V. Redfern (Australia)
online information seeking, online research tools.
Information seeking by undergraduate and postgraduate students who are either new to academic research or are from a non-English speaking background is sometimes fraught with difficulties and obstacles for the unwary. Because of personal habits in a home or personal setting Computer users often resort to using the www and Google® to find academic materials. Whilst this is not necessarily an unwise method of finding academic information, those users still experience similar problems because they are related to the establishment of effective search terms. Rootza®™ is an information seeking tool I developed in an attempt to make online searching easier for either the novice or non-novice information seeker. Rootza was researched, developed and experiments conducted with student participants as a PhD project. Rootza’s core function is to teach information seekers The Big 61 steps of information seeking as well as the 6 elements that form the basis for the evaluation of online materials acceptable to academic standards. The resulting research and statistical analysis shows a marked improvement in the online information seeking skills for the students who participated in the experiment. This data suggests that the online core concept thesaucratic database which informs the user of the steps of information seeking and the elements which constitute online academically acceptable information does indeed assist students and information seekers.
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