Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Web information needs and seeking

The World Wide Web wields a tremendous influence on the information seeking behaviour of students and academics today. According to Lehnert (2001: 307), the web opened the Internet to the public. Niederlander (n.d: n.p) insists that the Internet - for better or worse - has had a definite impact on how people seek information, and what their "expectations" are of the "Internet" in filling their information needs. A growing number of people today feel the web is the answer to all of our questions. Lawrence and Miller (2000: 1) notice that purveyors of electronic commerce vigorously promote the notion that the answers to all our questions are only a keystroke away. Judging by the extent of web usage in academia and other fields and its coverage of subjects, one cannot help but feel that their observations are not far off the mark, although some can still argue that not everything is available online.

By connecting to the Internet, an entirely new world of electronic information and communication is opened to students and staff; hence it is conceivable why seeking information on the web is very popular in higher learning. The wide range of information available online now means that many information queries can be answered from online sources. A driving factor in this ballooning interest in web information seeking is speed, or instant information feedback. People demand and receive electronically produced citations, abstracts and sometimes full-text documents in minutes or even seconds after the request is placed. Moreover, users have recognized that online searching provides a fast and efficient entry into the world of secondary source materials and basically eliminates exhaustive manual researching in many subjects. In essence, the lure of the web seems to lie in a combination of factors: it is simple, and its coverage is wide, giving access to a range of topics greater than any other information source.

Mioduser (2000: 7) opines that the reason behind the web’s popularity in education is because of its most obvious feature as a huge repository of hyperlinked knowledge, information and knowledge manipulation functions (e.g., generation, transmission, storage, processing, and retrieval of information), which are at the heart of educational transactions. The ability to contribute to or to access on-line libraries, databases, e-journals, museums, and other public information services on the Internet to fulfill valuable educational functions also appeals to higher education users. On the web, innumerable types of information, in a large variety of packages and in many different locations, are all available in one place. Lawrence and Miller (2000: 30) believe that the Internet has provided exceptional educational opportunities, and an explosion of activity is occurring in this arena, especially with the appearance of the World Wide Web. As Patitungkho and Deshpande (2001: n.p) opine, this increase in the information available on the web has affected information seeking behavior.