**1. Introduction**

Many advocates of online teaching and learning contend that one of the major benefits of studying in an online environment is the access it provides to a vast amount of resource material. No longer are students limited to what is available in their own institutions; rather, given the constantly expanding capacity of the world wide web (WWW), there is virtually no limit to the resources that students can draw on to support their learning. While this is certainly a major advantage, many practitioners concur that it also presents significant challenges for the graduate student, given a situation where, as online learners, they are assuming almost complete responsibility for all aspects of the multi-faceted task of locating, selecting, evaluating and using information as required in the various areas of their study.

In recognition of the possible difficulties that students could encounter in carrying out this task, there have been several generic guidelines developed. Students are expected to follow these guidelines and apply them to the specific discipline-related task that they are required to complete. Thus, they would conduct the search to identify appropriate resources, evaluate these resources and make notes in relation to the topic or area of study for which the search is being conducted. While acknowledging the value of such guidelines, it is being argued that this prescriptive approach is not always appropriate for all students, and that a more bottom-up approach should be considered.

This study is therefore intended to analyze students' efforts at sourcing, selecting and extracting information relative to an essay topic. The overall purpose is to assess these efforts against a defined standard as a preliminary step towards the generation of instructional strategies that may be more effective in assisting students in developing more effective skills for identifying, gathering and using information from online sources.

#### **2. Context of the study**

The Graduate Programmes Department (GPD) of the Open Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI OC) has recently begun offering fully online programmes at the postgraduate diploma and Masters' levels. The main body of its student population is located in

An Analysis of the Search Skills of Online Graduate Students as

Search Engines

 What's a directory Evaluating websites Invisible Web

Choice and Use of Keywords

http://oil.otago.ac.nz/oil/module2.html

annotation, including the following:

the Basis for the Development of Appropriate Instructional Strategies 213

One was the Online Information Literacy (OIL) programme and specifically Module 2 – the Annotated Bibliography. The OIL module was divided into three segments namely search for resources, cite information, write and present. One subsection under the heading 'Search for Resources' was 'Searching the WWW', with information provided on the following areas:

The second was the Purdue Online Writing Lab and its section on Annotated Bibliographies. This resource identified the three main tasks to be undertaken when doing an annotation as summarize, assess, reflect. It also outlined the format to be used when writing the

**The annotations:** The annotations for each source are written in paragraph form. The lengths of the annotations can vary significantly from a couple of sentences to a couple of pages. The length will depend on the purpose. If you're just writing summaries of your sources, the annotations may not be very long. However, if you are writing an

You can focus your annotations for your own needs. A few sentences of general summary followed by several sentences of how you can fit the work into your larger

To complement the primary resource materials drawn from the websites, students were advised to review Chapter 5 of Crème and Lea's 2003 e-publication, *Writing at University.* In particular, they were advised to pay close attention to two sections of that chapter, namely

It should be noted that while the materials provided were organized relative to the objectives to be attained, much of it was in the form of resources from the two websites identified earlier and these were not necessarily specifically tailored to meet the requirements of the learning activity of the orientation course. While some attempt was made to provide guidance on how to use these resources, students were still required to do

The writing of an annotated bibliography falls within the broad range of information literacy tasks. The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) of

http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/advocacy/information-literacy/Pages/

Information literacy is knowing when and why you need information, where to find it, and how to evaluate, use and communicate it in an ethical manner.

extensive analysis of each source, you'll need more space.

paper or project can serve you well when you go to draft.

'Choosing reading for an assignment' and 'referencing and plagiarism'.

their own selection based on their understanding of the overall task.

**2.1.1 The annotated bibliography and information literacy** 

the United Kingdom defines the broader set of skills as follows:

definition.aspx

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resources/614/01

the fifteen Caribbean countries that support the parent institution, the University of the West Indies. The GPD is therefore aware of the need to provide optimum support for this distributed body of students who, though having the opportunity for interpersonal interaction through the web-based learning management system, must assume a high level of responsibility for their learning.

The main qualification for entry into either type of programme is an undergraduate degree. Many of those admitted would have also obtained this qualification through the online delivery facility of the Open Campus. Nonetheless, given the increased demands of study at the graduate level, and the fact that these mature students may not have a sustained postsecondary formal education experience, the GPD considered it important to include a compulsory three-week orientation programme to assist students in strengthening their capability to undertake graduate study in an online environment.
