from those of student users?; (2) Are those variations indicative of different…

Google Scholar is a free service that provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly works and to connect patrons with the resources libraries provide. The researchers in this study analyzed Google Scholar usage data from 2006 for three library tools at San Francisco State University: SFX link resolver, Web Access Management proxy server,…

This article summarizes the author's dissertation regarding search strategies of millennial undergraduate students in Web and library online information retrieval systems. Millennials bring a unique set of search characteristics and strategies to their research since they have never known a world without the Web. Through the use of search engines,…

This paper looks at criteria on how education service providers' websites could benefit their potential students from overseas. Effective design of education website is important as web users are typically fastidious and want information fast--this serves as the background of this study. The study focuses on three selected education institutions'…

This study explores the web-navigation practices of adult learners in higher education and re-conceptualizes the concept of the organizing circumstance of self-managed learning, originated by Spear and Mocker (1984). The theoretical framework draws on funds of knowledge theory from a cultural historical perspective and elaborates a Vygotskian…

There is a common assumption that hypermedia navigation is influenced by a learner's style of thinking, so people who are inclined to apply sequential and analytical strategies (left-thinkers) are thought to browse hypermedia in a linear way, whereas those who prefer holistic and intuitive strategies (right-thinkers) tend towards non-linear paths.…

Discussion of information-seeking strategies of domain experts and nondomain experts (undergraduates) focuses on a study at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor that investigated whether nondomain experts enlisted the strategies of domain experts when using information gateways on the library Web page; if so, how they learned about them; and…

Analyzed user queries submitted to an academic Web site during a four-year period, using a relational database, to examine users' query behavior, to identify problems they encounter, and to develop techniques for optimizing query analysis and mining. Linguistic analyses focus on query structures, lexicon, and word associations using statistical…

Describes a survey that was conducted involving participants in the library instruction program at two Canadian universities in order to describe the characteristics of students receiving instruction in Web searching. Examines criteria for evaluating Web sites, search strategies, use of search engines, and frequency of use. Questionnaire is…

Reports on a collaboration between academic teaching staff who coordinate an undergraduate foundation course in computers and society at the University of South Australia. Highlights include information literacy and lifelong learning; the combination of face-to-face and online instruction; links from the portal; student assessment; search…

Despite increasing and widespread access to more information, finding published research, studies, and literature in the field of education and psychology has become more complex. This paper demonstrates how to access published literature in various formats, including books, journal articles, conference proceedings, lesson plans, media, Web sites,…

The design, implementation, and evaluation of the second phase in a two-year faculty development initiative by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Consortium on Higher Education (SEPCHE) is presented. The initiative addressed instruction of SEPCHE faculty in the use of technology in college teaching. Six workshops were conducted for faculty in specific…