The Information-Seeking Habits and Practices of Engineers

Pinelli, Thomas E.

doi:10.1300/j122v11n03_02

Cited by 93 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Engineers prefer informal sources of information, especially conversations with individuals within their organization." 4 In the early 1990s, Cynthia Steinke wrote, "Despite an abundance of studies, we still don't understand the informationseeking habits of our user communities well enough and thus, we probably are not meeting them. In addition, different fields have developed varying systems of communication which must be identified and recognized."…”

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confidence: 99%

The Information-Seeking Habits of Engineering Faculty

Engel

Robbins²,

Kulp³

2011

CRL

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Many studies of information-seeking habits of engineers focus on understanding the similarities and differences between scientists and engineers. This study explores the information-seeking behavior of academic engineering faculty from twenty public research universities. This investigation includes an examination of how frequently engineering faculty seek or access information, how they keep abreast of current developments in the field and find less recent journal articles, how often they visit the library in person, and how important library services and resources are in meeting their information needs. The responses from the survey participants emphasize the importance of electronic access to current and archived scholarly journals for meeting the research and information needs of engineering faculty.cademic librarians continuously strive to meet the information needs of their users. This requires an understanding of their users' information needs and information-seeking behaviors. This study examines the information-seeking behavior of engineering faculty at twenty academic institutions from across the United States. To better understand how engineering faculty are responding to changes in the information environment, the researchers examined how frequently engineering faculty seek or access information to complete specific tasks, how engineering faculty keep abreast of current developments, how they discover less recent journal articles in their field, how often they visit the library in person, and how important library resources and services are in meeting their information needs.Understanding the nature of the user community and the information-seeking habits and practices of the users are common themes in library literature. With improved understanding of the information-seeking behavior of engineers in academic environments, librarians can better develop information services and resources, implement policies that help engineering faculty access quality information, and improve collection development practices. Literature Review Engineers as PractitionersKing, Casto, and Jones compiled a comprehensive literature review of engineers' information needs, noting that "the 1960s yielded a plethora of STI [scientific and technical information] user studies and surveys largely funded by the federal government."1 The information-seeking crl-155

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confidence: 99%

The Information-Seeking Habits of Engineering Faculty

Engel

Robbins²,

Kulp³

2011

CRL

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“…However, those identified needs are largely related to information-seeking behavior (e.g., Bruce et al, 2003;Fidel & Green, 2004;Pinelli, 1991;Savolainen, 2007;Yitzhaki & Hammershlag, 2004). This dissertation, in contrast, reveals information needs that motivate information sharing across disciplines during a design process.…”

Section: Information Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the use of Wikis for information sharing in interdisciplinary design

Phuwanartnurak

2009

Proceedings of the 2009 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work

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Specifically, the research objectives of this dissertation are to: (1) Study how interdisciplinary design teams use wikis; (2) Identify best practices for the effective use of wikis; and (3) Examine how wikis might be enhanced to better support information sharing in design projects. To achieve these research objectives, I studied five software design teams from three organizations that used wikis as their primary information sharing and management system. Drawing on two conceptual frameworks, the 3-T framework and Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA), I collected qualitative and quantitative data, using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, document review, and wiki review.This dissertation enhances our understanding of how members of design teams share information among disciplines and how they use wikis to support such sharing. This dissertation uncovers and explores the conceptual issues of information sharing including information collection, information-sharing needs, and information-sharing processes. The findings reveal that the software design teams used wikis as their central information-sharing tool, largely because it seemed to provide a mechanism to link heterogeneous information from various sources into one place. The key findings of this dissertation research are as follows: (1) Wikis were used primarily to support transporting and transferring, that is, giving access to and delivering content of information items; (2) Wikis had the potential to support translating and transforming, that is, discussing and handing off information items, but teams appeared to have difficulty utilizing features that would enable these forms of information sharing; (3) Software design teams did not fully utilize the wiki's key features such as adding category tags to wiki pages, which makes it easy to browse related wiki documents, and using a discussion page associated with each individual wiki page to record related discussion; and (4) The use of wikis appeared to be influenced by many social and technical factors such as organizational environments, the nature of the design project, project team members' experiences and attitudes, and the specific kinds of wiki platforms that were used. Based on these findings, I discuss new requirements for how wikis might be designed to better support information sharing among disciplines during software design.These dissertation findings also provide practical implications, first, for organizations and project teams that would like to adopt wiki technology to support software design and development projects and, second, for practitioners who design or develop wiki technology. Expanding on the dissertation's focus on wiki technology, its findings provide broader implications, particularly for interdisciplinary design collaboration, distributed design collaboration, and agile development. Finally, the dissertation findings contribute to the body of knowledge in the fields of information behavior, knowledge management, wiki research, and design research.

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“…"Engineers consume information, transform it, and produce a product that is information bearing; however, the infor mation is no longer in verbal form." 16 This information may be verbal, visual, or tacit.…”

Section: H H Wellisch Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subramanyam Revisited: Creating a New Model for Information Literacy Instruction

Curl

2001

CRL

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Krishna Subramanyam arranged scientific and technical literature in a circular model in the 1970s. As a pedagogical construct, the circle con ceptualizes the processes of producing and consuming information. Al though more than twenty years old, the model is still valid. Can it be adapted to help undergraduate students of today's information literacy curriculum understand the structure of the information they need to be able to use to succeed as students and as professionals? This paper presents the model, the revision, and its application to the information literacy curriculum for engineering and technology students. In this model, information produced as part of the re search and development process devel ops clockwise around the circle. Indi viduals move counterclockwise around the same circle to consume information products or to conduct research. This fea ture makes it ideal to use in designing information literacy instruction. Subramanyam's model has been used by science and engineering librarians to provide a framework for designing bib liographic instruction for years. Al though the book and the encyclopedia articles it sprang from have been widely cited, no one has revisited the model or described its use or application to bib liographic instruction. This paper describes the original model and the revision used as a model for undergraduate instruction for engi neering technology students. It addresses the importance of fitting the instruction to the audience and the adaptability of the model itself.There are other models of the literature of science and technology (for example, those presented by R. T. Bottle, Brian Vickery, and William D. Garvey), but these linear models are not as useful as Subramanyam's circular model.

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The Information-Seeking Habits and Practices of Engineers

Cited by 93 publications

References 9 publications

The Information-Seeking Habits of Engineering Faculty

The Information-Seeking Habits of Engineering Faculty

Exploring the use of Wikis for information sharing in interdisciplinary design

Subramanyam Revisited: Creating a New Model for Information Literacy Instruction

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