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Purpose: This paper aims to identify the opinions of undergraduate students on the importance of internet-based information sources when they undertake academic tasks. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a set of identified typical academic tasks for undergraduate students, three research questions were designed around the students' usage and views of information resources for completing these tasks. Web-accessible questionnaires were used to collect data from participants in two universities in the USA and China, and the data were analyzed using quantitative methods, which included several statistic methods. Findings: The results confirm that undergraduate students use different information resources for various academic tasks. In their tasks, online electronic resources including search engines are the most commonly used resources, particularly for complex academic tasks. Social networking sites are not used for the students' individual academic tasks, and traditional resources still play equal or more important roles in certain specific academic tasks. Students in collaborative tasks look for resources that make it easy to share documents. Participants from the two countries also exhibit interesting and important differences in their usage of information resources. Originality/value: This study examines undergraduate students' usages and views of different information resources in their various academic tasks, and pays special attention to the impacts of being from their different countries. The study also considers both students' individual academic tasks and collaborative tasks. This study is an invaluable addition to the information seeking behaviour literature. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The emergence of the iSchool movement and the establishment of iSchools have helped to reshape the landscape of the library and information science (LIS) discipline. In this article, based on a set of research questions focusing around the research and education efforts of about 25 iSchools, we performed a study using both quantitative and qualitative methods on publically available data obtained from the web. Our results show that iSchools share the same vision and mission of working on relationships between information, people and technology, and have established themselves as the appropriate institutions for researchers from diverse subject areas to study this interdisciplinary integration. Overall, we are seeing an emerging iSchool identity and a defining iField, but there are still many important developments to make. © 2011 Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

Purpose: This paper aims to identify the opinions of undergraduate students on the importance of internet-based information sources when they undertake academic tasks. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a set of identified typical academic tasks for undergraduate students, three research questions were designed around the students' usage and views of information resources for completing these tasks. Web-accessible questionnaires were used to collect data from participants in two universities in the USA and China, and the data were analyzed using quantitative methods, which included several statistic methods. Findings: The results confirm that undergraduate students use different information resources for various academic tasks. In their tasks, online electronic resources including search engines are the most commonly used resources, particularly for complex academic tasks. Social networking sites are not used for the students' individual academic tasks, and traditional resources still play equal or more important roles in certain specific academic tasks. Students in collaborative tasks look for resources that make it easy to share documents. Participants from the two countries also exhibit interesting and important differences in their usage of information resources. Originality/value: This study examines undergraduate students' usages and views of different information resources in their various academic tasks, and pays special attention to the impacts of being from their different countries. The study also considers both students' individual academic tasks and collaborative tasks. This study is an invaluable addition to the information seeking behaviour literature. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

The emergence of the iSchool movement and the establishment of iSchools have helped to reshape the landscape of the library and information science (LIS) discipline. In this article, based on a set of research questions focusing around the research and education efforts of about 25 iSchools, we performed a study using both quantitative and qualitative methods on publically available data obtained from the web. Our results show that iSchools share the same vision and mission of working on relationships between information, people and technology, and have established themselves as the appropriate institutions for researchers from diverse subject areas to study this interdisciplinary integration. Overall, we are seeing an emerging iSchool identity and a defining iField, but there are still many important developments to make. © 2011 Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.

As the information field rapidly evolves, so do the academic research programs in Information Schools (iSchools). In this paper, we examine the current academic research state of iSchools through quantitative study of publically-available online data related to the educational background, research interests, publications, research funding, and collaborations. Some important findings in our study include that iSchools are appropriate institutions for integrating researchers from diverse disciplines; the intersection of information, technology, and users has been established as the core research focus of iSchools; iSchools are developing ways to understand, integrate, and model the interaction among related disciplines; iSchools are attracting external support from a diverse group of funding agencies; and iSchools have forged strong connections and collaborations in order to build one discipline. Copyright © 2011 ACM.

As the information field rapidly evolves, so do the academic research programs in Information Schools (iSchools). In this paper, we examine the current academic research state of iSchools through quantitative study of publically-available online data related to the educational background, research interests, publications, research funding, and collaborations. Some important findings in our study include that iSchools are appropriate institutions for integrating researchers from diverse disciplines; the intersection of information, technology, and users has been established as the core research focus of iSchools; iSchools are developing ways to understand, integrate, and model the interaction among related disciplines; iSchools are attracting external support from a diverse group of funding agencies; and iSchools have forged strong connections and collaborations in order to build one discipline. Copyright © 2011 ACM.