"Blended Information Behavior in Second Life"
Sheila Webber
Sheffield University Information School
Sheila Webber aka as Sheila Yoshikawa in Second Life presented the results of her research on Blended Information Behavior of users of Second Life.
Using an interview format, Sheila conducted 91 one-on-one interviews of 49 educators, 21 librarians and 21 other professionals and students who were using Second Life.
Research questions focused on the information seeking behavior of people who were using Second Life and seeking information about a Second Life Activity and whether models of information behavior which have studied the real world are applicable in a virtual world.
Found that 45% of the information incidents in the study involved "information encountering", a concept identified by Erdelez in 1999. So real life models of Information Behavior seeking, do seem to be applicable to Second Life and other virtual worlds.
This study suggested that users were exhibiting Information Literacy behaviors at a complex level to be able to find, evaluate and use information via a variety of channels. She called this behavior "blended information behaviour" to indicate that participants were able to blend online, offline real world information in an effective manner.
Using an interview format, Sheila conducted 91 one-on-one interviews of 49 educators, 21 librarians and 21 other professionals and students who were using Second Life.
Research questions focused on the information seeking behavior of people who were using Second Life and seeking information about a Second Life Activity and whether models of information behavior which have studied the real world are applicable in a virtual world.
Found that 45% of the information incidents in the study involved "information encountering", a concept identified by Erdelez in 1999. So real life models of Information Behavior seeking, do seem to be applicable to Second Life and other virtual worlds.
This study suggested that users were exhibiting Information Literacy behaviors at a complex level to be able to find, evaluate and use information via a variety of channels. She called this behavior "blended information behaviour" to indicate that participants were able to blend online, offline real world information in an effective manner.
