Uses and perceptions of the World Wide Web in an information-seeking environment

A number of models are reported in the literature which can be used to iden tify the ways in which the World Wide Web can be used as part of the studen t learning process. This article reports the results of a study to examine how undergraduate students view their information acquisition in terms of t he open resource model, where the Web is accessed to retrieve information f rom diverse sources which may, or may not, be educationally-based. This mod el was chosen as being the closest in concept to the function of the librar y. A series of interviews, with open-ended questions, were conducted with 1 2 students who were all from one university. The students were encouraged t o talk freely about their own feelings and conceptions concerning the World Wide Web. Analysis revealed five recurring themes: responses to the inform ation-seeking context expressed relationships to the process of information retrieval; information seeking strategies; perceptions of information qual ity; and attitudes to the future of the Web in higher education. Each of th ese themes is reported in detail and it is concluded that a key factor in s tudents' use of the Web as an information resource is time, in the sense of obtaining information quickly and easily, not experiencing difficulties in locating the required information, and avoiding inherent delays in the com puter systems.