Addressing the digital divide in teaching information retrieval: A theoretical view on taking students from ICT access to knowledge sharing

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to help students to move from ICT access to knowledge sharing.Design/methodology/approach – An overview of the literature on information literacy skills and the digital divide, an analysis of information seeking research, as well as experience in teaching a course in advanced information retrieval at the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, South Africa, inspired a theoretical model for addressing different layers of the digital divide.Findings – The digital divide concerns more than just ICT access and information skills. Individual commitment, group work, and intellectual and academic support from the institution might contribute to bringing people to higher levels of knowledge generation and communication.Research limitations/implications – At this stage it is a theoretical model that needs to be tested in practice.Practical implications – The model should hold possibilities for information literacy programs, programs in information retriev...

[1]  Carol Collier Kuhlthau,et al.  Information search process of lawyers: a call for 'just for me' information services , 2001, J. Documentation.

[2]  Pamela J. McKenzie,et al.  Gaining access to everyday life information seeking , 2001 .

[3]  Brian Detlor,et al.  Web Work: Information Seeking and Knowledge Work on the World Wide Web , 2000 .

[4]  Paul Prekop,et al.  A qualitative study of collaborative information seeking , 2002, J. Documentation.

[5]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Internet Self-Efficacy and the Psychology of the Digital Divide , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[6]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 4. Cognitive styles in information seeking , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[7]  Badrul H. Khan,et al.  Web-based instruction , 1997 .

[8]  Christine A. Barry,et al.  Information skills for an electronic world: training doctoral research students , 1997, J. Inf. Sci..

[9]  Mark Warschauer,et al.  Reconceptualizing the Digital Divide , 2002, First Monday.

[10]  Mary C. Whitton,et al.  Designing to support situation awareness across distances: an example from a scientific collaboratory , 2004, Inf. Process. Manag..

[11]  Thomas D. Wilson,et al.  Exploring models of information behaviour: the 'uncertainty' project , 1999, Inf. Process. Manag..

[12]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Real life, real users, and real needs: a study and analysis of user queries on the web , 2000, Inf. Process. Manag..

[13]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Information seeking and mediated searching study. Part 3. Successive searching , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[14]  Susan T. Dumais,et al.  Collaborative information retrieval (CIR) , 2000, CHI Extended Abstracts.

[15]  Dania Bilal,et al.  Perspectives on children's navigation of the World Wide Web: does the type of search task make a difference? , 2002, Online Inf. Rev..

[16]  Matthew M. Mitchell,et al.  Exploring the Future of the Digital Divide through Ethnographic Futures Research , 2002, First Monday.

[17]  David Ellis,et al.  Modelling the information seeking patterns of engineers and research scientists in an industrial environment , 1997, J. Documentation.

[18]  G. I. Kustova,et al.  From the author , 2019, Automatic Documentation and Mathematical Linguistics.

[19]  Carol Collier Kuhlthau.  Inside the Search Process: Information Seeking from the User's Perspective. , 1991 .

[20]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Searching the Web: the public and their queries , 2001 .

[21]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Information seeking and mediated searching. Part 5. User-intermediary interaction , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[22]  A. Spink,et al.  Uncertainty and its correlates , 2000 .

[23]  Kalervo Järvelin,et al.  Task Complexity Affects Information Seeking and Use , 1995, Inf. Process. Manag..

[24]  T. D. Wilson,et al.  Models in information behaviour research , 1999, J. Documentation.

[25]  Katriina Byström,et al.  Information and information sources in tasks of varying complexity , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[26]  Young-Jin Lee,et al.  VisSearch: A collaborative Web searching environment , 2005, Comput. Educ..

[27]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Information seeking and mediated searching: Part 2. Uncertainty and its correlates , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[28]  Bernard J. Jansen,et al.  A review of Web searching studies and a framework for future research , 2001, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[29]  Amanda Spink,et al.  Information-seeking and mediated searching. Part 1. Theoretical framework and research design , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[30]  D. Law.  Bridging the digital divide: a review of current progress , 2004 .

[31]  Rowena Cullen,et al.  Addressing the digital divide , 2001, Online Inf. Rev..

[32]  JärvelinKalervo,et al.  Collaborative Information Retrieval in an information-intensive domain , 2005 .

[33]  Carol Collier Kuhlthau,et al.  Inside the search process: Information seeking from the user's perspective , 1991, J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci..

[34]  David H. Jonassen,et al.  Learning with Technology: A Constructivist Perspective , 1998 .

[35]  Dania Bilal,et al.  Differences and similarities in information seeking: children and adults as Web users , 2002, Inf. Process. Manag..

[36]  Satinder P. Singh,et al.  Introduction , 2002, British Journal of Ophthalmology.

[37]  Reijo Savolainen,et al.  Network competence and information seeking on the Internet: From definitions towards a social cognitive model , 2002, J. Documentation.

[38]  Eszter Hargittai,et al.  Second-Level Digital Divide: Differences in People's Online Skills , 2002, First Monday.

[39]  Bryce Allen,et al.  Cognitive and task influences on Web searching behavior , 2002, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[40]  Ingrid Hsieh-Yee.  Research on Web Search Behavior. , 2001 .