Identifying E-Resources: An Exploratory Study of University Students

Abstract

This preliminary study assesses university students' ability to identify document types or information containers (journal, article, book, etc.) and different types of search tools (database, search engine) in the online environment. It is imperative to understand students' behaviors due to the pervasiveness of online resources and their impact on information literacy. A survey administered at the University of Florida sought to investigate this phenomenon and queried respondents about their age, higher education level, exposure to bibliographic instruction, and time devoted to school-related online searching. Analyses of 765 responses show that many students cannot consistently correctly identify these containers and behavioral characteristics have no influence on this process. This has implications for the online information seeking process and judging credibility and is of importance to the library, education, and publishing communities. Recommendations for these various communities are discussed.

The Strengths and Drawbacks of E-resources in Higher Education

“…On the other hand Students cannot manage to identify the different materials like journal, book to be used in education with their importance in education. There is the need for teaching learner in higher levels of education on how to access books online [15].…”

Aligning ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy with Communication Studies’ Learning Outcomes for Library Instruction: An Exploratory Study

“…Journalists rely on many different formats of information in their researching and reporting. Although the phenomenon of "container collapse" has made it more difficult to differentiate between formats, as information published on the web lacks the visual cues of its former analog counterparts, 31 expert journalists are able to navigate and assess information formats for their quality, accuracy, and relevance in a story.…”

Science and News

“…The potential role the container plays in the evaluation of online information is a newly emerging research topic, though it was noted as far back as 2007 that the behavior of today's "format agnostic" students should be investigated (Williams & Rowlands 2007). In a preliminary study using a survey and screen captures of various online resources, Buhler and Cataldo (2016) demonstrated that university students did have difficulty in identifying the container. Leeder (2016) also determined that students are often inaccurate in determining online genre and had difficulty distinguishing between scholarly sources and non-scholarly online sources.…”