Information behaviour and practices of PhD students (original) (raw)
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Doctoral students' information behaviour: an exploratory study at the University of Parma (Italy
New Library World, 2009
Purpose -The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the information behaviour of a group of doctoral students in the field of biology with the aim of understanding their needs and obtaining suggestions for an improved library service. Design/methodology/approach -In-depth semi-structured interviews explore which information sources students use, research strategies they adopt, the role people adopt in their information seeking process and the attitude students have towards library services. Findings -Doctoral students rely heavily on the internet for their research work. They appreciate simple and easy research tools and their use of the library is limited to a few services, such as document delivery and interlibrary loan. People play a crucial role in doctoral students' information behaviour mainly in terms of suggesting relevant documents. Students demonstrate progress throughout the years of their doctorate course in terms of awareness and information competence. Practical implications -The paper presents a perspective on the information needs of doctoral students in the biology field and provides some insights into students' priorities in terms of information tools and library services. Originality/value -The paper can represent a starting-point for further investigation into the information-seeking patterns and needs of doctoral students in Italian universities.
Libri, 2018
Th aim of the paper is to present findings of a study on information sources and information behavior of doctoral students at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing at the University of Zagreb, Croatia. The study also looked into student perceptions of the role of the academic library and their attitudes toward it as a legitimate partner in the research process, as doctoral students are required to publish the results of their doctoral research in high-ranking peer-reviewed journals during their course of study. However, they rarely use the library and its services; the study was undertaken with the intent to obtain insight into the students’ information behavior as well as needs and reasons for overlooking the library as a relevant partner in their research process. The online survey was conducted on a sample of 138 postgraduate students, with semi-structured interviews with five postgraduate students also conducted. The findings show a dominant student orientation tow...
New Review of Academic Librarianship, 2017
This article investigates academic library needs of doctoral students. The study identifies PhD students' information literacy training needs and explores current levels of library engagement, barriers to use and gaps in existing services. First year PhD students at Ulster University were surveyed and interviews were undertaken with three students. Findings show that just over half the respondents start their research from the Library's e-journal interface or library databases and these resources are also their main research tools. Little use was made of social media or apps. Students' ability to correctly identify different source types within a reference did not match the confidence they expressed in their own abilities, and two thirds were not aware of basic e-book capabilities. However over 90% of the respondents strongly agreed that the university library service was essential for their research. The article concludes with a number of recommendations on improving library services for PhD students.
This article aims at suggesting a new way of developing research support for PhD-candidates. Previous research on the field of research support greatly focuses on the librarians' competencies and how to assist researchers with what they lack in information literacy (IL) skills. There is little focus on collaboration with researchers to achieve a mutual learning outcome in regard to developing research support and IL skills. A socio-cultural view on IL indicates that IL skills are developed in a context, and therefore are situated. A high level of IL in one situation could be regarded as insufficient in another. Therefore, a librarian's view on IL could be incomparable to a PhD-student's everyday information needs. Many liaison librarians do not have a PhD, but are still expected to provide PhD-candidates with research support of high quality. How can we do so if we only see the librarian's perspective? Can informal settings and user involvement be a productive way of developing research support and IL skills? As librarians it is not always easy to know what researchers need. However, if the threshold has been lowered, in an informal setting, one might obtain the questions that reveal difficulties for researchers when it comes to library services and resources. Also, through user involvement, the researchers can teach librarians about the research process. This study includes an anonymous survey among PhD-candidates at the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of Agder (UoA) and interviews with two of the PhD-candidates
Libraries core business remains that of supporting teaching, learning, research activities and development of a culture of knowledge creation to fulfill the mission and objectives of their parent institution.at all levels. On the other hand, doctoral research is a rigorous and very intensive process and requires the support of a vibrant librarian to meet information needs of the PhD candidates. This paper addresses the accessibility and the role of librarians in supporting the PhD research work. Accessing online resources. In Kenyan public universities, enrollment of students pursuing doctoral qualifications has been increasing over the last decade, yet successful completion of doctoral studies has been at an all-time low in Kenya compared to other universities in the world. The need to provide a framework to ensure a suitable access environment for doctoral students, within their own competing roles and individual characteristics. The role of the librarian in the doctoral process is the focus of the study. The study used a descriptive research design. Data was collected from three public universities offering doctoral studies for over five years. A population 384 doctoral students and 18 senior librarians were sampled using simple stratified technique. Primary data was collected using self- administered questionnaires the study established that the library collected and organized the resources, provided space, internet based resources and an off-campus access system. But the learners used the general search engines more than they did the library based resources. The study recommended that there is need for the librarian to become more accessible through purpose driven services targeting the doctoral student’s needs. This would impact on the successful and efficient completion rates of the research process.
Information literacy of doctoral students in engineering and the librarian’s role
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science
After a reform of the doctoral study programme at the authors’ faculty in Slovenia, an introductory course on scientific research methods became mandatory. It includes the topic of information literacy and covers its five main elements according to ALA 2000 standards. A librarian/researcher runs the practical part. As this course has been running for seven years we were interested in its impacts: (1) what are students’ subjective impressions about the course and (2) if and how such a systematic education on information literacy topics objectively impacts their publishing and citations. The paper first presents the results of the questionnaire among 120 PhD students (the response was 67.5%, i.e. 81 of them) conducted immediately after the completion of the information literacy course. Four indicators were measured to address Question 1. Question 2 was approached by examining students’ citation practices in their own PhD theses and their publishing results. The hypothesis was that the...
An Investigation of the Information Practices of Education Doctoral Students
2015
Academic libraries are increasingly re-envisioning their services to provide expanded outreach and segmented programming for specific user groups. Many academic libraries offer segmented services and programming for undergraduate groups such as first-year experience programs and general education programs. Currently, academic libraries are also identifying and expanding their services and programming to meet the unique needs of graduate groups. In conjunction with this focus, the roles of academic librarians are also expanding in the area of outreach. In essence, academic librarians are becoming more directly involved in aligning library services and programming with academic programs and promoting change within their institutions. Faced with the challenges of outreach and promoting change it is essential that librarians gain deeper insights about the perspectives and needs of graduate programs and graduate groups to effectively plan and align library services. The purpose of this d...
A Doctoral thesis (unpublished), 2016
With the emergence of internet, online information resources are also emerging and these resources are gaining popularity among internet users particularly academicians, researchers and students. These online information resources also create positive impact on the research culture in Pakistan. Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan provides different types of online information resources such as peer-reviewed quality journals, databases and electronic books. These sources are published by internationally recognized entities. Consequently, the research culture in Pakistan has gained a great deal of not only acknowledgement but interest. A considerable ratio of enrolment in higher degree research programs can be observed in different universities of Pakistan. The research students at these universities are the future of Pakistan and it is essential to explore their information needs and requirements. This study aims to investigate the access and use of online information resources with reference to university research students of public and private sector universities of Pakistan, belonging to different disciplines. To meet this aim, the study analyzes the types of online information resources and explores the availability and importance level of OIRs, access patterns, access strategies, and usability of different type of OIRs, frequency of use, advantages and barriers to access and use of online information resources. Keeping in view the objectives of the study, the quantitative research method was adopted and questionnaires were designed to collect data from the respondents. The subject of the study comprised MS / MPhil and PhD research students of 30 public and private sector universities / degree awarding institutes of Lahore – Pakistan, recognized by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. The overall sample size of the population was 570 research students, studying in different disciplines in public and private sector universities of Lahore. In this survey 12 public (40%) and 18 private (60%) universities participated. Amongst 570 research students, 275 (59.3%) belonged to public sector universities and 188 (40.6%) were enrolled in private sector universities. The overall sample size consisted of 242 (52.26%) male and 221 (47.73%) female research students, which is a balanced response with respect of gender ratio. The data was numerical and presented via nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio scale of measurement. The finding of the study revealed that research students have access to different types of online information resources including HEC ebrary and journals / magazines databases but this access is varies amongst research students of public and private sector universities. Research students of public sector universities have more recourse than the students of private sector universities. Other than HEC resources, electronic books, journals / magazines articles, are also frequently used by research students. Research students particularly belongs to MS and MPhil degrees also consult social networking sites like blogs, wikis etc. to fulfill their information and knowledge needs. This study also concluded that, overall, research students are not satisfied with the current availability status of online information resources. They required more resources with better access options for the course and research work. The institute and library is the venue where research students use Online Information Resources (OIRs), regularly. A limited university does offer Virtual Private Network (VPN) access to their research students which results in underutilization of HEC resources by university students. Among overall usage ranking, social networking sites were used most by research students. MS / MPhil students preferred to access OIRs with the main aim of reading abstracts but PhD students access OIRs in order to access full text of article whose were retrieved from a database. General purpose search engines like Yahoo and Google are the most commonly accessed sources among research students of humanities, social sciences and science and technology. Data also revealed that personal contacts, e.g. supervisors, teachers, mentors, friends and colleagues, specific databases and specific institutional websites are the most common access patterns of research students of different discipline. Fast access, access to a wide range of information, updated information and multiple choices of formats are the major advantages of access and use of online information resources. Power failure (load shedding), slow internet connection, non-connectivity and lack of computer facility in institutes and libraries are the major hurdles to access and use online informant resources. In the light of these conclusions concrete recommendations were made.
2014
This study aims at measuring the correlation between information needs of patrons and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) Library collection. The survey was carried out targeting students from a doctoral course in Scientific and Technological Education especially, analyzing the listing of sources and literature of UFSC doctoral theses submitted in 2012. The postgraduate program was selected for its multidisciplinary nature. Theses were chosen for analysis because they are original studies and represent an innovative contribution. Also, they are available at the library collection and general public can access them both in printed or online format. The goal of this examination was to identify the matching between the literature used at research and the current library collection, to determine the proportion of electronic respectively online resources compared to printed material and their relationship to publication year, resource language and citation patterns. Concerning the used literature, when they were identified as online, was also verified if its content belongs to the library collection or if the access was provided by CAPES Portal. That is a scientific information portal maintained by the Brazilian federal govern. It collects and makes available to institutions of higher education and research in Brazil the best international scientific production. The methods used in this study will be implemented into the library's workflows in order to ensure the continual optimization of the collection development policy at