Graduate Students’ Perceptions of Federated Searching
Sarah Baker, Education Librarian
New Mexico State University
Alisa C. Gonzalez, Reference Coordinator
New Mexico State University
One Search
Text
Previous Research
Implementation • (Gerrity, Lyman & Tallent,2002) (Ellis, Hartnett & Waldman, 2008)
Usability • (Lampert & Dabbour, 2007) (Belliston, Howland & Roberts, 2007)
(Tallent, 2004)
Student Information Seeking Behavior • (Kuhlthau, 1991) (Sadler & Given, 2007)
• (Barrett, 2005) (George, Bright, Hurlbert, et al., 2006)
“Student Feedback on Federated Search Use, Satisfaction, and Web Presence
Qualitative Findings of Focus Groups” (Williams, Bonnell, & Stoffel, 2009)
Study focused on:
• Use
• Satisfaction
• Website Integration (p.134)
• Graduate and Undergraduate Students
Similarities in Our Findings
• Majority of students were satisfied
• Preferred Advanced Search
• Federated Search was used in conjunction with other resources
• Disliked
• “logic of results”
• lack of instruction
Differences in Our Study
• We only interviewed graduate students with significant experience using One Search.
• We asked students about their experience with library instruction.
• Students demonstrated how they had answered a previous research question.
• Students described their research process, in general.
Methodology
• Participants completed a brief online survey
• Participants selected were current graduate students with experience using One Search
• 13 individual semi-formal interviews.
• Asked ten questions with follow up questions.
• Preliminary findings gathered by note analysis
Demographic Information New Mexico State University
• 51 master’s degree programs
• 24 doctoral programs in the colleges of Engineering,!Business Administration and Economics, Education, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, Arts and Sciences and Health and Social Services
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Demographic Information
Demographic InformationMaster’s vs. Doctorate
• 11 master’s students
• 2 doctoral students
Male vs. Female
• 4 male
• 9 female
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Survey Questions• What level are you at in your graduate studies?
• What is your discipline?
• How many instruction sessions have you attended in your undergraduate and graduate studies?
• I rate my internet research skills as…
• I rate my library research skills as…
• How often have you used One Search?
• How did you find out about One Search?
• How important is the library to your research?
Interview Questions
Preliminary Findings
How do you conduct research?
What resources do you consult?
• Brainstorm with Google or Wikipedia then use One Search or separate library databases to find articles.
• Browse One Search for abstracts then use the Internet if their search fails.
• Will use specific databases if they know the subject well, otherwise One Search or Google Scholar.
How do you conduct research?
What resources do you consult?
Consult with:
• Professors
• Advisors
• Other students
What methods do you use to find
academic/scholarly information?
• Internet, One Search and books to find article citations
• Look up citations in traditional library resources (subject specific databases, catalogs)
• Faculty, advisors and other students
What methods do you use to find
academic/scholarly information?
PhD students:
• Perform more focused research
• Search within a particular journal
• Develop research strategy with cohort
What do you expect to find when
searching One Search?
• Abstracts
• Full text journal articles
• Students look for books but find mostly articles.
• Most students prefer searching the library catalog separately for books.
Describe a research question that you
tried to answer using One Search?
• Most students use the Advanced Search.
• Limit search by selecting databases by subject
• Refine search by topic clusters, date, source
• Scan abstracts to see if results were relevant, if not, will change search
• Some students were apprehensive about the quality of their search skills.
• Confusion over selecting keyword, subject or title fields
What are the strengths?
• Easy to find lots of information
• Searching reliable sources
• Searchable abstracts
• Sort by year
• View results by journal and database
• Convenient
• User friendly
• Good starting point for research
What are the weaknesses/limitations?
• Not intuitive
• Slow in searching/processing
• Problems accessing full text
• Shows too many results, overwhelming
• Outdated interface design
• Doesn’t search phrases well
• Defaults to title search
• “Wish I had faith in how it is searching”
Are you satisfied with the results?
• Yes
• For the most part
• Not completely, not bad
• Sometimes, not all of the time
• No
• It has great potential
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How did students rate One Search?
Average rating = 7.7
What kinds of information can be
effectively found using One Search?
• Abstracts
• Books
• Background information
• Scholarly journal articles/literature reviews
• Very specific information when using narrow search terms
Individual Databases vs. One Search
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The Next Steps...
• Change interface design
• Provide search tips on One Search interface
• Market One Search
• Incorporate in library instruction
• Publish findings
ReferencesBarrett, A. (2005) The information seeking habits of graduate student researchers in the humanities. Journal of Academic
Librarianship, 31(4), 324-331
Belliston, C. J., Howland, J. L., & Roberts, B. C. (2007). Undergraduate use of federated searching: A survey of preferences and perceptions of value-added functionality. College & Research Libraries, 68(6), 472-486.
Ellis, L. A., Hartnett, J., & Waldman, M. (2008). Building Bearcat. Library Journal, 133, 6-8.
George, C., Bright, A., Hurlbert, T., Linke, E. C., St. Clair, G., & Stein, J. (2006). Scholarly use of information: graduate students' information seeking behaviour. Information Research, 11(4), 14-14.
Gerrity, B., Lyman, T., & Tallent, E. (2002). Blurring services and resources: Boston College's implementation of MetaLib and SFX, Reference Services Review, 30, 229-241.
Kuhlthau, C. C. (1991). Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective. Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 42(5), 361-371.
Lampert, L. D., & Dabbour, K. S. (2007). Librarian perspectives on teaching metasearch and federated search technologies. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 12(3/4), 253-278.
Sadler, E., & Given, L. M. (2007). Affordance theory: a framework for graduate students' information behavior. Journal of Documentation, 63(1), 115-141.
Tallent, E. (2004). Metasearching in Boston College libraries — a case study of user reactions. New Library World, 105(1/2), 69-75.
Williams, S. C., Bonnell, A., & Stoffel, B. (2009). Student Feedback on Federated Search Use, Satisfaction, and Web Presence: Qualitative Findings of Focus Groups. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(2), 131-139.
