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

Higher education and information seeking

Attfield and Dowell (2002:187) note that research in information science has seen the emergence of a trend, identified by Dervin and Nilan, of exploring the contexts of information seeking and use. A number of key features are characteristic of this approach. These include being receptive to differences that manifest themselves in different information seeking situations, extending the focus of research beyond users’ information system encounters to the wider context of use, exploring user’s cognition as well as observable behaviour, and frequently adopting qualitative methodologies to provide rich accounts of the information behaviour of smaller groups of individuals. According to Limberg & Sundin (2006: n.p) “one important setting for information seeking is that of education. In schools at different levels, from preschools to universities, the various practices of information seeking play a central role”. Mioduser (2000: 8) observes that “The conception of the web as a learning environment is gaining more and more adherents, and is instantiated in varied forms, e.g., distance learning courses and even degrees, collaborative learning projects, virtual schools and universities, or virtual environments for complementary and informal education.”

The academic setting is not a new area for research on information seeking. Information seeking literature reports that higher education is an area where a lot of research has been conducted. This is because much of the work concerning information seeking looks at well defined user groups with well defined information tasks, typified by students or academics. Often, these investigations of information seeking behavior within the academic community across study groups and disciplines focus on the following groups: undergraduates, graduates, staff and/ or researchers; mainly because of the assumption that there are differences in the seeking behaviours of the cited groups.

Today, there seems to be a widespread acknowledgement of the fact that in higher education, there is a lot of information seeking that occurs on the web. A superficial evaluation of literature shows the extent to which web technology and services have already permeated higher education. As Mioduser & Nachmias in Mioduser (2000: 2) observe, since its inception, the development of computer communication technology has been accompanied by attempts to assimilate it into education in pursuit of teaching and learning goals. Mioduser (2002:2) believes that the creation of the first graphic browsers and the WWW in the early 90’s was a crucial turning point that led to the widespread implementation of computer mediated communication in education. The Chronicle of Higher Education (2007: n.p) reports that in the decade since the release of the first web browser, information technology has insinuated itself into virtually every corner of higher education. Colleges use databases, networks, and a dizzying array of software to maintain academic and financial records, recruit new students, communicate with current students, and enable professors to collaborate during research, disseminate library materials, and teach, whether in a classroom or through distance education.
According to Fok and Ip (2004: n.p), worldwide educational reform has raised the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education. Digital information technologies and communication technologies were dubbed information and communication technologies or ICTs because they are environments in which people use communication technology to access, manipulate, transform and exchange information,, features that are popular with academic users. (Notes: revise) With the diversity and abundance of information that can be accessed from the Internet, studies of web information seeking behaviour, particularly with regard to education, have become inescapably significant.