

Most College Students Unable to Properly Use Search Engines - jtbigwoo
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/college-students-stumped-search-engines-research-finds-193221656.html

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jfoutz
I really love the phrase "not that good at the Internet." I use terms like
that in jest. Sometimes I wonder if we're creating a Warhammer 40,000 like
world where high priests use incantations passed down for generations on
machines so fantastically complex the knowledge of their construction has been
lost for a thousand years.

Then i realize editors are lazy, and move on.

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Wilduck
Warhammer 40,000? Surely you meant to reference Isaac Asimov's Foundation? ;)

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LogicX
"most college students".... as defined by the outcome of a 30 student sample
at one university.

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kadavy
I'm uncomfortable with the notion that there is a "proper" way to use a search
engine. It seems like we should design search engines based upon our
audience's behavior.

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greenyoda
There may not be a "proper" way to use a search engine, but there are
certainly effective and ineffective ways of using a search engine, with
"effective" being defined as finding a relevant, factual answer to the
question you were trying to answer.

And search engines are already designed based on these people's behavior:
since many people tend to click on the first link, search engines put
sponsored links at the top. Note, however, that this design is meant to
optimize the revenue of the search engine company, not to help the users (who
are not paying customers).

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scarmig
The website of the project generating these results:
<http://www.erialproject.org/>

The main takeaway should be "students have a hard time finding good sources
because researchers hide their articles behind layers of unintuitive
interfaces that finally bring you to a broken link."

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scarmig
Ah, here it is: [http://www.erialproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/ACRL-...](http://www.erialproject.org/wp-
content/uploads/2011/04/ACRL-erial-results-presentation.pdf)

Ish. PP presentation with no data.

