Title: Has Undergraduate Students’ Method
of
Access to Knowledge Changed Because of The Presence of Online Sources
of
Knowledge?
Abstract: This
study
investigates how undergraduate students in Taiwan are now using
different
sources of knowledge to augment and complement their study efforts
because
of the presence of online sources of knowledge and its implications to
their
instructors. The three online sources of knowledge investigated are
professional
blogs, Wikipedia and Yahoo! Knowledge+ while the two traditional
sources
are books as well as newspaper & magazine. The factors considered
in
this study include three motivational items (information richness,
convenience
and social networking) from the uses and gratification theory,
credibility,
reliance and satisfaction. As a whole, book emerges as the best source
of
knowledge in term of information richness and credibility. Online
sources
perform best in the area of convenience and social networking. In term
of
reliance, undergraduate students rely heavily on Yahoo! Knowledge+.
This
is followed by book and professional blog. Professional blog combines
the
desired features present in traditional and online sources of
knowledge,
hence making it a promising online source of knowledge for instructors.
This
research suggests that instructors can set up professional blog to
further
improve their effort to assist undergraduate students.
Authors: Wee-Kheng
Tan and Tong-He Chen