Visitors and Residents: What Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment?

Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D.Senior Research Scientist, OCLC

David WhiteCo-manager, Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning, University of Oxford

Donna Lanclos, Ph.D.Associate Professor for Anthropological Research, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Alison Le Cornu, Ph.D.Independent Consultant, University of Oxford

4th International Conference on QQML

Limerick, Ireland

May 24, 2012

Visitors and Residents 2

• Many information options

• Library resources not the first choice

• Convenience rules

• Must understand users’ engagement with digital environment to develop effective library systems & services

Introduction

Visitors and Residents 3

Triangulation of Data

• Several methods: • Semi-structured interviews (qualitative)• Diaries (qualitative)• Online survey (quantitative)

• Enables triangulation of data

Visitors and Residents 4

Ethnography

• Rapport• Observations• Conversations• Diaries

Ethnography enables us to establish rapport with target communities & become immersed in other people’s existence

Visitors and Residents 5

Diaries

• Ethnographic data collection technique• Get people to describe

what has happened• Center on defined

events or moments

Visitors and Residents 6

Interviews

• Allows for probing, clarification, new questions, focused questions, exploring• Enables data collection

for extended period of time

Visitors and Residents 7

Surveys/Questionnaires

• Encourages frank answers• Eliminates variation in the

question process• Can collect large amount

of data in short period of time• Delivery

• In-person• Telephone• Mail• Email• Online• Point of contact

Visitors and Residents 8

Visitors and Residents: What motivates engagement with the digital information environment?

• Funded by• JISC• OCLC

• Lynn Silipigni Connaway, Ph.D.

• Oxford University• David White & Alison Le Cornu,

Ph.D

• University of North Carolina, Charlotte

• Donna Lanclos, Ph.D.

Visitors and Residents 9

Residents

• Significant online presence & usage• Collaborative activity online• Contribute online• Mobile device dependence• >10 hours online/week

Visitors and Residents 10

Visitors

• Functional use of technology• Formal need• Passive online presence• Favor FtF interactions• <6 hours online/week

Visitors and Residents 11

Project Phases• Phase 1:

• Interviewed Emerging educational stage individuals

• Last year of secondary/high school & first year of university

• Majority of students aged 18 & 19 with a few outliers

• Phase 2: • Interviewed individuals in

• Establishing (second/third year undergraduate),

• Embedding (postgraduates, PhD students), &

• Experienced (Scholars) stages • Some Phase 1 participants agreed to

submit monthly diaries

Visitors and Residents 12

Project Phases, cont.

• Phase 3• In-depth survey

• 50 participants from each educational stage in both US & UK• Code, analyze, & compare data

• Phase 4• Interview a second group of 6 students in the Emerging

stage

4

Visitors and Residents 13

Phase 1

• Emerging educational stage

• 30 participants• 15 US• 15 UK

• Quantitative data:• Demographics, number of

occurrences of technologies, sources, & behaviours

• Qualitative data: • Themes & direct quotes

Visitors and Residents 14

Phase I Participant Demographics

• 30 participants• 15 secondary students• 15 university students• 19 females• 11 males• 21 Caucasian• 3 African-American• 1 Caucasian-Thai• 1 Hispanic• 4 unidentified

Visitors and Residents 16

US vs. UK Participant Ages

16 years old

17 years old

18 years old

19 years old

20-30 years old

30+ years old

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

0

5

2

7

1

0

1

6

1

4

0

3

USUK

Visitors and Residents 18

US vs. UK Participant University MajorsUS (9 of 16)

• 5 Engineering

• 1 Political Science

• 1 Pre-Business

• 2 Undeclared

UK (7 of 16)

• 3 Teaching

• 1 Chemical Biology

• 1 Chemistry

• 1 History

• 1 Languages

Visitors and Residents 19

Participant Interview Questions

1. Describe the things you enjoy doing with technology and the web each week.

2. Think of the ways you have used technology and the web for your studies. Describe a typical week.

3. Think about the next stage of your education. Tell me what you think this will be like.

Visitors and Residents 20

Participant Interview Questions, cont. 4. Think of a time when you had a situation where

you needed answers or solutions and you did a quick search and made do with it. You knew there were other sources but you decided not to use them. Please include sources such as friends, family, teachers, coaches, etc.

5. Have there been times when you were told to use a library or virtual learning environment (or learning platform), and used other source(s) instead?

6. If you had a magic wand, what would your ideal way of getting information be? How would you go about using the systems and services? When? Where? How?

Visitors and Residents 21

I. Place

II. Sources

III. Tools

IV. Agency

V. Situation/context

VI. Quotes

VII. Contact

VIII.Technology Ownership

IX. Network used

Codebook

Visitors and Residents 22

I. Place

A. Internet

1. Search engine

a. Google

b. Yahoo

2. Social Media

a. FaceBook

b. Twitter

c. You Tube

d. Flickr/image sharing

e. Blogging

B. Library

1. Academic

2. Public

3. School (K-12)

C. Home

D. School, classroom, computer lab

E. Other

Codebook

Visitors and Residents 23

Nvivo 9

• Qualitative research software• Upload documents, PDFs, & videos• Create nodes & code transcripts• Merge files• Queries• Reports• Models

Visitors and Residents 24

Diaries

•14 diarists• 8 US & 6 UK emerging stage students agreed to be

diarists• 3 US & 3 UK completed diaries

•Share information-seeking situations each month•Communicate in any format

phone

video chat

diary

instant messenger

videos

Visitors and Residents 25

Diaries

All except one selected EMAIL

Why?“It’s for formal communication”

Visitors and Residents 26

USU12 Video Diary

Visitors and Residents 27

Preliminary Findings

• Wikipedia• Widely used• Guilt

• Some changes occur transitioning between stages

• Information evaluation• Popular = correct

Visitors and Residents 28

“I just type it into Google and see what comes up.” (UKS2)

Visitors and Residents 29

“I always stick with the first thing that comes up on Google because I think that’s the most popular site which means that’s the most correct.” (USS1)

Visitors and Residents 30

“I knew that the internet wouldn’t give me a wrong answer.” (UKS4)

Visitors and Residents 31

“I simply just type it into Google and just see what comes up.” (UKS4)

Visitors and Residents 32

“Google doesn’t judge me” (UKF3)

Visitors and Residents 33

Visitors and Residents 34

Visitors and Residents 35

Visitors and Residents 36

Phase 2

Continued interviews• Establishing (2nd-3rd year undergraduates)• Embedding (postgraduates, PhD students)• Experienced (scholars)

• Began data analysis

Visitors and Residents 37

Phase 2

• 30 participants-15 in the US

-15 in the UK

-10 Establishing (5 US, 5 UK)

-10 Embedding (5 US, 5 UK)

-10 Experienced (5 US, 5 UK)

• Diary submissions via Google Docs• Video-diary submissions via Vimeo

Visitors and Residents 38

Sources

Visitors and Residents 39

Contact

Visitors and Residents 40

Agency

Visitors and Residents 41

People

Visitors and Residents 42

Conclusion

• Understanding users’ motivation• Inform librarians of users’ expectations of services &

systems• Enable educators & service providers to make informed

decisions• Position the role of the library within the workflows &

information-seeking patterns of students & faculty • Influence design & delivery of digital platforms &

services• Investigate & describe user-owned digital literacies

Visitors and Residents 43

Selected ReadingsBeetham, Helen, Lou McGill, and Allison Littlejohn. 2009. Thriving in the 21st

century: Learning literacies for the digital age (LLiDA Project). Glasgow: The

Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University.

http://www.academy.gcal.ac.uk/llida/LLiDAReportJune2009.pdf.

Bullen, Mark, Tannis Morgan, and Adnan Qayyum. 2011. Digital learners in higher

education: Generation is not the issue. Canadian Journal of Learning and

Technology 37, no. 1 (Spring),

http://www.cjlt.ca/index.php/cjlt/article/view/550/298.

Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research. 2008.

Information behaviour of the researcher of the future: A CIBER briefing paper.

London: CIBER.

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmemes/reppres/gg_final_keynote_11012008.pdf

.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Timothy J. Dickey. 2010. The digital information

seeker: Report of the findings from selected OCLC, RIN, and JISC user

behaviour projects. http

://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/reports/2010/digitalinformationseekerreport.pdf

.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Timothy J. Dickey, and Marie L. Radford. 2011. “If it is

too inconvenient I’m not going after it:” Convenience as a critical factor in

information-seeking behaviors. Library & Information Science Research 33, no.

3: 179-90.

Visitors and Residents 44

Selected Readings

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, Donna Lanclos, David White, Alison Le Cornu, and Erin

M. Hood. Forthcoming. User-centered decision making: A new model for

developing academic library services and systems. IFLA 2012 Conference

Proceedings, August 11-17, 2012, Helsinki, Finland.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Ronald R. Powell. 2010.Basic Research Methods for

Librarians. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Connaway, Lynn Silipigni, and Marie L. Radford. Seeking Synchronicity:

Revelations and Recommendations for Virtual Reference. Dublin, OH: OCLC

Research, 2011. http://www.oclc.org/reports/synchronicity/full.pdf.

Dempsey, Lorcan. 2010. 3 switches. Lorcan Dempsey’s Weblog (blog), June 13,

2010. http://orweblog.oclc.org/archives/002104.html.

Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books, 6.

Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory; strategies for

qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine, 273.

Institute for Museums and Library Services Research Grant. Seeking

Synchronicity: Evaluating Virtual Reference Services from User, Non-User, and

Librarian Perspectives. Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Marie L. Radford, Rutgers

University. Co-Principal Investigators. 2005-2007.

http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/synchronicity/default.htm.

Visitors and Residents 45

Selected Readings

Institute for Museums and Library Services Research Grant. Sense-making the

Information Confluence: The Hows and the Whys of College and University User

Satisficing of Information Needs. Brenda Dervin, Ohio State University, Principal

Investigator; Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Chandra Prabha, Co-Investigators.

2003-2005.

Kvale, Steinar. 1996. InterViews: An introduction to qualitative research

interviewing. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 133-135.

White, David and, Connaway, Lynn Silipigni. 2011. Visitors and Residents: What

Motivates Engagement with the Digital Information Environment. Funded by

JISC, OCLC, and Oxford University. http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/vandr/

.

Whyte, William F. 1979. On making the most of participant observation. The

American Sociologist 14: 56-66.

http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/past/orprojects/imls/default.htm.

Visitors and Residents 46

The researchers would like to thank Erin Hood for her assistance in keeping the team organized, analyzing the data, and disseminating the results.

Visitors and Residents 47

Picture CreditsIntroductionhttp://www.vedupro.com/our_services.php

Ethnography http://www.flickr.com/photos/insomnia90/3875374318/

Interviewshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/myxi/4327438430/

Phase 1 Pilot stage: Months 1-6http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangeacid/252090910

Phase I Participant Demographicshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/doug88888/4570566630/

US vs. UK Participant University Majorshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/kkoshy/2927378663/

Codebookhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/themadguru/3546619930/

Diarieshttp://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5167671844/

Phase 1 Data (Residents)http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicocavallotto/363251198/

Visitors and Residents 48

Picture Credits, cont.

Phase 1 Data, cont. (Guilty dog)http://www.flickr.com/photos/59262640@N00/61264743/

Phase 2 Data (Google docs)http://sites.fcps.org/trt/google_docs

Phase 2 Data (Vimeo)http://filmfwd.com/tag/vimeo/

“I just type it into Google and see what comes up.” (UKS2)http://www.flickr.com/photos/flod/26083507/

“I always stick with the first...” (USS1)http://www.flickr.com/photos/pinksherbet/2001899627/

“I knew that the internet wouldn’t give me a wrong answer.” (UKS4)http://www.flickr.com/photos/ravages/236981527/

“I simply just type it into Google and just see what comes up.” (UKS4)http://www.flickr.com/photos/ana_cotta/2532911186/

“Google doesn’t judge me” (UKF3)http://www.flickr.com/photos/cubmundo/6184306158/