Introduction: This paper presents a qualitative exploration of university students' experience of searching an online public access catalogue. The study investigated how students conceptualise their searching process, as well as how students understand themselves as seekers of information. Method: Following a search task, thirty-eight…

Eyewitnesses typically recount their experiences many times before trial. Such repeated retrieval can enhance memory retention of the witnessed event. However, recent studies (e.g., Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009) have found that initial retrieval can exacerbate eyewitness suggestibility to later misleading information--a finding termed…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of interleaving and expanding retrieval on the retention of physiology concepts. Participants (n = 189) read and then reread 30 immunology and reproductive physiology passages. Half of the participants read and then reread the passages in a blocked manner (e.g., a[subscript 1]a[subscript…

The role of interference as a primary determinant of forgetting in memory has long been accepted, however its role as a contributor to poor comprehension is just beginning to be understood. The current paper reports two studies, in which speed-accuracy tradeoff and eye-tracking methodologies were used with the same materials to provide converging…

Memories have qualitative properties (e.g., the different kinds of features or details that can be retrieved) and quantitative properties (e.g., the frequency and/or strength of retrieval). Here we investigated the relative contribution of these two properties to the retrieval monitoring process. Participants studied a list of words, and memory…

Even though the concept of information literacy typically embraces an idea of a complete participation in an information community, its definitions have tended to underline the phases of seeking, searching and evaluation instead of creating information. Shortcomings of information creation can, however, explain many of the difficulties of finding…

Computer-based learning environments can produce a wealth of data on student learning interactions. This paper presents an exploratory data mining methodology for assessing and comparing students' learning behaviors from these interaction traces. The core algorithm employs a novel combination of sequence mining techniques to identify deferentially…

Image searches are now crucial for obtaining information, constructing knowledge, and building successful educational outcomes. We investigated how reading ability and Internet experience influence keyword-based image search behaviors and performance. We categorized 58 junior-high-school students into four groups of high/low reading ability and…

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are used increasingly in the hospital and outpatient settings, and patients are amassing digitized clinical information. On one hand, aggregating all the patient's clinical information can greatly assist health care workers in making sound decisions. On the other hand, it can result in information overload,…

Macquarie University Library's planning for a new library coincided with a major renewal of the university's curriculum and research activity. This provided a significant opportunity to re-think the presentation of the library collections in the new environment. This article describes how strategic alignment with university goals and the framework…

We studied the effects of menu type, navigation path complexity and spatial ability on information retrieval performance and web disorientation or lostness. Two innovative aspects were included: (a) navigation path relevance and (b) information gathering tasks. As expected we found that, when measuring aspects directly related to navigation…

Hierarchical folders have been widely used for managing digital files. A well constructed hierarchical structure can keep files organized. A parent folder can have several subfolders and one subfolder can only reside in one parent folder. Files are stored in folders or subfolders. Files can be found by traversing a given path, going through…

In panel studies on sensitive topics, respondent-generated identification codes are often used to link records across surveys. However, usually a substantial number of cases are lost due to the codes. These losses may cause biased estimates. Using more components and linking the codes by the Levenshtein string distance function will reduce the…

The use of video lectures in distance learning involves the two major problems of searchability and active user participation. In this paper, we promote the implementation and usage of a collaborative educational video annotation functionality to overcome these two challenges. Different use cases and requirements, as well as details of the…

This paper describes the use and benefits of Microsoft's Adventure Works (AW) database to teach advanced database skills in a hands-on, realistic environment. Database management and querying skills are a key element of a robust information systems curriculum, and active learning is an important way to develop these skills. To facilitate active…