Abstract
The aims of this paper are to provide insight into the information behaviour (IB) of people seeking information related to activities carried out in the virtual world (VW) Second Life (SL) and to identify whether IB models derived from contexts other than VWs are also applicable to SL. Ninety-one interviews, each describing an incident when the interviewee needed information for an SL activity, were carried out in SL itself. Data was analysed using existing research models of IB and inductively. It was established that models of IB derived in real-world settings are also applicable in VWs, and the models are enriched with new SL examples. Information encountering emerged as a dominant mode of information discovery, but behaviours such as browsing, monitoring, purposive search and verifying were also identified. Seven categories of need and four major categories of outcome emerged from inductive analysis of the data. A wide variety of sources were used by the participants and a new term, blended IB, is proposed to describe this varied IB. This study contributes insights into the everyday and practice-based IB of academics and professionals that is lacking in the literature. It can also provide guidance for those supporting information-seeking across new digital channels.
1. Introduction
This article reports on the results of a qualitative investigation into the information behaviour (IB) of academics and professionals using the 3D virtual world, Second Life 1 (SL). Ninety-one interview transcripts, each focusing on an information incident related to SL activity, were gathered in four batches between December 2007 and January 2011. The paper concentrates on establishing that SL is a valid context in which to examine IB, investigating whether research models of IB developed in a ‘real world’ context can be applied to a virtual context, and on analysing the categories of need and outcome revealed in the information incidents. It also identifies a new concept, that of Blended IB.
Use of virtual worlds (VWs) has been increasing rapidly, with consultants Kzero [1] reporting 1772m registered users of VWs at the end of 2011, the majority of them under 20 years old. With this increase in use, it is timely to investigate how and why people are using information in a VW. SL presents a fertile ground for such an investigation since it is: a complex virtual world replete with hundreds of affordances … As a result of this complexity, people are constantly engaged in solving information needs. [2, p. 9]
Data was gathered under the direction of the author by undergraduate students as part of a class, Inf104 Information Literacy, offered at the Information School at the University of Sheffield, UK. The ways in which this influenced the study are noted at appropriate points in the paper. The findings presented here emerged from a fresh analysis undertaken solely by the author.
The paper starts by contextualizing the study within the IB field and describing key elements of SL that are relevant to study of IB in SL. Four previous studies of IB in SL are reviewed. Findings are presented in two parts: first an analysis of the data using selected research models of IB which have been developed outside the SL environment; and second an inductive analysis, categorizing the needs and desired outcomes that emerged from the interviewees’ descriptions of the information incidents relating to activities in SL.
2. Background and literature review
2.1. Information behaviour
The primary aim of the research was to provide insight into the IB of people seeking information related to an SL activity (i.e. an activity carried out in the SL environment, for example, teaching in SL). Wilson [3] defines IB as the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and passive information seeking, and information use.
This definition informed the design of the questionnaire (Appendix 1), although information use was only probed insofar as interviewees were asked why they needed the information. The secondary aim of the research was to identify whether IB models that had emerged from contexts other than VWs were also applicable to IB in a VW. Therefore three research models were used to derive specific questions. These were Ellis’s [4] model of information-seeking, Erdelez’s [5, 6] information encountering (IE) framework and Mansourian’s [7] model of information visibility.
They were primarily selected because, between them, they probe different aspects of IB, both passive (Erdelez) and active (Ellis and Mansourian), in various phases and modes. Mansourian’s model is concerned with the important topic of web search and explicitly addresses search success and failure. Erdelez’s [5, 6] model also addresses affective issues. Ellis [4] model, which is pre-web search, has already been applied to an internet context by Choo et al. [8] so it could be hypothesized that it might also be applied in a VW context. Additionally, the research of Wilson, Ellis and Mansourian was carried out in the department in which the author and her students were based, connecting the students with research that was both highly cited and part of their departmental heritage. The analysis using Ellis’s [4] and Mansourian’s [7] models is not the main focus of this article, but some summary findings are presented in Section 4.2. A more detailed account of IE is given in Section 4.3, since the incidence of encountering was notably high.
The IB literature is often characterized using the information seeker’s role, occupation or demographic (e.g. as noted in substantial literature reviews [9–11]). Professional workers and academics (who form the majority of the sample for this study) have been two of the most frequently studied groups [11]. Vakkari [10] notes a research focus on information-seeking (rather than need or use). An examination of recent literature on academics’ IB also reveals a bias towards investigations of academics seeking scholarly information or, at least, acquisition of information for research and scholarship (even when it considers a wider range of channels and sources, for example, by the Research Information Network [12]). There is, however, a paucity of studies that investigate the totality of academics’ IB, including IB in teaching and administrative tasks. Interviewees in this study could describe an incident relating to any SL activity, but few described incidents connected with research, and numerous incidents were connected with teaching. Therefore, more unusually, this study provided insight into IB for teaching, using a wide variety of sources.
There has been an increasing focus on the context of IB; indeed Case [9, p. 314], in his review of IB literature 2001–2004, notes that now ‘the dynamic, personal and context-laden nature of information behaviour seems to be taken by a given’. The ‘context’ and ‘person in context’ form part of Wilson’s [3] model of information-seeking behaviour, with the context comprising factors such as the organizational and physical environment. In this study, the primary context is taken to be the SL environment, since that is where the need arose and where the information was to be applied. This issue is discussed further in Section 4.1.
2.2. Second Life
In this section, key information-related features of SL will be described, to aid understanding of the research findings for those who are not familiar with SL. More detail on the nature and affordances of SL can be found in Sanchez [13] and Savin-Baden et al. [14], and on the official SL wiki [15]. Overviews of its use by librarians are given, for example, in Grassian and Trueman [16], Hill and Lee [17] and Webber and Nahl [18].
Warburton [19] defines a VW as being persistent (i.e. there even when you are not), multi-user, synchronous, enabling representation through avatars, and with similarities to the physical world (e.g. topography and physics). De Freitas [20] characterizes SL as a ‘serious’ VW (i.e. one used for education, not just recreation) and it is the one most used by educators worldwide, as evidenced in the regular series of surveys of the use of VWs in UK Higher Education [21], which give examples of SL use in a wide variety of disciplines.
2.2.1. SL’s economy
Transactions in SL are made using SL’s currency, the Linden dollar, which has a fluctuating exchange rate with the US dollar: in the third quarter of 2011 alone US$30m were traded on the Linden currency exchange [22]. Common purchases are land rental, virtual clothes, houses and furniture and pets. Any SL user has the tools to create objects, and it is easy to set up shop, so there are thousands of individuals trading items, either inworld (i.e. inside SL) or via one of the web-based stores, notably the official SL marketplace (https://marketplace.secondlife.com/).
2.2.2. Land
SL consists of mainland continents and islands. Most of the land is owned or rented by SL residents (i.e. people who use SL). If you right click a land surface, you bring up a profile which gives you information such as who owns the land and when they bought it. If it is your own land, you can terraform it (to create hills, valleys, etc.), change the graphic applied to the land (e.g. to make it look like grass or snow), decide what the sea level is, and ban people from the land. Every avatar and object is pinpointed at all times by x, y and z coordinates in relation to the land. Avatars move round by walking or flying, or by teleporting directly to a set of coordinates.
2.2.3. Avatars
People are represented within SL by avatars; via these avatars they can create and trade objects, rent land, and participate in a variety of activities organized by other SL residents. Schultze and Leahy [23] identify that avatars in 3D worlds commonly possess a customizable body, possessions that may be kept in an inventory, animations that enable the avatar to move and interact, a profile that displays information about the avatar, a camera function enabling different views on the avatar’s environment, and various communication options. These functions are all available in SL.
Avatars also have their names floating over their heads and an avatar’s profile can be accessed in a variety of ways (e.g. by right clicking on the avatar, on the web). The profile gives basic information such as when the avatar was created, together with links to any favourite locations (‘picks’) and information on which inworld (i.e. in SL) groups they belong to. An avatar’s inventory is visible only to them and contains all the items they acquire in SL. It is has a simple search function and can be organized using folders. It may contain many items (e.g. the author of this paper has 55,000 items in her SL inventory including clothes, furniture, pets, houses, trees and animations).
2.2.4. Communication
Avatars can communicate with each other using text chat or voice if they are in close proximity in SL. They can also send instant messages: both text chat and IMs can be logged to a file automatically, forming a transcript. Textual information can also be shared in items called notecards, which can be exchanged directly with other avatars or embedded in objects.
2.2.5. Objects
This term is used here to mean anything which is not land, sea or avatar. The basic building block in SL is the ‘prim’ (primitive), and objects (e.g. cats, benches, flowers) are made by customizing and linking together prims. Objects can have graphics applied to the outside, have animations put into them (e.g. so that a cat wanders around and purrs) and various other things, including having a dynamic web page displayed on the prim. Therefore prims are also used to convey information, for example, by creating posters, slideshows or web page displays. All avatars have the ability to make things, although the skills to create sophisticated objects involve the use of graphics editing software, computer-aided design software, and scripting with the SL programming language. Again, each object has a profile, which can be accessed by clicking and provides the name of the object, the object’s creator and a few other things (e.g. whether it is for sale).
2.2.6. Browser functionality
There is a custom SL browser: you cannot use a simple web browser. There are numerous features, including a search function enabling you to search for avatar names, places, land for sale, events and objects.
2.3. Information behaviour in Second Life
In this section the few research studies of IB in SL will be considered in more detail. Ostrander [24] and Eisenberg et al. [25] investigated everyday information behaviour, while Mon [26] investigated information intermediaries in SL. These studies focus on what information people want and acquire, how they acquire it, and associated issues such as trust in information sources. Nahl [2] provides a different perspective by concentrating on affect and information need. It should be noted that all of these studies took place after the survey instrument for the author’s research had been drawn up (in 2007) and therefore they were not influential on study design. However they share with this study a qualitative approach and a focus on information needs and behaviour in SL.
Ostrander [24] used a virtual ethnographic approach to investigate how everyday Second Life users go about finding needed information. She analysed 12 information-seeking incidents reported in five semi-structured interviews with people who used Second Life. Ostrander identified five themes:
Social information seeking, for example, chatting to people, asking for help. 75% of the search incidents involved acquiring information from other people. Ostrander notes that the literature also emphasizes the social nature of VWs.
Use of visual, experiential mechanisms, for example, acquiring information by exploring a virtual town. This theme was identified in 25% of the incidents.
Serendipitous discovery, which was the primary theme in 17% of the incidents; participants also talked about wandering in order to come across new experiences.
Finally Use of the Second Life search function and Play and humour were each major factors in 8% of the information incidents; 40% of those mentioning the search tool found it unsatisfactory.
Eisenberg et al. [25] are investigating the nature of everyday information problem solving in SL, and the role and nature of trust. In Phase 1 of the project the researchers observed SL residents at specific events and locations, and interviewed and ‘work’ shadowed 10 people who were leaders in SL activities. In their preliminary analysis Eisenberg et al. note that participants use a variety of SL communication channels. The SL leaders and their communities developed social and professional networks that enabled them to share and authenticate information. This accords with Huvila et al.’s [27] finding that SL fosters the emergence of social capital.
Eisenberg et al. [25] found that SL residents liked to have neighbours (on adjoining SL land) who shared their interests and goals. This proximity could lead to serendipitous information discovery and information sharing. Observation of SL meetings led the researchers to the conclusion that, even for people with intermediary roles, ‘information sharing seems to happen serendipitously’ [25, p. 11] during the course of meetings and other events.
Mon’s [26] study focused on ‘information providers’ (e.g. librarians and educators) in SL. She adopted an ethnographic approach to explore what questions are answered by intermediaries in SL, and how the questions are answered. Mon conducted field visits to 50 information workplaces and interviewed 12 information providers. She discovered that the majority of questions that were posed to the intermediaries related to SL itself. Mon categorized the queries as ‘Basic questions’ about navigating and using SL (Wayfinding of places; Obtaining items; Controlling the avatar and Presenting the self) and ‘Advanced questions’ (Understanding the virtual world, Living as a resident, Understanding society and governance, and Shaping the environment).
Mon [26] also identified the key ways in which the providers answered questions, including: connecting with (the provider’s) social networks; gifting items; navigating SL interfaces (e.g. using SL search); using objects in their information workplace (e.g. exhibits, teleportation boards); using/wearing informational tools; Using games in SL to provide instruction and information; and linking out of SL (e.g. to websites). Mon [26] notes how information is not just provided verbally and textually, but also by interacting with the information seekers, for example, teleporting them, giving them items.
Looking at all three studies, the importance of personal sources and of serendipity emerges, and the two elements combine when social networks are developed that enable information encountering. The SL leaders and the intermediaries appear to be exploiting the affordances of SL in using SL-specific tools such as chatbots and the SL search engine, and the importance of the information embodied in the 3D environment itself is appreciated by participants in all these studies. More formal information sources (e.g. websites, health information) are more likely to reside outside SL.
The preference for human information sources has also emerged in studies of 3D online gaming worlds. Martin and Steinkuehler [28], in their study of gamers playing World of Warcraft, posit a collective information literacy in multiplayer gaming, identifying several distinct patterns of information seeking from colleagues in the game. They note that Peers are often the first line of inquiry because, simply put, storing information across one’s social network and then querying that network when a need arises is far more efficient and adaptive than storing copious amounts of information in one’s own head. [28, p. 363]
Turning to the final SL IB research project, Nahl [2] studied 11 students in psychology and library and information science, who self-reported on their experiences in SL. A key concept in analysis was that of affective load which attempts to identify, measure, and chart the cumulative emotional cost involved in personal adaptation and engagement with technological affordances. [2, p. 8]
Nahl [2] identified three types of affective information need: urgent, persistent and long-term. Nahl proposes a model of affective load and information needs in which the scale of affective load for an unmet need ranges from ‘impatient’ to ‘disengaged’, and the scale for a met need ranges from ‘relief’ to ‘fully engaged’. Her study thus adds a temporal and affective dimension to IB in SL, and also deals explicitly with unmet needs, an aspect missing from the other studies.
3. Methodology
Since this is a qualitative study, with data collected in a novel environment (SL) and by 91 different interviewers, the methods will be described in detail. A qualitative approach was adopted since this is a new field, with relatively little empirical research on IB in VWs. Therefore it was appropriate to explore individuals’ experience of IB through interviews. Hine [29] asserts that online interviews may be as authentic and accurate as offline (face to face) ones. In the case of this research, interviewing in SL offered some distinct benefits. Collecting data within SL enabled a wider range of participants than would have been practical face to face, and with a richer social presence than is possible through (for example) skype or videoconferencing [30]. It enabled interviewees to make aspects of their narrative clearer by direct reference to 3D material in SL (e.g. an interviewee who teleported the interviewer to relevant locations during the interview), and some of the participants chose to be interviewed in their own SL space.
Data was gathered between December 2007 and January 2011, by four cohorts of the Inf104 class, each undergraduate student performing an interview within SL (as described in Webber [31, 32]). The research methods were impacted by the pedagogic context: since the data was to be collected by numerous novice researchers, a structured interview protocol was drawn up and piloted (before the start of the class) by the author. The questions are given in Appendix 1: the final question was added in 2009/2010, but otherwise the questions remained the same. During this period there were no major changes to SL functionality. The only notable changes relevant to this study were that it became possible to interact dynamically with external web pages within SL, and that the within-SL search function was upgraded.
Critical incident technique [33, 34] was used insofar as participants were asked to think about a time when they needed information for an activity in SL, and the interviewers were instructed to keep the interviewee focused on answering questions in relation to this one incident. However, a critical incident technique interview normally includes more open-ended questions, and elicits more reflection on the interviewee’s emotions around the incident than was the case here. To enable the first-year students to tackle the analysis with more confidence and demonstrate understanding of information behaviour theory, most of the questions in this interview could be related to existing models of information behaviour. Thus, for example questions 2–4 and 9 relate to stages in Ellis’s [4] model.
The participants were a convenience sample of people who had carried out activities in SL (e.g. teaching, learning, recreation), recruited through email discussion lists and through direct contact from the author. Table 1 shows that, despite this, there was diversity in terms of country and occupation. Therefore, although the results cannot be generalized, they can be used to provide insight into the information behaviour of professionals who are active in SL and to identify further paths for research.
Study participants
The two major occupational groups were educator (one teacher in a school, the others in tertiary education) and librarians. The educators’ subject disciplines varied (e.g. English, Women’s Studies, Biology). Some undergraduate students were included in the first exercise, recruited via their teacher. The ‘other’ category mainly comprises self-employed professionals (e.g. educational consultants, an SL TV presenter, a recruitment consultant) together with a few postgraduate researchers.
The ratio of female to male interviewees was approximately 3:2 – a more exact breakdown is not considered meaningful as, first, it is known to the author that some participants in the study present in SL as the opposite gender to their physical gender (and it may be that others do, unknown to the author). Second, an initial analysis identified no striking or consistent differences between respondents known to be male and female. Similarly, no notable differences in behaviour emerged between participants from different countries.
Ninety-one transcripts were analysed for the study described here. Fifteen of these interviews are from participants already interviewed in a previous year, but who described a different incident. The total number of students in the four cohorts who performed interviews was 114. The main reasons for excluding interview scripts were that: the interviewee did not focus on one incident; the incident was not related to an SL activity; the interviewer did not complete the interview script; the interviewee had been interviewed in a previous year about the same incident; the student did not submit the interview script.
The student interviewers were introduced to SL several weeks before their interviews, and their skills in moving and communicating in SL were developed, so that they could conduct themselves professionally. They were given advice on interview techniques and undertook supervised practice interviews, using questions from the full interview script, first in class and then in SL [31]. This supported the students’ development and also contributed to the quality of the data collection process.
Minocha et al. [35] have identified issues concerning research ethics and procedure in SL and Salmons [36, 37] provides advice for conducting SL interviews. The research described here was subject to the university’s normal ethics approval process. An information sheet was provided in advance to interviewees, and informed consent was obtained from each participant through exchange of textual documents (‘notecards’) within SL, or by the interviewee typing their consent into text chat in SL. The interviews were between 25 and 90 minutes long. They were conducted in text chat (rather than voice) since this minimized technical problems for interviewees and meant that students did not have to transcribe their interviews, since chat can be logged automatically.
The data has been analysed from scratch by the author for this paper. The meaning of the data was explored in three ways: first, by comparing the results with the existing models and frameworks used in drawing up the questionnaire, as already described. Second the transcripts were coded inductively, in particular focusing on the nature of the information need, the desired outcome after acquiring the information, and the information sources and channels used. Third, the extent to which the patterns and meaning in the data could be compared with other research frameworks was considered, for future analysis.
In the following sections, the interviewees are identified by an upper case I, by the year in which the interview was undertaken, and the number allocated to their transcript, for example, I8-3 is the third transcript from the batch interviewed in 2008/2009. There are very numerous simple typographic errors in the transcripts (e.g. teh instead of the) and these have been corrected for ease of reading. Sentence structure, grammar and more ambiguous typographic errors have not. A backward slash (e.g. ‘that’s right/I took some time’) indicates that the dialogue was chatted on a separate, but consecutive, line.
4. Findings in relation to other models of IB
4.1. Introduction: SL as a context for IB
This section draws on the interview data and on previous research to establish that it is valid to analyse the data with SL as the key context, rather than insisting that a ‘physical’ context (e.g. the physical location or the socio-cultural identity of the humans behind the avatars) must be taken as the main contextual reference point. First, the nature of the sample is relevant. On the evidence of transcripts, all but four of the participants had reached the stage of participation in VWs referred to by Childs [38] as approprioception (the participant is no longer ‘aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing’ in the virtual world [38, p. 250], and in many cases the stage of acculturation (the last of Childs’s seven stages), with awareness of the social and cultural norms that applied to activities in SL.
The majority of the participants talked in the first person about they things they did in SL, rather than using the third person in reference to their avatars, indicating their immersion. Their experience of SL as a physical and social environment emerges, talking about buying houses, talking to neighbours and attending parties in SL. Interviewees also show awareness of social norms that are recognizable (e.g. I10-4’s incident is wholly concerned with establishing the norms for trying on SL clothes).
As already noted, the ‘physical’ landscape in SL is a key source of information in itself: every person, tree or landplot can reveal information at the click of a mouse. As in the physical world, specialist expertise will provide advantage in speed of recognition and in differentiating between similar items. However, in SL there are generic skills to do with interacting with the environment that enable the subject neophyte to extract information and chain to a solution more quickly than in the physical world. Experienced residents exploit this as an integral part of their information practice. Therefore studying the IB of experienced SL residents may be of practical use in helping those new to SL.
In notable contrast to video games [39], the ‘plotline’ for SL is not, for this sample, a separate plotline to their real-life activities, but part of their life. An aspect of this life is information practice, moving between inworld (SL) and out-of-world sources to meet information needs. The fact that SL is where the information is to be applied colours perceptions: It’s strange because all the info I needed was on the net, but seemed somewhat irrelevant unless I was in SL applying the knowledge there and then. (I7-12)
4.2. Ellis’s and Mansourian’s models
The participants met their information needs by using a variety of sources: inside SL, on the web, and outside the digital environment (e.g. asking people face to face). Between them, the sample described processes that matched all of Ellis’s [4] stages in information seeking and all of Mansourian’s [7] modes of web searching, demonstrating that it was meaningful to apply these models to information incidents involving both within-SL and outside-SL search engines and sources. Since some interesting patterns emerged when applying Ellis’s stages to IE behaviour, and as part of the inductive analysis described in Section 5, Ellis’s model will be explained further with reference to some key findings.
It was rare for one incident to contain all of Ellis’s [4] stages (i.e. starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, extracting, verifying, ending), but all except two (where the need was answered at once) went beyond the starting point to encompass a few of them. Starting points include SL and web search engines, subject-specific information tools (e.g. wikis), websites, people (inside and outside SL) and the interviewees’ own collection of information and SL objects. Links in chaining (which in Ellis’s original study focused on chaining between citations) included links in SL and web-based search engines, web pages, social media, objects in SL, and people inside and outside SL. Chains might be all pursued within one medium, or move between different media (e.g. starting with a person, who gave a web link, which led to an SL location). Similarly browsing might be a matter of scanning and examining web pages, social media, locations and objects in SL, or people in SL.
Extracting (i.e. systematic searching) was performed with search engines inside and outside SL, subject databases and wikis. Differentiating (filtering sources) and verifying (checking accuracy) were not addressed by specific questions in the survey instrument, but some interviewees talked about these processes. The authority of the people who provided information was a notable factor both when differentiating and when verifying. Interviewees judged on factors such as the length of time people had been in SL, their occupation, and their reputation inside or outside SL.
Monitoring (regular scanning) was the least frequently occurring of Ellis’s steps, perhaps accounted for by the fact that most of the information incidents had a clear end point, rather than being ongoing information needs. However some of the interviewees went on to talk about monitoring activities unrelated to the incident, which included monitoring social media, journals, people (by participating in networks and communities, e.g. I9-12) and SL. An interesting SL-specific example of monitoring was given by I9-2, who was trying to discover the location for an SL meeting, using a map function in SL to monitor for the presence of avatars, while trying other sources of information.
Ending the information search was not characterized by an additional flurry of information seeking (as noted with some of Ellis’s [4] participants). Relevant here could be the fact that (as will be described in Section 5) many interviewees’ searches concerned specific items, so the search ended in recognizing that the sought item had been found. It can also be noted that two of the incidents ended with the interviewees finally identifying that they had possessed the required items all along, but had not been able to find them at the start.
4.3. Information encountering
Bawden [40] notes the continued interest in serendipity in search and browsing and its relevance in the digital information environment. As will be described, IE emerged as a strong characteristic of people’s IB in this study, so it will be explored in more detail, starting by using Erdelez’s [5, 6] IE framework.
Erdelez [5, 6] coined the phrase IE, meaning ‘memorable experiences of accidental discovery of useful or interesting information’ [5, p. 412], after carrying out an exploratory research study collecting interview and questionnaire data on IE incidents. She identified four categories of encounterer: non-encounterers, occasional encounterers (who saw their encounters as lucky chances), encounterers (who encountered fairly often, but did not consciously see that as part of their IB) and super-encounterers (who relied on IE as part of their IB).
Participants in this study were asked whether they had ‘bumped into’ information during their search, and if they had, they were asked how they felt about it. The phrase ‘bump into’ is the one used in Erdelez’s [5] original IE survey instrument. Numbers are given here since they provide insight into the characteristics of the qualitative data. Forty-one (45%) of the incidents involved encountering, and in 23% of incidents people said that they had not encountered information in this incident, but proceeded (unprompted) to talk, sometimes with great enthusiasm, about times when they had encountered it. A further 23% said they had not encountered information and volunteered no information on other instances. In the remaining 9% of cases either the statement was ambiguous (e.g. they said ‘yes’ but then talked about something else) or the interviewer failed to ask the IE question. The proportions of mentions of encountering (within or outside the incident) vs not encountering were similar in all four batches of data, 2007/2008 to 2010/2011, as is shown in Table 2.
Incidence of encountering (number of incidents)
The focus was on one information incident, and the extent to which IE was considered part of the interviewees’ IB was not explicitly probed, so it was not possible to identify the encounterer type of each interviewee. However, some provided extra data that allowed a categorization of likely super-encounterers through the following indicators that matched those identified by Erdelez [5, 6]:
Direct, unprompted statements about frequency of encountering, and its place in the interviewees’ IB. For example, I7-8, ‘I discover stuff everytime I look for something else’ and I9-4, ‘I bump into so much information I’m quite bruised’. The implication was that IE was part of their general IB, being applied to SL activities as it was to others: Oh YES – my belief is that people fall into certain learning types … and I am certainly one of the info browsers – where I soak up things in all sorts of areas – then relate them to something different. So I just noodle around often. (I7-1)
Through statements about [6] ‘counting on encountering’ by building up personal networks and putting yourself in situations where encountering may take place. For example I7-4 attended SL conferences and set up SL groups so he could interact with people and encounter information.
By consciously making themselves receptive to encountering, for example, I10-12, ‘Some of my very best examples turned out to be because I was paying attention/(when I was doing something else)’. I10-20 gives an example of this ‘paying attention’: I was in the Hyde Park area of SL. While I was there, chatting with some people, I noticed one of them was part of a SL group ‘London Gossip’. I realized this could be a group that could help me interact with some people to gather information.
Through expression of enthusiasm, for example, ‘oh my goodness!!!! Have i ever! [encountered information]’ (I7-21).
It is more difficult to distinguish which category the other interviewees fall into. Some avatars (e.g. I10-6) refer to luck as being the cause of the information encounter, which Erdelez [6] identifies as being a characteristic of occasional encounterers. For example I10-6 mentions encountering a spotlight when he was looking for a dance animation: he felt pleased and mentioned it was ‘Good fortune’. Only I7-4 actively remarked that they did not find the bumping-into approach useful, so it is not possible to determine whether the 23% who did not mention encounters are encounterers or not.
Interviewees were asked how they felt after encountering, and emotions were overwhelmingly positive, ranging from ‘pleased’ to strong enthusiasm, ‘I felt something like epiphany/very excited/and happy’ (I10-14). A couple qualified their statements by saying that, although they had been pleased, they also experienced a negative emotion because the encounter had revealed how much information they could be missing. This contrasts to the lack of emotion, or sometimes frustration, expressed when participants talked about search engines.
The interviewees mentioned a variety of contexts for encountering the information. Digital contexts predominated. These included monitoring discussion lists and social media such as Twitter, browsing blogs and websites, and web searching. As regards SL, information was mostly encountered when doing something in SL, for example, shopping, wandering about or attending meetings (i.e. rather than using the SL search function). This included browsing objects, and I7-6 observed that ‘I tend to check out objects in SL … so there is a good chance that eventually i will fall over something’. People could also be browsed, by clicking on avatars at a gathering and examining their profiles to see who they were and what interests they had.
Encountering information in SL requires spending time in SL, otherwise the opportunities simply will not arise, and therefore may correlate with quantity of time spent in SL or with types of activity pursued in SL. One person (I8-8) said explicitly that they did not bump into information because they only used SL for teaching, rather than recreation or exploration. Participants were not asked how much they used SL, but the fact that they were able to talk about activities in SL implies spending a certain amount of time there, so this may be a factor in the high incidence of encountering in the sample.
The few people who were identified as being at an early stage of SL participation also did not report any instances of encountering within SL. It can be hypothesized that level of SL participation is another relevant factor, since someone unfamiliar with SL might not know enough to recognize a relevant item when they bumped into it, and therefore would not ‘notice’ it. If they did not know about the technique of right-clicking on objects, land and avatars, then a whole area of information would be closed to them.
Looking at Ellis’s [4] stages of information seeking, information was most often encountered when browsing, monitoring or chaining. However there were also examples of encountering when extracting, differentiating or verifying. An example of the latter is checking someone’s background, to see if they are a credible source of information, and discovering that they have expertise in a different area to the one being checked, which is also of interest to the searcher.
Data on IE is rarely elicited together with data on other IB, so the incidence of IE here cannot be identified as empirically greater than in other studies. However it is a notable characteristic of the participants’ IB, and one of the two aspects of IB that interviewees were most positive about (the other being the value of people and community; this aspect will be discussed in Section 5.3). Additionally, serendipitous IB is noted as a prominent characteristic in both Ostrander’s [24] and Eisenberg et al.’s [25] studies of IB in SL.
Some interviewees expressed the opinion that encountering information in SL was particularly exciting, because of its novelty: there seems to be much more of a ummm ‘active’ feeling of getting and obtaining info in SL, but I spose thats because SL is shiny & new. (I7-12)
or because of its lived 3D quality: it’s more exciting than that because it can lead to a new experience not just info, because there might be someone interesting or an interesting experience as a result. (I10-13)
Mon [26] did not discover IE in her research: a notable difference was that she was investigating information providers (with a library or education role), rather than people seeking information for their own needs. Incidences of IE in the study reported here did not correlate with any particular occupational group or nationality, so the evidence from this is that librarians are as likely as anyone else to encounter information for their own needs. It would be worth following this up by investigating whether IE is less common where people are looking for information on behalf of someone else, and whether there are any differences when people are (as in Mon’s [26] study) consciously assuming an information provider role, rather than seeking informally on behalf of friends and family.
4.4. Summary
The secondary aim of the research was achieved, in identifying that it was valid to analyse information incidents relating to SL activity using research models of IB that had emerged from data relating to ‘real life’ activities. Questions based on the models were valuable in revealing patterns and meaning in the data, aiding the inductive analysis described in the next section. This study also enriched the models themselves by providing a wider variety of examples and patterns of use, as well as relationships between IE and Ellis’s stages. Having established some of the patterns in the data, a further analysis using Foster’s model of iterative information seeking [41] could be fruitful, since its view of IB as ‘cumulative, reiterative, holistic, and context-bound’ [41, p. 235] appears to fit with characteristics of this data.
5. Categories of need and outcome
As already noted, the transcripts were also analysed inductively and initial findings are given here, describing categories of need and outcome.
5.1. Categories of need
The first set of categories that emerged from the data were concerned with the participants’ needs. Interviewees had been asked to think about a time when they needed information for a Second Life activity. Wilson [42, p. 8] proposed talking about ‘information-seeking towards the satisfaction of needs’ rather than ‘information needs’ and the participants did indeed express themselves in terms of the need, rather in terms of the information. These needs, as expressed in the data, have been categorized using pairings of nouns (the foci of the need) and verbs (the actions associated with the needs, in order to move towards the desired outcomes), as follows:
Second Life. The need is to acquire general instructions and information on how to use it (e.g. I7-10, who wanted to know how to use the SL software, to be able to function in SL). The need is not focused on a specific SL feature. This need was only expressed by the small number of interviewees who appeared to be at a low level of participation in SL [38], indicated by (for example) referring to SL as ‘software’ and talking about their avatar in the third person. The remaining categories were not particularly associated with a specific occupation, real-life nationality or other demographic.
Location. The need is to identify a location (e.g. I9-12, ‘I needed to find healthcare educational places in SL’) or to access a location (e.g. ‘I needed information on how to get around in SL’ to be able to teleport to a specific location (I9-4).
Land. This is the SL land as a ‘physical’ thing, rather than particular geographical locations in SL. The need is to transform the land (e.g. I7-3, who wanted to terraform the land to put in a sublevel to a building) or to acquire or get rid of the land (e.g. I9-24, ‘I wanted a new piece of land for a small building project’).
Item. The need is to acquire the item, for example, ‘we needed to find lab coats’ for use in an SL TV programme (I10-17) or to transform the item (e.g. ‘I wanted to learn to create water effects in SL [for a river on her island] … I had water textures, but I didn’t know how to make them flow’ (I8-12).
Avatar. The need is to customize the avatar (e.g. I9-14, needing to move avatar lips in synch with speech) or to identify avatar(s) (e.g. I10-10, finding educators to interview).
Existing practice. This focuses on specific norms and practices in SL. The need is to locate existing practice (e.g. I10-4 wants to know how to try on clothes in SL without offending people; I10-7 to find out what other educators are doing in SL). This is differentiated from the next category in that the focus is on working out the nature of current practice, which is located in a practice community.
Existing information about a specific subject. The need is to acquire information for some SL purpose. The information is factual in nature (e.g. I9-21 wants to know when an SL musician is performing; I8-22 wants to know what the Alexandrine library is) or otherwise subject-specific (e.g. I9-9 seeks information on HIV/AIDS for an SL presentation).
The verb transform has been used with land and items when the land or item is being changed in a radical way that opens up new possibilities to how it can be used. The transformation is part of the need, since the desired outcome is to use the transformed item or land in this new way, not to make the transformation. When engaged in transforming land or items, the interviewees describe a problem-solving process in which they are working out what the problem is and how to solve it.
For example, when an interviewee wants to transform an item through scripting, they are clear about what they want the object to do once it is scripted. However, they are unclear about exactly what to do to achieve the outcome. In this case the search often starts with the interviewee searching for scripts and scripted objects they already have, then (when this fails, as it did for all the incidents described) proceeds to using inworld and out-of-world search, the SL wiki, SL locations where scripts can be found and direct approach to experts. Through this process the interviewee comes to understand what they need to do and assembles the tools to do it. At the end of the process, there might also be a transformation in the skills of the interviewee themselves, opening up new opportunities for example, new job opportunities (I7-3) or new ways of doing things (I9-23).
In contrast, acquiring is a matter of looking for something that matches what the interviewee has in mind. This fits into pre-existing plans rather than enabling something new. The verb customize was chosen to describe the action of acquiring a function or feature to make specific minor changes to an avatar (e.g. enabling the feature that makes lips move, acquiring a better tail). One can hypothesize that, were the sample extended, a wider range of verbs might be associated with each noun. For example, someone might transform their avatar (e.g. turn into a dragon to take part in a play).
Patterns of IB can also be observed. In the case of acquiring an item, the pattern is influenced by the extent to which the characteristics of the desired item are fixed at the start. If they are fixed (e.g. a scarf (I8-1), bunk beds (I7-20), a presentation board (I10-15)), the interviewee tries a series of sources until one of them yields the item. The sequence most often starts with use of a search engine and most often finishes with the item found serendipitously, as in the two examples I8-1 and I7-20, or through appeal to an expert, as for I10-15.
If the initial need is less well defined (e.g. a search for a sculpture, I7-19) then it is more a process of decision-making, accumulating information, with iteration, to get different perspectives and finally make the decision on which item to acquire.
Some needs are associated with particular tools or techniques. As one example, to acquire land, people variously use the ‘land’ search within SL or web search engines, browse the SL map function that shows which areas of land are for sale, browse the land by flying or walking over it, ask advice from SL friends and potential SL neighbours and encounter information about what is for sale. At some point the land is inspected in person and the neighbourhood explored, much as someone might do with a real-world house purchase.
Examining the categories in relation to IE, encountering within SL is associated with a need to acquire or identify (rather than transform) something. In fact, wherever the information is encountered, there are differences depending on whether the need is to transform or to acquire an item. When the incident involves transforming items through scripting, the IE relates either to having noticed some useful starting point earlier (e.g. I9-19, who had previously serendipitously noted that there were scripts stored in an SL location, the ‘ICT Library’) or to encountering different ways of solving the scripting problem, for example, I9-23: Yes, I found many alternative ideas and other information by ‘bumping into it’ in the course of searching for Plan A/That’s how I found Plan B.
Thus IE is experienced as a transformative step in the process of problem solving. In contrast, those who encounter information when their need is to acquire an item are more likely to experience IE as the solution, since by serendipitously finding the item, or a link to the sought item, their search is ended.
5.2. Categories of outcome
A desired outcome was also identified for each information incident (i.e. what is to be achieved when the need is satisfied), and the following categories emerged:
Practice. This concerns either the interviewee’s own practice, or someone else’s practice. The subcategories are:
Enable my specific practice. As a result of satisfying the information need, the interviewee is able to carry out a specific instance of personal or professional practice. This is bounded, usually temporally, and by purpose, so that in turn the need is well defined and sometimes very precise. There are numerous examples concerned with teaching: for example, I8-10 wants to give notecards to students, I7-4 wants to set up an area for language teaching, I8-15 wants her students to have motorcycles and I9-13 wants to use a brainstorming tool with their students. Other examples of practice include attending a conference (I8-13), learning to make household furniture (I10-16) or animations (I8-18) to put in a shop, collecting data for PhD research (I10-20), and acquiring more business-like clothing as ‘I’m a librarian and sometimes I have to go to meetings and it doesn’t do to look too flashy’ (I7-5).
Develop my practice. The desired outcome is not associated with a time-limited event, but contributes to ongoing development to improve practice. For example, I9-6 is improving their skills in using graphics; I9-12 is researching ideas they can use in teaching healthcare.
Impact others’ practice. The desired outcome involves other people’s practice, enabling them to do something, or stimulating them to do something, in SL. For example I8-14 is gathering information to show academics how SL could be used with social work classes; I9-11 is acquiring wigs and gowns for academics to use in an SL law class; I7-1 is an SL mentor getting information to help someone manage their land. Almost by definition, interviewees who described incidents in this category had a high level of [38] SL participation, since they are acting as intermediaries or SL advocates.
Knowledge base. The aim of acquiring the information is to add to personal knowledge and/or the collective knowledge base. This ranges from simple factual information that satisfies curiosity (e.g. I10-14 wants to know what a HUD is; I10-11 checks out the background of speakers at an SL conference they are at), to more complex topics where the interviewee is hoping to generate new knowledge as well as gather existing information. Examples of the latter are I8-22, doing research into information providers in SL, and I9-5, who wants to know what makes a good art gallery in SL. In some cases, as with I10-17, who is researching development of leadership in SL, there may also be a practice outcome (in this case giving a presentation), but the interviewee’s interest extends beyond this event.
Second Life:
Forming an SL. The desired outcome is to do better in some aspect of SL, for example, I7-16 wants to get rid of his beard because ‘I was not happy with my appearance’ and I7-10 wants to learn how to function in SL. This distinguishes it from the ‘practice’ categories where the SL improvement is needed in order to achieve some other outcome (e.g. I8-8 wants to improve their SL appearance (need) in order to give a presentation (outcome)). It is also different from the next category ‘To live one’s SL’, as it not contextualized or qualified, and it is associated with lower levels of [38] SL participation.
To live one’s SL. For this outcome, satisfying a need makes existence in SL in some way more comfortable, or simply ensures that life in SL can be maintained. This involves everyday things such as earning SL money, buying and furnishing one’s SL home, taking care of one’s SL appearance and fitting in with the other people in SL. It is an outcome unlikely to be the goal of anyone with a lower level of SL participation, since they would probably find the outcome of ‘living in SL’ baffling. There are numerous examples of finding an SL home, e.g. I8-16, ‘I wanted a nice house to use as a home base in SL’; other examples are I8-8, who wants to make their garden nice, and I9-20, who wants to buy some leggings. The interviewee qualifies the statements, for example, I8-16 wants a nice house and evidently has criteria for deciding what makes a house nice in SL. Similarly I9-20 does not want any old leggings, but ones that match a particular SL dress. This category also includes learning about community norms, for example, I10-4 wants to try on clothes in an SL shop without offending people.
Life. The outcome is achieving a long-term goal. An example is I7-13, who attends an SL job fair to get a (real world) job, which they describe as part of their life plan.
The data is being analysed further to reveal patterns of seeking and sources between different pairs of need and outcome. This will be reported in a subsequent paper.
5.3. Discussion
Comparing these categories of need and outcome with Mon’s [26] characterization of information questions, there is some correspondence in the focus of questions around location (Mon’s [26] ‘Wayfinding of places’), items, avatars and the SL environment. The division by Mon [26] into ‘basic questions’ and ‘advanced questions’ did not seem valid in relation to this sample, since some of the questions identified as ‘basic’ [26] (e.g. obtaining an object) are answered in this study by complex information behaviour and enable a skilled activity, for example, teaching in SL. In contrast, an ‘advanced’ question [26] concerned with living as an avatar might be answered quickly and simply. These nuances seem better addressed by looking at the combination of need and outcome. This is, admittedly, easier to discover when (as in this study) you are interviewing the person who has the need, rather than (as in Mon’s [26] study) an intermediary.
The interviewees use a wide spectrum of sources, inside and outside SL, including the sources noted by Mon [26] and extending to include a wider range of Web 2.0 and social media. As has been revealed through the analysis using previous IB models (Section 4), the interviewees also use a variety of tactics: browsing, searching, encountering, etc. Ostrander [24] and Eisenberg et al. [25] noted the importance of people and social networks as part of SL IB.
Using people-sources was an intrinsic part of the IB reported by the interviewees in this study: people were identified as sources in 91% the incidents. This included talking to people ‘nearby’ in SL or in the physical world, using email or instant message to contact an individual directly, and using inworld groups or online discussion groups and social media to pose a question to a group of people. This use of people was not restricted to a particular category of need or outcome.
People-sources were identified as having numerous advantages, enabling you to save time and get quality information: I think that it is often best to ask someone you know is knowledgeable about what you are trying to find out – it cuts corners as they can direct you to the best information etc. (I10-15)
Therefore you get results, ‘I asked the network and I found it’ (I7-8). People might add value: ‘they gave me info that was useful that I didn’t know I needed’ (I7-3). Some respondents emphasized that using people was particularly easy or productive in SL, and this arises through all four annual batches of transcripts, for example, ‘I find that the community support in SL is one of its greatest strengths’ (I7-3). The community is seen as extending to some places outside SL, in particular the Second Life Educators (SLED) discussion list ‘this [SLED] community involves specialists, experts, researchers’ (I10-18).
This range of sources and techniques may be compared with IB reported in studies of everyday information seeking for example, the movement between online and people sources reported in Meyers et al.’s [43] study of preteens’ IB, as well as their use of informal information grounds (in this case, SL) to share information. There is also an interesting resemblance to Julien and Michels’s [44] study of one person’s everyday IB: the person’s needs (buying a lawnmower, fixing equipment for work, planning a trip, finding out about role playing [44, p. 551]) have a strong resemblance to the ones in this study, except that in this study no physical objects or travel are involved.
The academics and professionals in this study, however, show greater consciousness of the need to combine IB techniques, using different sources to provide different perspectives, for example, a wiki might give an example of a piece of code, but a blog may tell us a story of how the author came up with it. (I8-3)
or to meet different needs, for example, if it’s some kind of academic info need, then I might use my list first. If it’s artefacts in SL then SL search and friends; and the web for ‘how to’ stuff, background info, about people in SL. (I8-8)
To describe this overall approach to IB, a new term, Blended IB, is proposed. This is by analogy with the term blended learning [45], which involves exploiting the affordances of both face to face and e-learning to design an effective learning experience using both online and offline modes of teaching. The Blended IB demonstrated in many of the incidents in this study similarly demonstrates effective use of a variety of channels and sources, moving between different digital and offline environments, and using a blend of techniques (searching, browsing, encountering, etc.) to meet a variety of needs and achieve the desired outcome.
6. Conclusions
One might have expected that an investigation into IB in SL would provide insight into a narrow range of behaviour and need. However, the open-ended questioning elicited responses relating to professional and personal life, providing insight into the variety of channels (physical and digital) that academics and professionals use. This is a contrast to the focus of existing literature on academics’ IB in relation to scholarly literature. It also casts a sidelight on the freedom that educators have to customize the SL learning and teaching space.
The study has confirmed the importance in SL of serendipitous IB as identified in Ostrander [24] and Eisenberg et al. [25], and the importance of people-information and social networks discovered by Ostrander [24], Mon [26] and Eisenberg et al. [25]. In the case of IE, it has revealed more detailed characteristics of IE, such as the relationship between particular kinds of information need and the experience of IE, and suggested factors for further investigation. There could be a variety of reasons for the high incidence of encountering in SL, which would need to be established through further research. Factors might include: the perceived poor quality of the SL search engine, forcing people to take other approaches to information acquisition; the affordances of SL, for example, its 3D nature; the value placed on people-sources; or a possible correlation between the attitude or cognitive style of people who enjoy SL and those who enjoy encountering.
This study, together with those of Ostrander [24] and Eisenberg et al. [25], suggests a link between creating human networks and encountering. Web 2.0 applications have made it easier to put yourself into human networks that might result in serendipitous encounters (e.g. membership of a discussion list), social media and websites have made it easier to come across information about people and easier to get in touch with them, and in SL avatars have their names on display and information revealed at a click, making connections easier still.
This study can be used to aid those providing reference services in SL and supporting students carrying out projects in SL. Paying more attention to identifying the perceived need and desired outcome can help to focus information seekers and their intermediaries on optimum tactics and strategies. This study reveals specific tactics (e.g. associated with needs to do with land or scripting objects) and useful strategies (such as deliberately hooking into personal networks). The importance of developing effective personal information management is emphasized, with the examples of people who wasted time looking for things that were already in their own inventories. IE also calls for good information management, so that information that you encounter for future needs is not lost by the time you need it.
Finally, this study adds to the growing body of evidence that coaching people about a limited range of information in a narrow range of formal sources is not going to prepare them for the everyday world of blended information. Encountering information and using people as sources should not be written off as the poor IB of people who do not know how to search properly. The Blended IB displayed by the academics and professionals in this study is often complex and nuanced, moving between different media to find the information that enables them to do what they want. While not everyone wants to live an SL, IB in SL can provide insights into how citizens can navigate the blended information world of the future.
Footnotes
Appendix 1: Interview script
1b. Firstly, please tell me about what the information need was.
1c. When did you need this information? Why did you need it?
2b. What was the starting point?
2c. Did this starting point give you the information you expected and wanted?
2d. Did your starting point lead you to any other sources of information?
2e. What were these other sources?
3b. What were you browsing?
3c. Did it give you any useful information?
4b. What were you checking regularly?
4c. Was it worth checking – did it give you any useful information?
5b. Did you expect to find the information using the search engine, before you started?
5c. Did you find any useful information using the search engine?
6b. What were they?
7b. Can you say some more about what you were doing when you bumped into the information and where you found the information?
7c. Can you say something about how you felt when you had bumped into the information?
8b. Why do you think that was?
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the students in the Inf104 Information Literacy class for their hard work in collecting the data for this research, and the SL interviewees for giving their valuable time.