Comparing faculty information seeking in teaching and research: Implications for the design of digital libraries

Abstract

ADEPT is a 5-year project whose goals are to develop, deploy, and evaluate inquiry learning capabilities for the Alexandria Digital Library, an extant digital library of primary sources in geography. We interviewed nine geography faculty members who teach undergraduate courses about their information seeking for research and teaching and their use of information resources in teaching. These data were supplemented by interviews with four faculty members from another ADEPT study about the nature of knowledge in geography. Among our key findings are that geography faculty are more likely to encounter useful teaching resources while seeking research resources than vice versa, although the influence goes in both directions. Their greatest information needs are for research data, maps, and images. They desire better searching by concept or theme, in addition to searching by location and place name. They make extensive use of their own research resources in their teaching. Among the implications for functionality and architecture of geographic digital libraries for educational use are that personal digital libraries are essential, because individual faculty members have personalized approaches to selecting, collecting, and organizing teaching resources. Digital library services for research and teaching should include the ability to import content from common office software and to store content in standard formats that can be exported to other applications. Digital library services can facilitate sharing among faculty but cannot overcome barriers such as intellectual property rights, access to proprietary research data, or the desire of individuals to maintain control over their own resources. Faculty use of primary and secondary resources needs to be better understood if we are to design successful digital libraries for research and teaching.

Modeling a domain ontology for cultural heritage resources: A user-centered approach

“…The wide range of uses that cultural digital collections may enable and support, and the variety of user communities that may benefit from these collections, make it important to rethink how these materials are discovered, presented, and used. As Borgman et al (2005) point out, tools and services to facilitate school educators in their teaching and learning practices are still very scarce if compared with the wealth of digital content available to them. Tailoring digital collections to their intended communities of users-"customization by community" in Lynch's words (2003, p. 196)-can be the key to bridging the distance between users and resources.…”

What can Studies of e-Learning Teach us about Collaboration in e-Research? Some Findings from Digital Library Studies

“…Independent collections for each faculty member were rejected lest the potential for re-use be undermined. A middle ground was agreed upon (Janee and Frew, 2002) and its efficacy confirmed by findings of the education and evaluation team (Borgman et al, 2004a;Champeny et al, 2004;Borgman et al, 2005). The balance was achieved in ADEPT architecture by enabling each instructor to gather his or her own resources into a ''personal digital library.''…”

“…Any research data used to illustrate their lectures usually came from their own research. These data usually were presented in synthesized forms (maps, images, tables) rather than as raw data for students to mine in course assignments Borgman et al, 2001Borgman et al, , 2005; Gilliland-Swetland and Gazan et al, 2003).…”

Ncore

“…Crane et al [5] emphasize the need for decentralized community contributions to library content such as annotations in Wiki pages. Contributions by faculty and researchers maintaining their own collections and information spaces in a digital library are explored in [3] as part of the ADEPT project.…”

“…Borgman et al [3] found that personal digital libraries were not only useful for geography faculty to collect and organize resources for their teaching or research, but also in providing resources and context to the library.…”