Mike Eisenberg - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Mike Eisenberg

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2009

A report of findings from 2,318 respondents to a survey carried out among college students on six... more A report of findings from 2,318 respondents to a survey carried out among college students on six campuses distributed across the U.S. in the spring of 2009, as part of Project Information Literacy. Respondents, while curious in the beginning stages of research, employed a consistent and predictable research strategy for finding information, whether they were conducting course-related or everyday life research. Almost all of the respondents turned to the same set of tried and true information resources in the initial stages of research, regardless of their information goals. Almost all students used course readings and Google first for course-related research and Google and Wikipedia for everyday life research. Most students used library resources, especially scholarly databases for course-related research and far fewer, in comparison, used library services that required interacting with librarians. The findings suggest that students conceptualize research, especially tasks associated with seeking information, as a competency learned by rote, rather than as an opportunity to learn, develop, or expand upon an information-gathering strategy which leverages the wide range of resources available to them in the digital age.

Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2010

This poster addresses the issue of avatar transparency in virtual worlds, and its relationship to... more This poster addresses the issue of avatar transparency in virtual worlds, and its relationship to the establishment of trustworthiness. Preliminary analysis of interviews with Second Life® users offers insights on this topic. The authors describe the tension between anonymity and trust in participant contexts, and suggest a framework for describing avatar transparency and trust issues.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2011

The paper presents findings from 560 interviews with undergraduates on 10 campuses distributed ac... more The paper presents findings from 560 interviews with undergraduates on 10 campuses distributed across the US, as part of Project Information Literacy (PIL). Overall, the findings suggest that students use a "less is more" approach to manage and control all of the IT devices and information systems available to them while they are in the library during the final weeks of the term. In the hour before we approached them for an interview, more respondents had checked for messages (e.g., Facebook, email, texts, IMs) more than any other task while they were in the library. A majority of respondents who had checked for messages during the previous hour had also prepared assignments and/or studied for courses. More respondents reported using library equipment, such as computers and printers, more than they had used any other library resource or service. Over half the sample considered their laptop their most essential IT device and most had a Web browser and, to a lesser extent, a word processing application running at the time of the interviews. Most students were using one or two Web sites at the time of the interviews, but there was little overlap among the Web sites they were using. A large majority of the respondents could be classified as "light" technology users, i.e., students who use one or two IT devices to support one or two primary activities (at the time of the interviews). A preliminary theory is introduced that describes how students' technology usage may be influenced by locale (i.e., the campus library) and circumstance (i.e., crunch time). Recommendations are made for how campus-wide stakeholders-faculty, librarians, higher education administrators, and commercial publishers-can work together to improve pedagogies for 21st century undergraduates.

CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2005

From pre-schools to high schools, at home and in museums, the educational community has embraced ... more From pre-schools to high schools, at home and in museums, the educational community has embraced the use of computers as a teaching tool. Yet many institutions will simply install "what everyone else is using" without questioning how technology can be best used to enhance education. For this panel, we have assembled a broad range of researchers and practitioners who are on the forefront of using computers to teach kids in novel ways. Each panelist will summarize their approach with examples of projects that they believe will demonstrate "what's new". We will then have videotaped children pose their toughest educational challenges to the panelists. Panelists will answer by talking about how they would meet these challenges. Finally, attendees will get to vote for their favorite solution. This will expose the CHI audience to a range of educational challenges, with a taste of the different ways that these problems can be solved.

First Monday, 2010

Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large-scale survey about how and why studen... more Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large-scale survey about how and why students (enrolled at six different U.S. colleges) use Wikipedia during the course-related research process. A majority of respondents frequently used Wikipedia for background information, but less often than they used other common resources, such as course readings and Google. Architecture, engineering, and science majors were more likely to use Wikipedia for course-related research than respondents in other majors. The findings suggest Wikipedia is used in combination with other information resources. Wikipedia meets the needs of college students because it offers a mixture of coverage, currency, convenience, and comprehensibility in a world where credibility is less of a given or an expectation from today’s students.

… of California, Los Angeles (February 28- …, 2008

This paper is an effort to reacquaint the information field with the work of one of its pioneers:... more This paper is an effort to reacquaint the information field with the work of one of its pioneers: Robert S. Taylor and his Value-Added Model. Taylor's Value-Added model (1986) was a broad and ambitious effort to provide a unified framework for focusing on user needs and ...

Emergency Librarian, 1998