Info300

Lecture-Human Information Behavior

Introduction to HIB

  • What is HIB?
  • Why dow we care about it and want to study it?
    • To learn how people react to information systems.
    • To build a better system.
    • WHO ARE WE????
  • What are some examples of HIB that might be of concern to information professionals?

why is research important?

to ground the theories that information theorists come up with. i mean, come on, a lot of these theories are crap. what the hell, gaps?

research methods

  • research is categorized into two broad categories:
    • quantitative
      • statistical measures. numbers. quantities.
      • uses a variety of research designs, i.e. surveys, lab experiments.
      • goals are to predict some kind of behavior or event.
      • data all quantified. durrrrr…
      • is used frequently in the “hard” sciences and medicine to great effect. also used in sociology, antropoligy, education, etc.
    • qualitative
      • aims at understanding in depth, not predicting.
      • does not quantify.
      • typically relies on language and observation.

models

oh boy, are there ever models….

  • HIB research is a very young field. we know some thigns, but most models have very low predictive power.
  • most reserarch is model building.
    • question - are there “hilbert questions” in HIB? would be good. what do we know? what don’t we know? where should we push the borders?
  • fact- when people use computerized IR, people look at the first screen,. that’s it.
    • information encounterers? some are more apt for information searching than others. why is this?

GAPS

  • “gaps”, thanks brenda dervin, represent an information need. some deficiency in knowledge.

types of HIB

Aspects of HIB: 

   -information want: information that people think that they want. a desire.
   -information demand - the expression used by a person of the information they think they want.
   -information need: information that is objectively needed to answer their (specific?) question