"The Information Use Behaviors of Graduate Students in an Online Learning Community" by Nicole A. Cooke

Please join us for a special presentation by Nicole A. Cooke, MLS, M.Ed., American Library Association Spectrum Doctoral Fellow from Rutgers University as she presents, "The Information Use Behaviors of Graduate Students in an Online Learning Community."

Because of the technological, proximal and asynchronous uniqueness of online education, learners face challenges not native to face-to-face education.  As such, online students may seek alternate relationships and methods of interacting, forming their own “small worlds.”  Online students have their own “view of social reality, and ways in which they satisfy their intellectual, social, and physical needs” (Chatman, 1991, p. 438).  Small worlds allow people “to share a similar cultural and intellectual space” (Huotari & Chatman, 2001, p. 352), and members “share a repertoire of resources and sensibilities communally developed over time” (Wenger, 1998, p. 2).  The purpose of this study is to investigate the information use behaviors of graduate students in an online learning community, and to elucidate the information interactions and exchanges that occur within course threaded discussions.  Additionally, this study seeks to determine if and how graduate students in Library and Information Science programs create community in the online classroom, how, if at all, the presence of community impacts information use behaviors, and how students’ knowledge is constructed as a result.

About Nicole A. Cooke
Nicole A. Cooke is an instruction librarian and tenured assistant professor at Montclair State University’s (NJ) Sprague Library, and is currently a Spectrum Doctoral Fellow and 4th year doctoral candidate at Rutgers University. Her research interests include library and information science distance education and instruction, human information behavior in online settings, the retention and mentoring of minority Librarians and LIS Doctoral Students and leadership, organizational development and communication in libraries.

She is a frequent reviewer for Library Journal, a column editor for Public Services Quarterly, and has published profiles in the African American National Biography project, articles in College and Research Libraries News and The Journal of Library & Information Services in Distance Learning, the New Review of Academic Librarianship and several book chapters related to information literacy instruction.  She is author of “The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship Program: The Future is Overdue” JELIS, 51(3), 25 July 2010.

Named a Mover & Shaker in 2007 by Library Journal, Nicole is professionally active in ALA, ACRL, ALISE, and several New Jersey library organizations. She holds the MLIS degree from Rutgers University and a M.Ed. in Adult Education from Penn State.