Bypass Introduction

This project is a one year investigation into how people use the Internet to search for information. The project is based at the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield and funded by the Arts and Humanitities Research Board. The project is in its main phase, which concludes at the end of April 2000.

"Recent studies at Sheffield University suggest that differences in search strategies, effectiveness of searching, satisfaction with the results of searches, choice of search tool, and choice of keywords are significantly linked with differences in cognitive styles (i.e. pervasive differences in the way different individuals process information, learn and solve problems)..." From the Original Proposal

Two approaches...

The quantitative strand will investigate links between cognitive style and choice of Internet strategy. The qualitative strand will use a grounded theory methodology to investigate emergent issues related to Internet search strategies. Both strands will inform each other and the project is designed to allow specific issues of interest to be further investigated throughout its duration.

Genuine emergent theory...

Too often research projects pay lip service to the notion of the iterative development of new theory. The project team is committed to following through on the development of new theory, even if this means that the quantitative and qualitative strands diverge.

Project transparency...

A unique feature of this web site is the degree of transparency that is built in. Where appropriate, internal documents such as discussion papers, minutes etc. are on the web site for visitors to browse. This means that our visitors can keep up to date with progress throughout the project. The quantitative and qualitative data will also be included on this site, as it becomes available, subject to legal and confidentiality constraints.

An outline of the two strands can be found in the internal project document, Notes on methodology. The underlying methodological issues are developed more fully in the document containing the ECER proposals, the three accepted paper proposals for the European Educational Research Association's annual conference, ECER'99. The papers themselves can be viewed at the Education-line site, once made available by that organisation. Note that the updated abstracts are already available. Visit Lahti!

Site arrangement

There are currently four main parts to the site (see clickable links, below). New Additions takes you to a listing of the latest project documents on the site. Data Repository contains all the quantitative and qualitative data as it becomes available, subject to legal constraints. Bibliography includes supporting references and all internal documents. Meet the Team introduces us to you and makes it easy for you to e-mail us individually.

You are welcome to send comments to the site administrator (see the bottom of the page). Critique of the site is welcomed but please read the draft for Position Paper Two describing the design ethos and developement of the site first! This site is under continual development, as it reports back on the unfolding of the Internet Search Project. Click below to go to a page.