A pilot study to be conducted by University of Washington faculty could help them learn how individuals seek information on the World Wide Web. The research will be one of the first in-depth studies of how people use the Web.
A grant from The Boeing Co. will enable a team from the UW Graduate School of Library and Information Science to gather detailed information, from interviews and observations, about the "information-seeking" behavior of a group of Boeing engineers, using Boeing's intranet, its own storehouse of information on its own segment of the Web.
The researchers, three UW faculty and four graduate students, will be gathering information as a baseline for what they hope will be a larger scale study of how Boeing employees use the company's intranet. "Boeing has a great deal of information on its intranet," says Efthimis Efthimiadis, UW associate professor of library and information science. "And, to the company's credit, it has recognized that organizing complex information for diverse audiences can be a challenging problem. This study is a pioneering effort to improve the effectiveness of information retrieval, which can have important implications for worker productivity." The study will consist of first-hand observation and interviews with a group of Boeing engineers, to learn more about how they go about seeking information and using the company intranet to find answers to questions. The researchers hope that the conclusions from this pilot project can be used to frame questions for a future larg!
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er study of Boeing employees and their use of the intranet.
Boeing solicited proposals from seven universities. The UW response was unusual, according to Efthimiadis, in suggesting a theoretical framework for analyzing Web use that was developed by Annelise Mark Pejtersen and colleagues at Risoe Labs Denmark, specifically for a work environment.
The study is led by Associate Professor Raya Fidel and includes, in addition to Efthimiadis, Assistant Professor Sam Oh, and Risoe's Senior Scientist Annelise Mark Pejterson as a consultant. Results are expected later this spring.
###Note: Prof. Efthimiadis can be reached at 206-616-6077 or by email at efthimis@u.washington.edu.
