This study analyzed digital item metadata and keywords from Internet search engines to learn what metadata elements actually facilitate discovery of digital collections through Internet keyword searching and how significantly each metadata element affects the discovery of items in a digital repository. The study found that keywords from Internet…

This article presents Python codes that can be used to extract data from Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. The Python program web crawls to obtain URL paths for company filings of required reports, such as Form 10-K. The program then performs a textual analysis and counts the number of occurrences of words in the filing that…

The wide variety of readily available electronic media grants anyone the freedom to retrieve published references from almost any area of research around the world. Despite this privilege, keeping up with primary research evidence is almost impossible because of the increase in professional publishing across disciplines. Systematic reviews are a…

This paper explores possibilities for marrying data visualization to online archival finding aids, which have continually suffered from usability issues in their long history. This paper describes a project in which two different data visualization models were built to replace sections of an archival finding aid. Users were then shown the models,…

Online searching is a skill that all professional programs educating librarians consider an essential part of their curricula. However, investigations of online searching behavior have centered almost exclusively on end users, and there have been no recent formal studies that explore the online searching behaviors of MLIS students. In this study,…

Web allows learners to investigate any question with a great variety of Web resources, in which they could construct a wider, and deeper knowledge. In such investigative learning process, it is important for them to deepen and widen the question, which involves decomposing the question into the sub-questions to be further investigated. This…

This journey-mapping pilot study was designed to determine whether journey mapping is an effective method to enhance the student experience of using the library by assessing our services from their point of view. Journey mapping plots a process or service to produce a visual representation of a library transaction--from the point at which the…

This article describes the results of a systematic review of peer-reviewed, published research articles about "discovery layers," user-friendly interfaces or systems that provide single-search box access to library content. Focusing on articles in LISTA published 2009-2013, a set of 80 articles was coded for community of users, journal…

The use of the Internet to learn involves complex cognitive activities. Educational researchers claim more attention in studying the nature of students' challenges when using digital information for learning purposes. Our research investigated in depth the challenges that secondary students face when solving web information-problem tasks. We…

Growth of their college's off-campus and online course offerings led librarians at SUNY Oswego to run usability tests with off-campus students to compensate for a lack of responses from this population during earlier usability testing. Constraints on testing with off-campus students included lack of funding and librarian time, as well as…

Courses: Research Methods, Public Speaking, Communication Theory, any other course that requires college students to engage in a formal research process. Can be conducted in traditional, online, or hybrid courses. Objectives: In this original single-class activity, students will be able to evaluate source credibility for resources that extend…

Digital engagement is the most important strategy for engaging Generation Z, but what are the right solutions and strategies to maximize engagement with this crucial target market? Which approaches align with the expectations of the students colleges are trying to reach? And more importantly, how can a college make its institution's unique brand…

The objective of the present study was to examine students' online information searching strategies, their cognitive absorption levels and the information pollution levels on the Internet based on different variables and to determine the correlation between these variables. The study was designed with the survey model, the study group included 198…

While YouTube has a wealth of educational videos, how self-guided learners use these resources has not been fully described. An analysis of search engine queries for help with the use of Microsoft Excel shows that few users search for specific features or functions but instead use very general terms. Because the same videos are returned in…

Critical thinking and analytical problem-solving skills in research involves using different search strategies. A proposed concept for an "Imploded Boolean Search" combines three unique identifiable field types to perform a search: keyword(s), numerical value(s), and a chemical structure or reaction. The object of this type of search is…