Conducting Research in the Digital Age

I enjoyed the Proquest sponsored February 2009 study "Project Information Literacy Progress Report of What College Student's Say about Conducting Research in the Digital Age" forwarded by Gunn librarian, Kristi Bowers, because it addresses several of the issues raised at the last Gunn Library Committee meeting. The title page indicates that the research, to be completed in the spring, is sponsored by a gift from ProQuest.

Michael Eisenberg, one of the authors of this study, is also the author of the Big 6 Model, for teaching literacy skills. It makes sense that ProQuest would want to learn more about students' creative workarounds for doing research. Like Gunn's Library Committee, this project assumes that the best digital research tools will emerge from constructive dialogue between professionals, familiar with traditional research tools, and digital natives regarding the best ways to do online research. Everyone agrees that "Research seems to be far more difficult to conduct in the digital age than it did in previous times."

The article distinguishes between frustrations experienced in "Everyday Life Research"–typical, daily Google searches, and "Course-Related Research"–searches done for academic credit. It is ironic that the study found students to be apologetic about Wikipedia use while acknowledging that some of the "10 reasons students use Wikipedia" is that it "gives a summary of issues and terminology,... it uses 'good English', is written by 'real people', and is easily understood."

The results from the project's "Next Steps" will be to understand how and why the design of online resources used by campus libraries and produced by database vendors, enhances or detracts from... research experiences. Both the ProQuest sponsored study of online research, and the Gunn Library Committee involve a collaboration between digital natives and digital immigrants with a goal of determining "best practice" search strategies for online research. These collaborations, in combination with the continual growth of online tools, will result in improved and unforeseen learning opportunities.