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Supporting Academic Inquiry in theArts & Humanities

Ian Hargraves*, Brian Haven*, Shelley Evenson*, John Zimmerman*†

*School of Design†Human Computer Interaction Institute

Carnegie Mellon UniversityMMCH 110, 5000 Forbes Ave., Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA 15213

{ihargrav, bhaven}@andrew.cmu.edu, evenson@cmu.edu, johnz@cs.cmu.edu

ABSTRACT

In this paper we discuss an ongoing project investigatingthe technological support of the process of academicinquiry, as undertaken by doctoral students in the Arts andHumanities. Current tools that support inquiry tend to havea very specific task focus that isolates them from eachother. This isolation hinders the flow of the students’inquiry process. By designing across the resourcemanagement, environmental and societal goals of academicinquiry we hope to offer tools that go beyond satisfyingindividual tasks alone. Rather we propose a solution thatmeets over-arching goals of the students’ process ofinquiry. Our proposal connects the acts of finding texts,reading, and note taking with the social space of inquiry,positioning both the student, and the texts that they readwithin the social context of the field.

AUTHOR KEYWORDS

Design, inquiry, library, interaction design, search,annotation, bibliography

INTRODUCTION

In a earlier study looking at the use of information systemswithin academic libraries we found current systems foridentifying, locating and engaging with information mediawere poorly related to each other. We observed usersmaking repeated visits between dispersed computer basedcatalogs, stacks of books, and reading areas, while lookingfor material that related to their inquiry. This process wasoften repeated before relevant materials were discovered.Part of the process of determining relevance of material isestablishing a sense of what a piece of material covered andhow it related to other materials. Catalog entries offerlimited information regarding the content of a piece ofmedia (book, periodical, audio recording, etc), while thematerial is assigned a context through classification systemssuch as keywords, Library of Congress numbering, etc.These classifications do not clearly make visible how a textrelates to other texts in the field.

Other authors have identified the importance of establishinga texts context in the literature of its field [1]. Systems havebeen developed which visualize the connections betweentexts, these take the form of bibliographic or citation maps[6], [3]. We applaud this work but suggest that withoutfurther integration with the other systems and goals of theacademic library, such tools risk being isolated andcontributing to the fractured flow of experience that weobserved within libraries.

The challenges facing libraries are immense. They arecharged with conflicting goals of document storage,identification and engagement. The types of media storedwithin libraries are changing as are the ways in whichpeople find media and engage with it. A lot of the problemsthat we observed within libraries arose because solutionswere designed to address the goals of media storage,identification and engagement separately, with limitedconnection to each other.

We believe that the over-arching goal of the academiclibrary is to provide support to the process of inquiry. Webelieve that by designing to satisfy this goal we canpotentially avoid the isolation of tools currently utilizedwithin libraries. To this end we began investigating theprocess of academic inquiry and how it may be supportedwith technology.

Inquiry is a widely practiced activity, although difficult toimmediately characterize. As a starting point we looked tothe philosopher John Dewey who describes inquiry thus:

"Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of anindeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in itsconstituent distinctions & relations as to convert theelements of the original situation into a unified whole." [2].

This definition suggests transformations of chunks ofconfused discrete information with no apparent relationshipor connection into unified knowledge structures.Information systems within libraries currently aid users in

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identifying discrete pieces of information but do little toassist the user in transforming these indeterminate elementsinto a unified whole. This transformation often takes placein contexts other than library spaces. This can occur, forexample, through the notes that students take while readinga book, reflections they make late a night while brushingtheir teeth, insights they gain while carrying on anindirectly related conversation with a colleague, or evenwhile reading the newspaper.

We recognized that given our resources and the breadth ofthe practice of inquiry that we needed to scope our projectto look at a particular audience. We chose PhD. Students inthe Arts and Humanities. These students often draw onmaterial from disciplines outside of their specificdepartment and expertise. We felt that this audience’sdiversity of exploration suited our goal of gaining a generalunderstanding of the activity of inquiry.

We proceeded by conducting initial and follow upinterviews with two Rhetoric students, two Design studentsand a History student. We also looked at artifacts that theyhad engaged with as part of their inquiry, the process andtechniques they utilized, and in three cases looked at theprimary environment where they undertook their inquiry.Additionally we interviewed the advisor of two of thestudents to gain insight into his understanding of thestudents undertaking—both what he observes in thestudents he has advised as well as that which he tries toinstill in his students as he guides them through theirresearch.

FINDINGS

Our initial expectation was that Inquiry centered ontransforming information from a variety of resources into aunified body of knowledge. We also expected that the chiefactivities of this process would be the location of resources,followed by the arranging of and engagement with thoseresources in the production of new understandings. Whatwe found was that while these activities and goals wereindeed part of Inquiry, the goal of knowledge formationwas accompanied by other goals, which had their ownassociated activities and conditions.

We have arranged our findings under three categories:Working with Resources, Inquiry as an Environment, TheSocial Space of Inquiry.

Working with Resources

For our subjects, the primary resources that they workedwith were books and articles from periodicals. Theseresources provided the material from which they built asolid foundational understanding of their domain, and fromwhich, in the later stages of their doctoral studies, theypositioned and built original arguments and positions oftheir own.

These resources are identified and engaged with over time.It is a constant concern of students that they havediscovered the appropriate texts, and that they are notmissing core bodies of information. Particularly in earlystages, students will frequently search library catalogs andthe Internet looking for keywords in relevant resources.Consistently students used bibliographies to move from textto text in traversing the literature. Advisors and colleaguesare also important pointers to relevant texts.

Resources, once found, must be engaged with andintegrated into the students understanding. For text-basedresources this is done by reading at a variety of depths. Firstpasses are used to estimate relevance. A text that is found tobe relevant may be read repeatedly over a long period oftime depending on its significance. A process of annotationoften accompanies reading [2]. Notes and marks are madedirectly onto the text, in the form of marginalia, or intoanother document (either digital or paper based). Thesemarks and annotations appear to be part of the process ofsynthesizing information—they help students understandwhat is being said in a text and integrate it with theirexisting knowledge. Previously made annotations,particularly those made during the first couple of readings,are seldom referred to after they are initially made. Thissuggests that their purpose is not to offer a summary of thetext, but to aid in the understanding of the text whilereading it.

The students we interviewed acquired resources from avariety of fields and amassed a large collection ofreferences, books, photocopies of book sections, and AdobeAcrobat [.PDF] files. Managing this collection was aconcern for all the students interviewed. Most expressedfrustration at their inability to establish a good system formanaging their collected resources. The student who wasleast concerned was near the end of his doctorate and hadculled his collection of resources down to a stack of papersa few inches high. He preferred not to keep books aroundhim as they cluttered and stressed him. This contrasted withother students, who felt reassured by keeping a wealth ofmaterials around them.

Managing collected resources.

Inquiry as an Environment

It is a defining characteristic of PhD students in the Artsand Humanities that they have inquiring minds. This driveto inquire forms an environment, a mental space within

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which they work and live. One student described her pursuitof doctoral studies as arising out of a “felt difficulty” withthe way that both she and the field understood a particularsubject. When she began her studies she could only expressthis difficulty in general terms. As she progressed sheexplored what this difficulty was, framed it and moved tosuggesting ways of resolving the difficulty. The advisor thatwe interviewed actively sought to instill a state ofconstructive anger within his students. This anger, arisingout of the identification of weaknesses in the field, provideda source of energy and motivation for students to strengthenthe field. At the same time as developing an energizinganger, he also sought to encourage a sense of beauty withinhis students, something that allowed them to value well-formed arguments and ideas, and work towards creatingtheir own to contribute to the field.

Students reported that once their inquiry was underway itbecame pervasive in their lives. Often their living spaceswould become populated with related books and articles.They would think about it away from the university andwithin their personal lives. Many everyday things andexperiences were seen in a new light based on their inquiry.They would serendipitously stumble upon relevant things intheir day-to-day lives.

Personal living space, books and computer co-existing.

Social Space of Inquiry

Our initial understanding of the goal of academic inquirywas the generation of new knowledge. This is indeed a goalof the process. But this new knowledge needs to beconnected back to the field. The field is made up of anaffiliation of individuals, both living and dead, who areinterested in a particular area, Rhetoric or History forexample. Any new knowledge generated by inquiry ispositioned in the social context of the field. One of thegoals of doctoral study, and associated inquiry, is to gainadmittance to, and stature within, a community. One of thechallenges facing new doctoral students is to recognize their

community and to see that they have a place within it. Forthis to occur it is important that they engage with thecommunity. They may enter into dialog with thecommunity through attending conferences, participating inon-line discussions and collaborating in the publication ofperiodical articles. This participation with a communityleads to an eventual mature contribution by the student tothe community.

Recognizing that inquiry has a social component changesthe relationships between the resources that students engagewith. Texts are no longer repositories of information, butrather voices of fellow community members. Authors in thefield start to come alive and become personalities withwhom students begin a dialogue, either through the act ofreading, or in face to face discussion when they meet themat conferences or the like. The activity of search in thiscontext is not as simple as using the tools and techniques ofthe library, it is about connecting to ideas and people.

TOOLS OF THE PROCESS OF INQUIRY

We observed that common computer based tools were usedby most students. EndNote, a citation managementdatabase, was used by all students interviewed to recordrelevant texts and automatically generate citations fordocuments in a variety of standardized formats. AdobeAcrobat Portable Document Format (.PDF) is the standardformat for digital texts, particularly for those acquiredthrough online document databases. All students usedMicrosoft Word to generate original text documents,including their dissertations. Word integrates with EndNote,a collaboration that students found extremely useful.Various World Wide Web search engines, particularlyGoogle, as well as library database search engines were alsofrequently used. Some students participated in onlinediscussions through blogs or newsgroups. Many studentskeep electronic documents and notes on their desktopcomputers or laptops.

Each of these tools served a function within a student’sprocess of inquiry. This functionality was typically isolatedto one aspect of the process and often did not integrate wellwith, or appear to acknowledge other aspects of the process.

EndNote allows users to manage collections of texts andplace references to individual texts within theirdissertations. It does not support reading or annotating atext directly. We observed that people use Acrobat to readelectronic documents, and on rare occasions annotate themdigitally. While EndNote does integrate with MicrosoftWord to add citations and create bibliographies, these toolsare still divorced from both the original document as well asthe annotations that inform the personal writing that occursin Word. Web and library database search engines requireusers to know the specific terminology used as keywords, tolocate relevant texts [5]. Search strategies and histories arelost once a search session is completed. None of these tools

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integrate well with technologies, such as blogs andnewsgroups, that are used to support the important socialaspects of inquiry.

DESIGN DIRECTION

In contrast to the tools that currently support inquiry in afractured manner, we are looking to explore designsolutions that work across the complex goals and activitiesof inquiry. We have concentrated on ways of bringing theresource based activities of research into the social space ofinquiry—allowing students to participate in a communitywhile engaging in the acquisition and synthesis of data.

In the concept pictured in Figure 1 we are suggesting usingthe environment of text as a place for participation withboth data and the broader community of interest.

Figure 1. Initial design concept showing personal andcommunal comments of a text and its relationship to other

texts through citations.

Utilizing digital representations of the printed page, we aresuggesting a system that scales from a simple digital book,to a place for personal annotation of the text. Additionally,commentary from members of the wider community on thetext may selectively be revealed, providing a space foractive engagement with the personalities of the field.Bibliographic references place the text in the context of thewider literature, and relate the commentators to that widerliterature.

CONCLUSION

Our research shows Inquiry to be a multi faceted process ,with resource management, environmental and societalgoals and activities. The complexity of this process is notwell reflected in the design of current tools that supportinquiry.

By developing systems that transcend the isolation of taskbased solutions we hope to offer students a tool thatsatisfyingly accompanies them throughout the complexprocess of academic inquiry.

REFERENCES

1. Börner, K, Maru, J. T., & Goldstone, R. L. Thesimultaneous evolution of article and author networksin PNAS. The Proceedings of the National Academyof Science, 2001 ?????

2. Dewey, J., Logic, the theory of inquiry. New York, H.Holt and Company, 1938.

3. Lin, X.; White, H. D.; & Buzydlowski, J. (2001).AuthorLink: Instant Author Co-Citation Mappingfor Online Searching. Proceedings of NationalOnline 2001 (New York, May 15-17, 2001) pp. 233 -241.

4. Marshall, C. C., Annotation: From Paper Books to theDigital Library, Proc. 2nd ACM Conf. on DigitalLibraries, July 1997.

5. Rao, Ramana , Pedersen, Jan O., Hearst, Marti A.,Mackinlay, Jock D., Card, Stuart K., Masinter, Larry,Halvorsen, Per-Kristian, Robertson, George G., RichInteraction in the Digital Library, Communications ofthe ACM, Vol. 38, No. 4, April 1995.

6. White, H.D. and K.W. McCain (1998). An Author Co-Citation Analyis of Information Science, 1972-1995.Journal of the American Society for InformationScience 49, 327-355.