PhD Defence Nuria Ferran

Towards a personalised virtual library: indications from navigational and personal information behaviour of e-learning students Defence of the Doctoral Dissertation PhD student: Núria Ferran Ferrer PhD Supervisors: Dr. Julià Minguillón and Dr. Mario Pérez-Montoro Doctorat en Informació i documentació en l'era digital Programa interuniversitari de doctorat 2006-2008 (UB-UAB) Barcelona 9th of February, 2010

Overview 1. Introduction 2. Literature Review 3. Purpose and significance of the study 4. Hypothesis and research questions 5. Methodology 6. Hypothesis 1 (Papers I and II): research strategies and results 7. Hypothesis 2 (Papers III and IV): research strategies and results 8. Conclusions 2

1. Introduction • Study of information behaviour: – Social and economic perspective: • Informational society (Castells, 1999) – Individual perspective: • Personal Information Management (Jones, 2007) Design of virtual environments • Better understanding of the new user in the new digital revolution (Rowland and Nicholas, 2009) 3

2. Literature review • Research on information behaviour: – Human actions in relation to information souces and channels, including both passive and active information seeking and the use of it (Fisher and Julien, 2009) or its transfer (Wilson, 1999), as well as the behaviour aimed at avoiding information (Case, 2002) – Three consitutent elements: Need / Search process / Use – Focused on searching in academic/research contexts • Study of information literacy: – Rare to find info behaviour and info literacy together – Literates: acquired appropriate info. behaviour (Boon, 2007) – The acquisition of this expertise may take place in a context and then be transferred to the others (Lloyd, 2006). No studies about transfer of competencies between contexts 4

3. Purpose and significance of the study • This research work is focused on: – Information actions: search, but also manage and use – Contexts: academic, but also workplace and daily life – Information behaviour linked to information literacy – Transfer of information-related competencies between contexts 5

3. Purpose and significance of the study • Life-wide learning in knowledge society: – Students: personal/professional reasons, wide range situations, through life – Information literate individuals are ready for LLL, employment, active citizens • Overload of information: – Personalised information delivery systems: • Effectiveness and effiency • User satisfaction, needs and requirements • Power of user community • Need for usable desings according to the context and behaviour 6

CONTEXTS Basis Academic Workplace Daily life USERS Virtual Learning Environment Learning process INFO. CONTENTS SERVICES (personalised) 7

4. Work hypothesis and questions Hypothesis 1: The navigation behaviour of the users of a virtual library generates information for offering personalised services. a) How can the elements of a personalisation system of a virtual library be semantically represented by the data coming from users' navigational behaviour? b) How can the information behaviour of e-learning students be reused for rating learning objects? c) What metadata fields can be automatically filled from analysing user interactions with learning objects? 8

4. Work hypothesis and questions Hypothesis 2: E-learning students can adopt different personal information behavioural patterns in their academic, workplace and daily life contexts, while the information-related competencies acquired in any of the contexts are transferred to the other contexts. d) What are the variables involved in the different patterns of information behaviour of e-learning students? e) What are the personal information behaviour patterns of e-learning students in all their contexts of action? f) Is it possible the transfer of information-related competencies from/to academic, daily life and workplace contexts? 9

5. Methodology Multiple research strategies Publications - Process of designing ontologies Paper I - Focus Group Hypothesis 1 - Log analysis Paper II - In-depth interviews Paper III Hypothesis 2 - Incident cases - Content analysis Paper IV Multiple methodology approach: • Quantitative: Way of doing. Real information behaviour • Qualitative: Way of being. Reasons of the behaviour 10

6. Hypothesis 1. Paper I FERRAN, N.; MOR, E.; MINGUILLÓN, J. “Towards personalization in digital libraries through ontologies”, Library Management Journal, 2005, vol. 25, no. 4/5, p. 206-217. ISSN 0143-5125 • Purpose To describe those elements to buid a personalised info. delivery system integrated in VLE • Approach Use of ontologies to describe the relationship between all those which take part in a DL scenario of use 11

6. Hypothesis 1. Research strategies • Basic steps to design ontologies (Denny, 2002): 12

6. Hypothesis 1. Results (User Model) 13

6. Hypothesis 1. Results (Navigation Model) 14

6. Hypothesis 1. Paper II FERRAN, N.; CASADESÚS, J.; KRAKOWSKA, M.; MINGUILLÓN, J. “Enriching e-learning metadata through digital library usage analysis”, The Electronic Library, 2007, vol. 25, no. 2, p. 148-165. ISSN 0264-0473 • Purpose To propose and evaluate an automated technique to obtain non-authoritative metadata to rate LO in order to improve their description and support personalisation • Approach Tracking user navigation behaviour with LO 15

6. Hypothesis 1. Research strategies • Data gathered automatically: – Non intrusive and without filters – Raw data generated by Virtual Campus web server (Apache) by default • 2 million log lines per month (Feb-June 2006), 38,000 users • Custom made application • Focusing on the records of 2 virtual classrooms: 350 students • Each session was analysed regarding access to the classroom and what actions were performed in the DL • Interactions with specific LOs were analysed in detail • Real information behaviour: no partialities of laboratory, not asking for active participation, natural environment • Privacy assured by identifying only HTTP sessions, not users 16

6. Hypothesis 1. Results • Log file analysis of the navigational behaviour of LO: – Some resources were never used: • Poor description • Not useful for the learning process – Navigation followed time patterns – Students followed the learning plan 17

6. Hypothesis 1. Results (time pattern) • Examples of Resource usage: Navigation differs over time • Number of downloads per day of 2 LOs: Drop/sustained Weekends Holidays 18

6. Hypothesis 1. Results (Learning plan) • Examples of learning process' monitoring • Evolution of total number of downloads to 2 LOs: 4/5 days between LO accesses 19

6. Hypothesis 1. Results • Authoritative / non-authoritative metadata • Selection of LOM non-authoritative fields that may be enriched from user navigation data: 1.5. Keyword 5.8. Difficulty 1.7. Structure 5.9. Typical learning time 1.8. Aggregation level 3. Metadata 7. Relation 5. Educational 9. Classification 5.1. Interactivity type 5.3. Interactivity level 20

6. Hypothesis 1. Results • Example of metadata enrichment through LO usage: LO described as independent chunks of information Usage data: may reveal relationships with other LO's LOM 1.7. Structure and 1.8. Aggregation level 21

6. Hypothesis 1. Summary Academic Workplace Daily life actions User preferences/features Model profile Virtual Learning USERS Environment Navigational behaviour Learning Qualitative: micro-scenarios Interaction library uses process Quantitative: log analysis INFO. CONTENTS SERVICES Repositories Metadata 22

7. Hypothesis 2. Paper III FERRAN, N.; GUERRERO-ROLDÁN, A.; MOR, E.; MINGUILLÓN, J. “User Centered Design of a Learning Object Repository”. M. Kurosu (ed.): Human Centered Design, HCII 2009, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, no. 5619, p. 679–688. ISBN 978-3-642-02805-2 • Purpose To describe how to obtain information about user information behaviour to improve the design of LOR through UCD • Approach Qualitative approach (interviews and content analysis) 23

7. Hypothesis 2. Paper IV FERRAN, N.; PÉREZ-MONTORO, M. La Gestión de la Información Personal en usuarios intensivos de las TIC, El Profesional de la Información, 2009, vol. 18, no. 4, p. 365-373. ISSN 1386-6710 • Purpose To offer an analytical model of information behaviour patterns of e- learning students in their three contexts (AC, WP, DL) • Approach: Qualitative (interviews and content analysis) 24

7. Hypothesis 2. Research strategies • Random selection of the population under some criteria: – gender, age, profession, disciplines, semesters, num. subjects, family responsibilities and information literacy – Short phone interview to generate sample. Email incident cases (3 contexts) • 24 in-depth semi-structured interviews on e-learning students UOC (60-90 min each), Oct 07. 2 set trials (behaviour/context) • Content analysis: 2 coders, NVIVO 7.0, reliability test (Krippendorff, 2004). Codebook with 10 categories 25

7. Hypothesis 2. Research strategies • Codebook Categories involved in the Information Contexts different information patterns actions Information-related competencies Access Academic (expert / non-expert) Attitude Management Workplace (implicated / uninvolved) Cognitive style Use Daily life (disciplined / chaotic) ICT use perceptions (enthusiastic / realistic / critical) 26

7. Hypothesis 2. Research strategies • Access to information: – Gather and retrieve information. Needs • Management: – Treatment: applying existing organisation or classification systems – Integration: interpreting and representing information – Evaluation: quality, relevance, usefulness and efficiency of info • Use: – Creation: generate info, adapting, designing, inventing... – Communication: effective transmission using appropriate media, according to specific aims or recipients and to understand issues of copyright and plagiarism • Contexts: Academic, Workplace and Daily life 27

7. Hypothesis 2. Research strategies • Information-related competencies (expert / non-expert): – knowledge, experience, skills, etc. to find, evaluate and use information effectively • Attitude: – related with relational patterns (interpersonal / intergroup) and personality traits (instinct, need, etc.): • Implicated: essentially motivated to learn or seek • Uninvolved: need a reward or punishment • Cognitive style: – personality aspect in relation with knowledge creation • Disciplined: meticulous, focus on process • Chaotic: follow their own rules, focus on results • ICT perceptions (ICT as enabler, no priority or reservations) • Enthusiastic, Realistic and Critical 28

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Access to information vs context: – Academic: “The university gives me everything so I do not need to bother about searching for more” – Workplace: The importance of the corridor – Daily Life: “I control the Internet; it is not the Net which controls me” • Management of information vs context: – Academic: Use of the tools in purposes unexpected when designed – Workplace: “We cannot take risks” – Daily Life: “No need for managing it” 29

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Use of information (communication) vs contexts: – Academic: email – Workplace: Everything is informal – Daily life: Fridge-door as a communication platform • Information-related competencies vs context: – There is a strong relationship between the IL in Daily Life and Workplace contexts – There is no association between being expert or non-expert in the academic context and the other two contexts 30

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Attitude (Implicated / Uninvolved) vs context: – Half of the participants had an implicated attitude in the three contexts at the same time – The other half were found to be implicated in the professional and daily life contexts while uninvolved in the academic • Cognitive style (Disciplined / Chaotic) vs context: – Clearly different upon the context: • Workplace: disciplined style prevails • Daily life: the chaotic predominates • Academic: both styles are equally abundant • ICT Perceptions: • Almost all cases coincident in being enthusiastic 31

7. Hypothesis 2. Results Behaviour patterns: 75% of participants were either disciplinated-implicated or chaotic-uninvolved in the academic context. Cognitive style ⋅ attitude = FOUR information behaviour patterns Disciplined EX HA E U IV CT ST EA IV E R Attitude Implicated Uninvolved E PA T IV SS AC IV PRO E Chaotic Cognitive style 32

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Information Behavioural Patterns (cognitive style / attitude) EXHAUSTIVE: Disciplined / Implicated: – Active when searching, managing and using information, finding attractive these activities – When they learn or improve some skill in one context they are very talented for transferring them to the other contexts – They use newish and innovatory tools – But they need a roadmap, they appreciate guidelines and knowing the process for getting the expected results “...if I follow the marked steps, I am successful” 33

7. Hypothesis 2. Results Disciplined EX HA E IV U CT ST EA IV R E Attitude Implicated Uninvolved E PA T IV SS AC IV PRO E Chaotic Cognitive style 34

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Information Behavioural Patterns (cognitive style / attitude) PASSIVE: Chaotic / Uninvolved – Users that are inconstant with procedures – Need to adapt their internal rules to the regulations of the contexts – “I receive the didactical material at home but I do not need to open the package” – They need an environment that allows them to choose from a wide range of processes to reach similar results 35

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Information Behavioural Patterns (cognitive style / attitude) REACTIVE: Disciplined / Uninvolved – They need to feel secure with the tools, feel that they have the knowledge and skills – They act when “the teacher tells me which activities are useful for evaluation” – They transfer processes between contexts, but they use the predetermined tools offered by each context 37

7. Hypothesis 2. Results • Information Behavioural Patterns (cognitive style / attitude) PROACTIVE: Chaotic / Implicated – They apply different processes and tools to different contexts, not for standardizing their behaviour but as a personal feature – They use the newish tools if they are more open, flexible and agile – “I do not keep a directory, the Internet is already the directory” 39

Academic Workplace Daily life Hypothesis 2. Summary Actions User profile Preferences/ USERS Model features Virtual Learning Info. behaviour Environment EXHAUSTIVE Patterns PROACTIVE REACTIVE PASSIVE Learning Qualitative: interviews and process Interaction content analysis INFO. CONTENTS Quantitative: usage log SERVICES mining Repositories Metadata UCD Competencies 40

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 1: The navigation behaviour of the users of a virtual library generates information for offering personalised services. Research question: a) How can the elements of a personalisation system of a virtual library be semantically represented by the data coming from users' navigational behaviour? (Paper I) 41

8. Conclusions a) Using the information relevant to the process of searching and browsing, the elements that determine the requisites of a personalised virtual library embedded in an e-learning environment are the following: – User profile: including personal information, user preferences and navigational history. – Navigational profiles: data from the navigational behaviour of the digital library users. 42

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 1: The navigation behaviour of the users of a virtual library generates information for offering personalised services. Research question: b) How can the information behaviour of e-learning students be reused for rating learning objects? (Paper II) 43

8. Conclusions b) Regarding the resources involved in the learning process, they can be rated in an automated way based on registering navigational actions of students. In this way, their information behaviour within each session in the virtual campus can be analysed and the access to each particular learning object can be studied: – Even without the special recording utilities in the virtual campus, the interaction of students with learning objects can be tracked by analysing server log files where all HTTP requests are recorded by default. 44

8. Conclusions - More advanced potentialities are limited by the anonymity of the students. In this sense, a more in depth analysis would require recording an unambiguous identification of the student in each session, not just his or her IP address, while dealing with privacy concerns. 45

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 1: The navigation behaviour of the users of a virtual library generates information for offering personalised services. Research question: c) What metadata fields can be automatically filled from analysing user interactions with learning objects?(Paper II) 46

8. Conclusions c) From the evaluation of the interactions between users and contents, a selection of Learning Object Metadata (LOM) fields can be automatically generated and be further used as non-authoritative metadata for rating those learning objects. – These are the selected LOM fields: 1.5. Keyword 5.8. Difficulty 1.7. Structure 5.9. Typical learning time 1.8. Aggregation level 3. Metadata 7. Relation 5. Educational 9. Classification 5.1. Interactivity type 5.3. Interactivity level 47

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 2: E-learning students can adopt different personal information behaviour patterns in their academic, workplace and daily life contexts, while the information-related competencies acquired in any of the contexts are transferred to the other contexts. Research question: d) What are the variables involved in the different patterns of information behaviour of e-learning students? (Paper III) 48

8. Conclusions d) As the first step towards the design of a personalised information delivery system, a User Centred Design (UCD) approach can be applied for planning and developing a learning object repository: • Interviews and log analyses are complementary methodologies for gathering user requirements to obtain a service adapted to user profile and context of use. 49

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 2: E-learning students can adopt different personal information behaviour patterns in their academic, workplace and daily life contexts, while the information-related competencies acquired in any of the contexts are transferred to the other contexts. Research question: e) What are the personal information behaviour patterns of e-learning students in all their contexts of action? (Paper IV) 50

8. Conclusions e) The personal information behaviour of e-learning students can be classified into four patterns taking into account their attitudes and cognitive approaches: • This user categorisation can be stored in the user profile to feed the personalised information delivery system. • Other analysed variables such as gender, number of semesters of enrolment with a virtual university and family responsibilities do not determine differences in the personal information behaviour of e- learning students. 51

8. Conclusions • Hypothesis 2: E-learning students can adopt different personal information behaviour patterns in their academic, workplace and daily life contexts, while the information-related competencies acquired in any of the contexts are transferred to the other contexts. Research question: f) Is it possible the transfer of information-related competencies from/to academic, daily life and workplace contexts? (Paper IV) 52

8. Conclusions f) There is some transfer of information-related competencies between workplace, daily life and academic contexts, but this is only at a basic level of information literacy expertise: • The cognitive approach (disciplined / chaotic) is not relevant for behaving as expert or non-expert in information-related competencies in all of the three contexts. 53

8. Conclusions • The relationship between information-related competencies’ expertise, attitude and cognitive approach is different for each context: – In the workplace, being expert in information literacy is associated with having an implicated attitude and a disciplined cognitive approach. – In daily life, the information-related competencies do not show any clear relationship with cognitive approach. – In the academic context, the observed low level of information literacy seems to be related with a prevalent uninvolved attitude with chaotic features. 54

8. Conclusions • There is a regular pattern involving the cognitive approach and attitude. If people are implicated, they will also develop a disciplined cognitive approach, while if they are uninvolved, they behave informationally chaotic. 55

PhD Defense Towards a personalised virtual library: indications from navigational and personal information behaviour of e-learning students Thank you for your attention.

PhD Defence Nuria Ferran

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