Colgate University Libraries News and Events

Colgate is participating in Project Information Literacy (PIL), a research project undertaken by faculty at the University of Washington's iSchool (Information Sciences Graduate Program) investigating how undergraduate sophomores, juniors, and seniors use, evaluate, and integrate research sources for course-related and everyday life research.
Key points:

•  Sophomores, juniors and seniors receive an e-mail request with a link to the voluntary survey on April 6.
• The survey is 22 questions long and should take about 15 minutes to complete. 
• The survey will be open between April 6 and April 20.
• One Colgate student participant will be selected to receive a $150 Amazon gift certificate.
• Approximately 30 other institutions (over 100,000 students nationwide) will be participating in this survey.

 
This year's survey builds on the researchers' earlier work with undergraduates at Harvard, Illinois State, University of Washington, and three community colleges, which focused on how students conceptualize and operationalize course-related and everyday life research. For more information, see the research report, How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age, released by the research team in December 2009. In June 2010, Colgate will receive a brief report of major findings nation-wide, a simple statistics report with frequencies per question based on our students' survey results, and an Excel data file with all of Colgate's results.
 
We look forward to sharing the findings for discussion with the community next fall!
 
Note: Project Information Literacy has obtained Human Subjects Approval for survey administration on the Colgate campus.
 
Questions about the study can be directed to pilstudy@u.washington.edu
 
Joanne A. Schneider
University Librarian