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…

Introduction: In the big data age, we have to deal with a tremendous amount of information, which can be collected from various types of sources. For information search systems such as Web search engines or online digital libraries, the collection of documents becomes larger and larger. For some queries, an information search system needs to…

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…

In their 1994 article, "The Politics of the Interface: Power and its Exercise in Electronic Contact Zones," compositionists Cynthia Selfe and Richard Selfe give examples of how certain features of word processing software and other programs used in writing classrooms (including their icons, clip art, interfaces, and file structures) can…

While the influence of presentation formats have been widely studied in Bayesian reasoning tasks, we present the first systematic investigation of how presentation formats influence information search decisions. Four experiments were conducted across different probabilistic environments, where subjects (N = 2,858) chose between 2 possible search…

Identifying the factor structure of online reading to learn is important for the development of theory, assessment, and instruction. Traditional comprehension models have been developed from, and for, offline reading. This study used online reading to determine an optimal factor structure for modeling online research and comprehension among 426…

Objectives: To compare the performance of a range of search facilities; and to illustrate the execution of a comprehensive literature search for qualitative evidence in social work. Context: Developments in literature search methods and comparisons of search facilities help facilitate access to the best available evidence for social workers.…

Chemistry majors at Goucher College are now required to take a 1-credit course in their sophomore year entitled Chemical Information Literacy. Students in the course learn the structure and organization of the chemical literature, and how to carry out searches of various databases for topic, author, chemical compound, or structure. They learn…

This article briefly outlines the current major search engines' approach to teachers' web searching. The aim of this article is to make Web searching easier for teachers when searching for relevant online teaching materials, in general, and UK teacher practitioners at primary, secondary and post-compulsory levels, in particular. Therefore, major…

Research indicates the need for teachers to be able to locate, evaluate, and use Internet resources in their teaching and learning processes. In addition, the Common Core State Standards require that students are able to think critically and know how to search and use alternative views and perspectives in their assignments. These skills are…

Background: Few studies have attempted to examine how young adults search for health information on the Internet, especially information related to weight control and weight management. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine search strategies that college students used for finding information related to weight control and weight…

Introduction: This paper investigates techniques used by children in year 4 (age eight to nine) of a UK primary school to reformulate their queries, and how they use information retrieval systems to support query reformulation. Method: An in-depth study analysing the interactions of twelve children carrying out search tasks in a primary school…

This mixed-method study examines the effectiveness of teaching Google search techniques (GSTs) to Korean EFL college students in an intermediate-level academic English writing course. 18 students participated in a 4-day GST workshop consisting of an overview session of the web as corpus and Google as a concordancer, and three training sessions…

The World Wide Web is one of the most common methods used by parents to find information on autism spectrum disorders and most consumers find information through search engines such as Google or Bing. However, little is known about how the search engines operate or the consistency of the results that are returned over time. This study presents the…

Today's electronic information landscape is growing exponentially with no signs of slowing. This poses a significant challenge for academic libraries. Librarians must continually learn and adapt to harness this explosion of resources. To fulfill their claim as the leaders in the information field they must be effective in providing access and…