Project 6: Undergraduate Activity Related to the UCI Libraries Azia Foster. Andrew Zaldivar. Scott Roeder

Project Overview - Interested in exploring the activity that undergraduates undergo when using the UCI Libraries system (and lack thereof) What We’ve Done So Far: - Initial Survey - Initial Interview - Secondary Survey - Secondary Interview (Revised) - Analyzing of Results - Flowcharts

Methodology Initial Task Analysis: - Consist of finding articles/references. - One task unrelated to subject’s major - One task related to subject’s major Problem: - Lack consistency - Variance in task - Difficult to measure results - Challenging designing tasks for different majors outside of ICS (and Social Sciences) Revised Task Analysis: - Both tasks related to ICS, but performed by non-ICS students - Allows for consistency - Results are now comparable - Easier to design tasks - “Inexperienced” in ICS topics

Analyzing Results Each member in charge of participant information they collected - Andrew – 3 participants - Azia – 4 participants - Scott – 3 participants For Each Participant: - A word document combining both Survey and Task Analysis Results - Each have a flowchart completed that records the completion of their task, step by step Analysis involved: - comparing Task 1 and Task 2 flowcharts - comparing flowcharts between participants - comparing Interview answers - comparing Survey results

Frequency of Database & Resources

GPA Distribution Across Subjects *Average GPA: 3.0

List of School SubjectSchool 1Psychology & Social Behavior 2Electrical Engineering 3Mathematics 4Sociology 5Economics, Spanish (minor) 6Business Economics 7English, Spanish (minor), Education (minor) 8Psychology – Cognitive Sciences, Sociology (minor) 9Studio Art, Digital Art (minor) 10Psychology and Social Behavior, Public Health Sciences

Frequency of Academic Level *Class of 2008

UCI Libraries User Start UCI Libraries Online Resources SAGE Search Term Results Article Found? End Displayed in Tabbed Window Subject #8, Task 1 & 2

Google / Wikipedia User Start Search “Ubiquitious Computing” Google Results Search “Ubiquitious Computing” Wikipedia Results Obtain Definition Obtain Definition Search “Ubiquitious Computing” Results Google Scholar Article Found? End Displayed in Tabbed Window Yes No Subject #5, Task 2

Multi-Tabbed Browsing User Start Google Scholar Searc h Term Results UCI Online Resources Searc h Term Results JSTOR Article Found? Displayed in Tabbed Window End Subject #10, Task 1 & 2 No Yes

Built-in Google Search User Start Search Term Results Google Built-in Search Article Found? End Displayed in Tabbed Window Subject #9, Task 1 & 2 No Yes

Discussion Semi-Structured Interview Questions: - What are the top three reasons they would visit the Libraries web site? - What are the reasons they don’t? - What would change their mind? Suggestions for UCI Libraries: - Search Keywords & Return List of Databases - Already implemented (Online Resources) - Hard to Distinguish Search Results - Improve UI; Better Labeling - Lack of Summaries; Abstracts Hard to Comprehend - Display Wikipedia or Dictionary.com Defintion - Reduce Number of Steps to Search - UCI Libraries Built-in Search Extension

Schedule What’s Left? - Our report! - Hopefully will be completed by Tuesday - Looked over and reviewed on Wednesday - Then turned in on Thursday Planning on splitting up parts of our report: - Introduction to our project - Initial Surveys and Interview - Participant break down of Task Analysis - Conclusions and suggestions drawn from results