Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university

Research is a systematic activity in searching for new information and understanding. World Wide Web (WWW) supplies trillions of information to feed the research purposes. Scholarly publications in particular, provide specific information to contribute in generating a new body of knowledge. This pap...

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Main Authors: Ismail, M.A., Yaacob, M., Kareem, S.A.
Format: Article
Published: 2008
Subjects:
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author Ismail, M.A.
Yaacob, M.
Kareem, S.A.
author_facet Ismail, M.A.
Yaacob, M.
Kareem, S.A.
author_sort Ismail, M.A.
collection UM
description Research is a systematic activity in searching for new information and understanding. World Wide Web (WWW) supplies trillions of information to feed the research purposes. Scholarly publications in particular, provide specific information to contribute in generating a new body of knowledge. This paper will specifically look at the role of novice research students (from both undergraduate and postgraduates level) and the need-and-want while searching for scholarly contents. The survey took place in the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia with 77 undergraduates (Final Year Students) and 53 postgraduates� students. The questionnaire consists of five sections for undergraduates and six sections for postgraduate. The main different between the questionnaire is that for the postgraduate part, we add another section particularly to elicit students publishing history. The result shows that majority of the student spent six to ten hours a week to search for information for research purposes. Online search engines are the major sources for information. Complete electronic theses and final year students� project are rated highest to be the type of work that postgraduates and undergraduates wish to deposit in institutional repository. Efficient keywords search and free to use are chosen by the majority of the student as the factors that will motivate them to use the repository. This paper will outline overall result of the survey and highlights the analysis of the searching behavior section. We will conclude the paper with the direction of future works.
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spelling um.eprints-52172013-03-25T01:32:13Z http://eprints.um.edu.my/5217/ Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university Ismail, M.A. Yaacob, M. Kareem, S.A. QA76 Computer software Research is a systematic activity in searching for new information and understanding. World Wide Web (WWW) supplies trillions of information to feed the research purposes. Scholarly publications in particular, provide specific information to contribute in generating a new body of knowledge. This paper will specifically look at the role of novice research students (from both undergraduate and postgraduates level) and the need-and-want while searching for scholarly contents. The survey took place in the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia with 77 undergraduates (Final Year Students) and 53 postgraduates� students. The questionnaire consists of five sections for undergraduates and six sections for postgraduate. The main different between the questionnaire is that for the postgraduate part, we add another section particularly to elicit students publishing history. The result shows that majority of the student spent six to ten hours a week to search for information for research purposes. Online search engines are the major sources for information. Complete electronic theses and final year students� project are rated highest to be the type of work that postgraduates and undergraduates wish to deposit in institutional repository. Efficient keywords search and free to use are chosen by the majority of the student as the factors that will motivate them to use the repository. This paper will outline overall result of the survey and highlights the analysis of the searching behavior section. We will conclude the paper with the direction of future works. 2008 Article PeerReviewed Ismail, M.A. and Yaacob, M. and Kareem, S.A. (2008) Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university. International Journal of Learning, 14 (12). pp. 141-152. http://ijl.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.30/prod.1575/index_html
spellingShingle QA76 Computer software
Ismail, M.A.
Yaacob, M.
Kareem, S.A.
Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title_full Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title_fullStr Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title_full_unstemmed Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title_short Research activity on the web: role of students and searching needs in a Malaysian local university
title_sort research activity on the web role of students and searching needs in a malaysian local university
topic QA76 Computer software
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