UBiRD has been successfully completed

The User Behaviour in Resource Discovery project has come to its end. The team led by Professor William Wong with members Researcher Dr Hanna Stelmaszewska (EIS), Ms Nazlin Bhimani (Library Resources), Mr Sukhbinder Barn (MDX Business School), Professor Balbir Barn (EIS) have successfully completed their work investigating information seeking behaviour of students and researchers from Business and Economics study.

The key findings are:

(i) users used both those subscribed by the library and those freely available on the Internet,

(ii) when the level of information literacy and the domain knowledge increase the tendency of using library resources,

(iii) PG and Experts used EBSCO, ProQuest or Emerald whereas Library Catalogue and federated search engines were more popular amongst UG,

(iv) users found databases structure hinder, complex and difficult to use,

(v) users very rarely applied only one search (e.g. Simple Search) instead they carried out combined searchers (e.g. Re-formulated Search, Link Search, System Suggestion),

(vi) current systems do not provide ‘seamless’ transition between these searchers making the search and retrieval process difficult and time consuming,

(vii) the groups we studied used different means of storing the material (e.g. copy & paste into Word, save in a folder, bookmark, tabs and more sophisticated features provided by various system such as RefWorks, Endnotes, My Research),

(viii) the current systems lack good ways of storing and retrieving documents that can be accessed easily and transferable across different resources.

Please click the link to open the UBiRD Report

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UBiRD Team inspired by Professor Penelope Sanderson

Sep 30
2009

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During her visit to Middlesex University as Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Professor Sanderson met with UBiRD team to discuss, debate and test out the merits of presenting the qualitative data from the observational study visually using Jens Rasmusson’s cognitive work analysis method for dealing with complex data sets. PhD students Neesha Kodagoda and Artemis Parvizi joined the discussion group.

The visual presentation of searches from the qualitative data that emerged showed common patterns of searching techniques used by participants. Professor Sanderson also advised the UBiRD team on how best to visually present the transcriptions of the data. The team were inspired and motivated to look at the data again using the visual approach. The meetings with Professor Sanderson took place on 22nd and 23rd September in the Hollis Room, The Sheppard Library.

About Professor Penelope Sanderson:

Professor Sanderson leads the Cognitive Engineering Research Group at The University of Queensland. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and in 2004 was awarded HFES’s Distinguished International Colleague Award. She has twice been awarded HFES’s Jeromy Ely Award for the Best Paper inHuman Factors, in 1990 and 2005. Her specific focus is developing theories and methods that deliver better support for people’s cognitive work in complex dynamic work domains, such as healthcare, air traffic control, process control, and power systems. Sanderson received her BA(Hons I) from University of Western Australia in 1979, and her PhD from University of Toronto in 1985. While at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1985 to 1996, Sanderson held grants from NSF, NASA, US Air Force Research Laboratory, and the US Department of Energy. In Australia since 1997, she has held ARC and NHMRC funding and has attracted wide industry support. In 2009 Sanderson is spending a month in the UK on a Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellowship at Middlesex.

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Meeting with Sally Halper from the British Library

Sep 30
2009

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On 10th September, 2009, the UBiRD team met with Sally Halper from the British Library. This meeting was instigated by Sally Halper of the British Library. Sally was interested in finding out about the outcome of the observation studies conducted by the team at Middlesex University as she is responsible for developing the Management & Buinsess Studies Portal at the British Library.

The meeting took place at The Sheppard Library, Middlesex University with Professor William Wong, Nazlin Bhimani, School Liaison Manager in Learning Resources Academic Support and Project Researcher Hanna Stelmaszewska. Hanna Stelmaszewska presented the initial findings from the UBiRD study to Sally Halper from the British Library. Sally Halper then showed the team the Management & Business Studies Portal which was impressive. Sally has promised to come and share this news of this new BL service with the librarians at Middlesex University. The UBiRD team were invited to the BL to present their findings together with the CIBER research team.

UBiRD Team with Sally Halpner from the British Library

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Project outline

Jun 18
2009

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User Behaviour in Resource Discovery

This project aims to identify, understand and compare behaviour of students and researchers from business and economic studies representing different level of information literacy experience (novice, experience and expert) using various resource discovery systems available in HE institution as well as free online resources available on the Internet while seeking for information relevant to their work or study.

The purpose of this work is to inform JISC, publisher groups and libraries of issues arising from the interaction between user behaviour and the technology that will impact the development of a roadmap for improving user access across the different platforms so as to improve the quality of scholarly information search and retrieval.