Towards a personalised virtual library: Indications from navigational and personal information behaviour of e-learning students

Abstract

[eng] To better understand information behaviour and how to make information delivery systems more usable, this dissertation endeavours to investigate how people search, manage and use information resources. More precisely, this research focuses on the information behaviour of e-learning students and how such behaviour can be used to improve the design of personalised information delivery systems in order to aid in the fulfilment of their learning goals. One direction for improvement is personalisation, which is strictly linked to user satisfaction and provides efficient and effective support towards the process of seeking and using information. Non-authoritative metadata automatically generated from the interaction of users with resources can be a practical solution to enhance personalised information delivery systems. In addition, the context of e-learning students is not exclusively academic, as they also develop their information behaviour in other contexts such as in the workplace and daily life. In the case of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, there is the opportunity to study the full context of the information behaviour of individuals focusing on the e-learning environment, but also including the rest of the spheres where they develop their activities. Furthermore, this PhD dissertation studies the knowledge, attitude and skills that allow individuals to informationally behave in a particular manner. The acquisition of information literacy may take place in one context and be later transferred to others. In terms of added value, e-learning universities should provide their students with the adequate level of information literacy in order to help them adopt the appropriate information behaviour for their information age. Overall, this PhD dissertation provides some indications towards a personalised design of information delivery systems for e-learning environments and for the generation of learning plans that are more adapted to the requirements of lifelong learners. In this sense, this dissertation brings about a definition of the elements for designing personalised virtual libraries and proposes some improvements in the description of the learning object metadata, based on the usage of educational resources. It also provides theory and experimental evidence on how to model information behaviour patterns taking into account all the informational contexts in which a user can develop his or her information behaviour.