Discovering the reality of PGR information seeking
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Discovering the reality of PGR information seeking
- 1. Discovering the reality from the myth How PGRs ‘really’ find and use information LILAC, April 2017 Helen Young, Loughborough University Laura Montgomery, Taylor & Francis Group
- 2. Why are we here? This study focuses on the needs and behaviours of the Postgraduate Research Student. Valérie Spezi, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 2016 (Literature Review): • information seeking studies of postgraduate researchers as a specific user group are rare. • There was anecdotal evidence that the one-stop information literacy session was unhelpful. We both wanted to fill this knowledge gap. We both wanted to pilot publisher-library collaboration 2
- 3. What will we cover? Project overview & methods Myths & reality of PGR information seeking behaviour Reflections on results and how we might improve the PGR Library UX Tips on how you might undertake similar research
- 5. Project overview • Collaborative study developed and run by Taylor & Francis Group and Loughborough University • Mapped the User Experience of 10 Postgraduate Research Students over 8 months • Discover how they find and manage information • Identify opportunities to enhance the PGR library UX 5
- 6. What we wanted to know 6 How can libraries and publishers improve the services and products we offer PGRs? 5 KEY QUESTIONS How do PGRs reach information? How do they use and manage this information? How do they use the library and what role do librarians play in their research? How do they use publishers’ platforms? How satisfied or frustrated are they with the research process?
- 7. Who was involved? Loughborough University Library Graduate School School of Arts, English and Drama Marketing & Advancement PGR participants Taylor & Francis Journal Publishing Communications Research & Analytics Web development
- 8. How we did it 8 1 • T&F and Loughborough ran a joint ‘how to get published’ workshop for PGRs. • PGRs recruited to complete an initial survey 2 • Recruited participants (based on quality of survey response) from range of disciplines • Financial incentive offered 3 • Monthly diary completed by PGRs over 8 months • Additional thematic questions posed each month • Support offered by academic mentors 4 • Focus group 5 • Findings collated and analysed
- 11. Myth 1 – Google is king Image by TopRankMarketing from flickr.com, used under cc BY 2.0 licence
- 12. Your thoughts
- 13. What did they use?
- 14. Reflections • Google Scholar is ‘king’ but Library Catalogue was surprisingly important • Few subject specific resources • Once find and trust a source, they are loyal
- 15. Myth 2 – Librarians know best Image: Harris County Public Library from flickr.com. Used under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
- 16. How were they searching?
- 17. Could we have helped?
- 18. Reflections • There is no ‘standard’ research workflow, but common aim always instant full-text • Barriers – Passwords • Lack of awareness of Library services • Librarians know a lot, but the researchers should not be under-estimated
- 20. Reflections • Expect instant access to full-text – Prefered to spend time finding a full-text ‘good enough’ article rather than wait for the initial recommended article • Feel time poor – Convoluted routes to resources could perhaps be speeded up by knowledge of the right places to go to first
- 21. Myth 3 – Being mobile friendly is essential Image: Tim Ellis from flickr.com. Used under CC BY- NC 2.0 licence
- 22. What devices did they use?
- 23. Myth 4 – By the time you do a PhD you know how to manage references Image: Alexandre Duret-Lutz from flickr.com. Used under a CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
- 24. How did they manage information?
- 25. Reflections • Mendeley is reference management tool of choice (even in small sample) • Recognition that previous practices might need to change when do PhD • Need to make procedures manageable so can maintain consistency
- 26. Myth 5 – Supervisors are the fount of all wisdom Image: David McGregor from flickr.com. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
- 27. How did they develop their skills?
- 28. Reflections • Face-to-face workshops have a role – Most referred to were generic sessions • Skills often developed before get to PhD • Supervisors need to be aware of (and ideally model) best practice too
- 29. Myth 6 – Social media is fine for social activity, but doesn’t have a serious role in academia Image: mkhmarketing from flickr.com. Used under CC- BY 2.0 licence
- 30. What was the role of social media?
- 31. Reflections • Thoughtful use of social media • Range of uses keeps growing over time as social media becomes just another part of the web of communications
- 32. Your thoughts
- 33. How did they keep up-to-date?
- 34. Reflections • Huge variety – none of the participants felt confident they were up-to-date • How do we support them to balance between being informed and being overwhelmed?
- 35. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT FROM THE RESULTS?
- 36. Loughborough Generic sessions have value Need to manage researcher expectations Services and support need to be visible at point of need Embed good research practices at UG and PGT level Accept a variety of search routes Facilitate and learn from researcher peer-to-peer knowledge sharing
- 37. “This project gave us the opportunity to meet our users at a more granular level to make sure that the improvements we could make from the research would benefit a wider group of people….it’s sometimes difficult to meet our PhD students – they don’t use the library building, we have to go and seek them – so getting them involved in this way was particularly valuable for service improvement.” Emma Walton Director of Library Services
- 38. Taylor & Francis Publisher platform-based searching uncommon Investment in Google discoverability key Need cleaner user interfaces with less clutter Work with libraries to better signpost bought content Work with libraries on more seamless content access Develop / communicate better pay-per- view models Help Librarians and PGRs understand Open Access Book chapters to be more searchable
- 39. HINTS AND TIPS
- 40. What would our advice be to others? Be optimistic about recruitment … we had a really strong response. If you want to get really interesting, granular information from your participants, then you need to be aware that it takes a lot of time. Think about what you want, but be prepared to be flexible in how you might get it.Involve as many relevant sections of an institution or group of institutions as you can because having those different experiences … they all bring different perspectives.
- 41. What next? • Feed results of this project into planning and content of Library PGR workshops through dissemination within Team and elsewhere in Library • Continue link between Taylor & Francis and Loughborough to explore other areas • Development of Taylor & Francis toolkit for others undertaking research into the ‘reality’ of their own researchers
- 42. Contacts • Helen Young – Academic Services Manager – Loughborough University Library – h.young@lboro.ac.uk • Laura Montgomery – Communications Manager (Library Relations) – Taylor and Francis – laura.montgomery@tandf.co.uk
- 43. References • Spezi, V. (2016), Is information-seeking behaviour of doctoral students changing?: A review of the literature (2010 – 2015). New Review of Academic Librarianship, 22 (1): 78-106. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1361453 3.2015.1127831 • Nicholas, D., Boukacem-Zeghmouri, C., Rodríguez- Bravo, B., Xu, J., Watkinson, A., Abrizah, A., Herman, E. and Świgoń, M. (2017), Where and how early career researchers find scholarly information. Learned Publishing, 30: 19–29. doi:10.1002/leap.1087
- 44. Image: Valerie Everett from flickr.com. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 licence
Editor's Notes
- The study we’re going to present to you today takes a specific segment of library customers – the Postgraduate Research Student – and shows you how we went about finding out more about their needs and behaviours, and what these insights tell us / how we might be able to intervene to improve the PGR Library UX. Why Postgrad Research students? Because recent years have seen rapid change in scholarly communication, and whilst the academic journal remains central in many disciplines to the research lifecycle, the ways in which this content is discovered and managed are changing year on year. Despite this, very few studies have been done to date on the Postgraduate Research student’s approach to information seeking. From our different perspectives, both T&F and Loughborough University Library needed to fill this gap. We were both also keen to experiment with how publishers and libraries might benefit from collaborating and sharing resources / expertise to fulfil different objectives in similar spheres There was anecdotal evidence that support for PGRs was inconsistent and that the one-stop information literacy session was unhelpful, but we both needed to know if this was true and how to overcome it.
- This was a collaborative study developed and run by T&F and Loughborough University. The collaborative approach worked well for both parties: Taylor & Francis had the resources to collect and analyse the data Loughborough University had access to the students and provided mentors to support them The communication and press teams at both have been involved with engaging the scholarly community. Both organisations fed into the work with the same end goals in mind – to identify opportunities to enhance the User Experience. Our initiative set out to examine the online research habits of postgraduate students. 10 postgrads were recruited to provide diaries of their online research journey on a monthly basis over a period of 8 months between November 2015 to June 2016. We wanted to document how they approached online research, from the first initial search onwards. We were also interested in how they managed online information throughout the research process. We are well aware that a study of 10 students has its limitations. This was never intended to be a broad, definitive international study. In the first instance we wanted to really drill down deep into what these postgrads were doing, sketch out the likely route to information an associated pain points, and identify the questions which might ultimately lead to enhancing the Postgraduate Research Student’s experience. We would then have the option – if necessary – to broaden the study, or road test our conclusions.
- Our study sought the answers to five key questions: Reaching the information: How are PhD students discovering online journal resources? Using the information: How aware are PhD students of the origin of the resources they are using? How much time do PhD students spend on the various stages of the research journey? How are PhD students managing their references? The library: How are students using library space? What relationship do students have with their librarians? Frustrations: What are the common frustrations with research in the digital library? We hoped that the findings would help libraries and publishers improve the services and products we offer PGRs. From a publisher perspective, we also wanted more in depth information about PGR interaction with different publisher websites to get insights into how their functionality, layout, navigation, content, and extra information compared. These findings need further probing.
- Loughborough is a top 10 UK university, it is research intensive, home to over 17,000 students, and came 1st in the 2016 Student Experience Survey, No of PGRs – 2015-16 FT= 921; PT= 148 Library workshop programme embedded into Grad School programme for many years – 2015-16: 34 workshops and 784 attendees. Taylor & Francis Group has published scholarly journals since 1798 and books since 1836. We now publish over 2,400 journals and 5,000 new books each year across a broad range of disciplines, and have offices in Beijing, Singapore, New Delhi, Oxford, Philadelphia, and Melbourne, Emphasise that although both organisations had different perspectives the end goals were actually very similar at a high level T&F used the project as a great opportunity to engage with end users i.e. researchers, to which the University, and more precisely, the Graduate School had access (PhD students) Innovative collaboration Lesser explored area Experience of research – Graham Experience of publisher collaboration – Emma and Sussex Improve services for PGRs Provide experience of publishers and research for PGRs Improve T&F website Funds
- An initial survey was completed by 26 PGRs. From these, T&F and Loughborough worked together to identify the best quality responses, and these PGRs were offered a small financial incentive for taking part in the study. The participants were all 1st or 2nd year PGRs and came from a range of disciplines: sociology of sport sport marketing Psychology Geography Design civil engineering, sport & health science and management. One was visiting from overseas. A monthly online questionnaire was completed by each student providing an overview of how they had approached their research that past month and how they had managed the resulting digital information. Because we were seeking rich descriptions of the user journey, the survey has concentrated on gathering qualitative rather than quantitative data. Accompanying this process, we also held a focus group offering the opportunity for students to share views about online research through group discussion. Mentors supported the participating students throughout, which guaranteed long term commitment and quality of response.
- Link to motivations – hi-res.mp4 – approx 2 mins
- When we say ‘myths’ we mean our initial thoughts about how the PGRs would be acting (and also a chance for you to get involved – as there will be audience participation (don’t worry it is online polling not role play!)
- Online poll. Using mobiles or laptops – go to the URL and then use the code and then vote for up to 3 resources
- This is what we found when we analysed the answer to the websites that the students visited each month to perform one of their searches for information. CAPES – portal for e-journals in Brazil
- Google Scholar is a key resource, but other tools have a place too. We were surprised (and heartened) by the frequency with which LCP was used (8 out of 10 students, some more than others). Some of the student comments suggested that it had taken them a while to get used to searching it, but once they had, found it easy – so perseverance paid off (but should they really have to persevere?) However, both are generic resources – shouldn’t PGRs know about and be going to some of their subject specific databases as a first port of call? GS (like other wide-ranging databases, like ScienceDirect, Scopus or WOS) – good for interdisciplinarity How do we persuade PGRs (and other researchers) to try different resources – once they find a source that seems to work for them they stick with it, even if there actually might be a better one (how many researchers at your institution still mention BIDS?!)
- Sorry – no voting on this one. Let’s have a look at how some of the PGRs were searching…
- Colleague, Gareth Cole, took the data about which websites they searched and the steps they took to get to the information and turned them into process maps, to look for similarities/themes in the way they searched. I then looked at these with the thought of identifying how the Library might have been able to help make the processes more efficient or effective. This is one example, and is one where we can see (if you can read it!) that the student was a user of some of our subscription databases and used different features to select which to read and to identify further reading – e.g. month 2 – filtered by full-text to choose what to read; used a ‘recommended’ feature within a database, plus reference lists to find further reading Month 3 – filtered results by skimming titles and abstracts; supplemeted search with more keywords from this skimming; then used reference lists again to snowball their search Month 4 – not sure if pre-chosen keywords were theirs that they had thought of before or ones recommended with an autofill feature or how they evaluated the ‘good’ paper, but they did then move on to citations as an evaluation technique and way of finding more papers Month 5 – possibly similar to 4, but provided some interesting additional data that showing wariness of the quality of Scholar’s content (reassuring for librarian – but this PGR was the only one to mention this) When I was thinking about how we could intervene – tricky with this one without more detail about exactly how they were searching, e.g. what keywords and exactly what for – an Academic Librarian (our subject librarians – yes, we still have them) could have suggested other sources for searches (do wonder why used Medline one month and PubMed the next), but sadly cannot delve any deeper to find out. One-to-one communication only way to help – where to start? Meet your academic librarian. Had another one – where the student saw a book on an academic’s desk (that they had borrowed before), checked google shopping, then amazon, thought it was too expensive, THEN checked Library catalogue, couldn’t find it, asked supervisor if the Library could buy it, agreed, put in request for purchase, but the borrowed academic’s copy untilt he library copy arrived.
- Sometimes – but without know exact detail not as often as I would have thought! Tended to be services that PGRs were unaware of – e.g. Inter-library loans or the recall option on the Library Catalogue The only interaction with a real librarian mentioned in any of the process maps was when one of the PGRs asked about how the ILL system worked – once they found out, they were off using their quota!!
- Reflections on workflows Common aim is a natural one Passwords – we have classic Athens (will be moving to Single-sign on and do have a VPN which negates need for most passwords off-campus) – main issue was Athens for e-book access. Lack of awareness of Library services which are what we would think of as standard – recalls and ILL, but – researchers come with experiences of different library services and cannot remember (nor can we cover) everything at induction. Info about all on our website, but if it doesn’t come instantly to mind, why would they even think to look? Would web-chat help? If so, who should staff it? Some questions straightforward, some sophisticated – they will want answers to both and
- No prizes for this one
- How do we, as librarians, manage these expectations – we would love to be able to give instant access to all the research our researchers need, but we can’t – systems won’t talk to each other, no library can afford all that it would want, open access isn’t there yet Did not have the same management to do in the past – more experienced (OK older) researchers expect to travel or wait for ILLs – how do we teach patience in this interim period?
- Slight surprise but correlates to results of CIBER’s Harbingers’ project (bigger cohort of ECRs) – don’t seem to like reading on small screen understandably.
- OK - this is a bit of an optimistic myth, but the PGRs did actually seem to have knowledge of reference management systems (although when asked how thye found references once they had found them the first time, some did also mention writing them down on paper, so…)
- Could be more than one method – e.g. download to PC and then add to Mendeley When asked about managing the information found, most of the students mentioned that their practice has evolved since starting either their undergraduate or PhD course. BW (l), for instance, recognised that their previous system of “a file of my notes and quotes from my readings with the relevant reference attached in a Word document ... is not adequate for PhD work where the process is so much longer than any take [sic] I have previously undertaken.” However, others have mentioned that their ability to manage data has not always changed for the better: “At first I was very particular about saving the papers to my PC in the same folder with the same kind of document name. Now I have got too lazy and find that it takes too long to rename all the papers in my PC when downloading a lot of papers at once.” - l SK Key factor for change was attending a course.
- Can include first point in publicity – to encourage attendance at ref management sessions
- The ’fount of all wisdom’
- Yes, supervisors do have a role, so we need to ensure that they are well-informed of best practice in info literacy as well as library support and services, but workshops were the most frequently mentioned source of information for skills in referencing, keeping up to date especially. Skills learned prior to PhD also was striking
- One of our students did state views to this effect, but also went on to admit that they had found FB helpful: I am not a fan of social media, and specially within academic practices. But I have to admit that eventually a friend on facebook would post something I think is interesting and that helps a lot
- KUTD – 7 mentions Accessing articles – 2 Following applied research - 2
- Mentimeter – word cloud. Attendees type in up to 3 tools and the wordcloud grows Will probably need to type the menti address again and then add in the new code (free tool only gave me two questions per survey)
- Journal alerts were key, with Scholar alerts (effectively the same) coming in next with mentions. ZETOC did better than some of my Academic Librarian colleagues would have thought, with its very basic interface, Social media in the form of Twitter and surprisingly for me FB did play a role and in some cases this role was grudgingly acknowledged by the students: I am not a fan of social media, and specially within academic practices. But I have to admit that eventually a friend on facebook would post something I think is interesting and that helps a lot Others were less grudging: Social media plays an important role, maybe “secondary” to stay up-to-date with research. On a daily basis I talk to other academics using facebook messenger. It is possible to send files (ex: word, pdf and etc) and search for information about events, conferences and etc. Additionally, when I’m looking for a specific article and I can’t find it using research websites, social media offers another option to download articles (ex: research gate).
- We know it was a small group of participants but the richness of the data and the correlation with other recent research about ECRs means that we have some useful learning points:
- Range of partners involved – play to partners’ strengths, be prepared to translate jargon and don’t assume you are automatically on the same page Communications with students – mentor support was helpful – students got one-to-one time with information experts, chance to have their views genuinely listened to Recruitment - Application process to get commitment and ensure quality data Time and resource important – especially in relation to data analysis for qualitative data Be flexible – adapted questions part way through, had topics for the topical questions but not exact wording until nearer the time Be optimistic!