The JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS) Project: Electronic Information Service Supply and Demand in Higher Education

Link to Reports on JUSTEIS Web Site

Introduction

The JISC Usage Surveys: Trends in Electronic Information Services (JUSTEIS) project was established in response to the Higher Education Funding Councils’ Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Call (01/99) Monitoring and Evaluating User Behaviour in Information Seeking and Use of Information Technology and Information Services in UK Higher Education. The research was undertaken by the Department of Information and Library Studies at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in conjunction with the Centre for Information Quality Management at Information Automation Limited. The project is longitudinal, and extended for 5 years, the first cycle of the project running from September 1999 to July 2000.

The JISC call delineated four strands of work:

1. A general survey of end users of all electronic information services (EIS);
2. A 'real time' survey of use of the JISC services;
3. A general survey of EIS provision; and
4. A qualitative longitudinal monitoring of EIS use.

The Aberystwyth team undertook two of these: strands A and C. The primary aim of Strand A was to examine the uptake and use of EIS by users in higher education institutes (HEI). Strand C was concerned with investigating resource access provided by individual HEI in the UK together with their purchasing intentions. Meanwhile, Strand D was being undertaken by a team at University of Northumbria, Newcastle as the JUBILLEE project, and Strand B was originally deferred and later addressed within the JISC. The decision to link Strands A and C facilitated a consistency of terms and definitions used within the study, and enabled the cross-tabulation of data between strands. In this article the findings of the two strands have been synthesised.

With respect to Strand A, the specific objectives were to investigate:

• the range of EIS used by HEI users;
• the reasons that propel users towards exploiting particular EIS;
• the support offered by the HEI;
• the extent to which HEI direct users to available resources; and
• the degree of sophistication of EIS use.

The objectives of Strand C were to survey:

• the nature of electronic resource access provided by individual HEI information and library services (ILS) Web sites in the UK;
• the EIS purchasing intentions of ILS management staff.

Methodology

Four principal methodologies were used to gather data for both work areas. It has been found that the use of casual student labour to undertake telephone surveys is not satisfactory and therefore this proposal was based on the use of experienced staff and full-time research assistants.

Critical success factors (CSF) (Work area A.)

The approach involved asking the users what information was important to their work, the factors critical to the success of work objectives and the information required to support those critical success factors. This is an accepted methodology for this type of work as seen, for example, in the investigation of the management information needs of heads of academic departments in universities in the United Kingdom (Loughridge, 1997). This survey formed a useful baseline for the other methodologies and serves as a cross-reference for their findings. There was a preliminary pilot study to test out the survey instruments.

The CSF survey examined the following populations: students (taught); research students; academic and academic-related staff; and the LIS-as-user.

Critical incident technique (CIT) (Work area A.)

Critical incident technique involved an interview asking users about a recent information-seeking incident that they could recall easily. This can be used to explore the reasons for seeking information, the sources used (and reasons for preferring particular sources), time spent, effectiveness of search results, and what will be done with the information obtained. The interviewer also widened the scope by requesting a list of sources used in the last three months. Again, there was preliminary pilot study to test out the survey instruments.

The CIT survey also examined the students (taught); research students; academic and academic-related staff; and the LIS-as-user populations.

In this context, the technique might reveal awareness (or lack of it) of certain sources of information, the pattern of use of sources, and apparent reasons for success or not. It began to explore the non-use but the interview emphasised that incidents that were not followed up, or ‘failures’ were also of interest.

The steering group was aware of a useful taxonomy of value proposed by Saracevic and Kantor (1997) which, it was felt, could be used to develop a framework of questions concerning reasons for using an information service (related to task, personal reasons, acquisition of an ‘object’ (e.g. document) or performing an activity (browsing); and aspects of interaction and results of service use (value estimates).

Critical incident technique was an appropriate means of exploring the patterns of use - matching types of sources used to purposes, and looking at user group differences in patterns of need and use.

Web survey (Work area C.)

In order to establish availability of EIS within HEIs, an online review of resources documented on HEI Web sites enabled a wide sampling. The approach involved examining the information services/library areas of the Web site and documenting the listed EIS. The listings were delineated according to the established taxonomy.

As this survey involved desktop research and did not involve face-to-face or telephone interviews, it was possible to encompass a larger sample. The Web survey examined the LIS-as-provider population in all HEIs.

Supplementary structured interviews (SSI) (Work area C.)

Structured interviews were used to supplement the Web survey and examined the same user population. The survey instruments were piloted before use. The sample of 20 to 25 HEIs included those used in Work area A and they were tested to determine the completeness, accuracy and currency of their listing on their Web pages. The data was also cross-tabulate with the user perceptions of sources used in the last three months from work area A.