2.5 Accessing Digital Media Content

How do users find your content (Jisc, 2014)

Those who use a general search engine to find content

Students at all levels, teachers and researchers report making use of general search engines to locate resources. Google is most often cited but others are used. Many students at undergraduate level report that they go no further than the first page of search engine results and often no further than any Wikipedia entry highlighted. More advanced students and researchers will often use the search engine as the first stage of a more extensive discovery process.

Those who use an online library interface to find content

Students who are in the upper level of undergraduate studies and graduate students will use online library interfaces to discover resources. For arts and humanities students this will include library catalogues to find relevant books; students in all disciplines also report accessing other online resources such as databases through their library’s interface and less commonly say they use the institutional repository. The research literature also shows that researchers commonly access e-journal databases via their institutional libraries.

 

Use a general web service to find content

Research shows that most undergraduate students make use of well-known web-based services as a key part of their discovery behaviour. The most-used service is Wikipedia, although others such as YouTube and Flickr are mentioned for appropriate disciplines. Many students will go no further, though some will go on to cite, and some of those to visit, any references the service lists. Literature reports that teachers may also use Wikipedia, primarily to see what their students are finding. Graduate students and researchers may sometimes use Wikipedia for a quick introduction to a new topic.

 

Use Google services to find content

Faculty researchers not only use a general search engine to find papers and books, but will often use specialist services such as Google Scholar and Google Books as the starting point for keyword searches or for citation analyses. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students are also reported as using these services as one method of discovery. Some students report that book previews in Google Books can be sufficient for them to feel no need to seek out the full volume.

Use online research resources or databases to find content

Researchers, both graduate students and faculty, bookmark and then directly access online resources, including collections and databases that they find valuable and to which they want to make return visits. Old Bailey Online and the Astrophysics Data System are two examples studied in the literature, but there are many more.

Find content on recommendation from teachers

Students at all levels look for recommendations from teachers to guide them towards resources. These can be either through course reading lists or in the form of recommendations made in class or in a one-to-one discussion. When searching for resources to recommend, teachers tend to rely on their own specialist knowledge of the field, but may use library catalogues or online databases to ensure that they have not missed anything relevant.

Find content by following experts

Students and researchers who are becoming familiar with their field of interest recognise the value of identifying and following experts. Establishing who are experts and finding their publications is seen as a good way to enter into a new topic of research. An overview article or chapter written by a subject expert is an excellent starting point for further exploration. When preparing to teach courses, staff are also likely to look for relevant courses taught by other experts for examples and to compare approaches.

Use online social tools to find content

Students and researchers use online social tools to form peer communities in which information on resources will be exchanged. Most used are e-mail lists, writing personal and shared blogs and tracking relevant blogs, often through RSS feeds. A few also report use of Twitter for this purpose, but Facebook is not mentioned. Students are more likely to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook as a way of sharing resources where this forms part of the way they keep in touch with peers and classmates.

 

Find content by following citation chains

Researchers, both graduate students and faculty, place high value on following bibliographic references from books and articles they are reading, as a way of expanding their reference lists. This applies both to when they are researching new topics and as a way of expanding their knowledge of a research field in which they are already active.

Find content by recommendation from family and friends

Students preparing for, or in the early stages of university study are still being influenced by family and pre-university friends when finding study resources. It is likely that this influence will be strongest where the recommendations derive from past academic experiences.

Discover content through personal contact with peers

Researchers, teachers and students at all levels share links and references to resources through direct contact with their peers. This can be face to face contact with those they see daily, through students participating in group exercises and researchers attending workshops and conferences. Often people who know each other will exchange information about resources directly through one-to-one media such as email, Twitter or Facebook.

Monitor key journals to find content

Researchers, both graduate students and faculty, when building their specialist knowledge of a research area, will identify key journals and subsequently continue to track them over time. Tracking might be done through bookmarking a link to the journal in a browser, or through use of a Table of Contents service such as Zetoc.

Use an e-journal database to find content

More advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty researchers all make use of e-journal databases, such as Ebsco, JSTOR, ScienceDirect and others, both to find and obtain articles. These services are most commonly accessed through institutional libraries. When using these databases to find articles browsing behaviour is more common than keyword searching. Research indicates that if the full text of articles is not available graduate students may be content to rely solely on the abstract, whereas other researchers prefer full text access.

Use preprint article databases to find content

In some disciplines, there are well-established preprint article databases and these are often used by researchers to keep abreast of their field. Examples include arXiv for maths and a range of science disciplines, PubMed Central for biomedical and life sciences and PhilPapers for Philosophy.

Stay up to date

The discovery behaviours of your target audiences will change as new platforms and services become available, and new academic pressures arise. One of the most comprehensive sources for up-to-date intelligence on user discovery behaviours is the EduCause Review Online report of Jisc’s ‘Visitors and Residents’ research.

 This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

(Jisc, 2014)