Archival interaction: a framework to assess university archives websites from the perspective of history undergraduate students
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The goal of the research is to provide an exhaustive portrait of the usefulness of Canadian university archives websites by extending to a Canadian context similar research that was done in the United States. This exploratory research employs a two-phase approach to understanding what information is currently provided on these archival websites, what undergraduate students in history expect to find, and the barriers they face when navigating on these websites. Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered to answer four research questions: how is the Archival Reference Knowledge (ARK) framework represented on websites, what are students’ expectations regarding these websites, what barriers they face when navigating on these websites, and how is the ARK framework operationalized when considering both students’ expectations and the barriers they face.Through a review of the literature related to the study of archives users, information needs and the reference interview, information and archival literacies as well as user expertise, and information seeking, the ARK framework was identified as a conceptual model that had the best application to frame this research. The ARK framework was expanded through the addition of an instructional component to the existing collection, interaction, and research components. The proposed Archival Interaction framework has been operationalized and tested in this two-phase approach.In phase one, an iterative assessment of 81 Canadian universities archives websites (64 for English-language institutions and 17 for French-language institutions) allowed us to identify 36 markers that were used to measure the effectiveness and the efficiency of each website in relation to the four types of knowledge. In the second phase of the study, undergraduate students in history completed an online survey based on two components: the Archival Metrics standardized survey and rating questions of the markers defined in phase one. In total, there were 171 respondents from across the country: 137 participants (English) and 34 participants (French). The survey was designed to have questions related to three goals: respondents’ background and context of search, their expectations, and identifying barriers.The results of phase one show great diversity in how information is presented on the websites. Most large research-intensive institutions tend to have websites that provide more information and are structurally more complex. The analysis therefore translates to higher effectiveness and lower efficiency: the markers used for the analysis are better represented, meaning there is more information on the website, but the information tends to be difficult to access. The data by type of knowledge shows an overrepresentation of markers related to Collection Knowledge and Interaction Knowledge. In phase two, respondents mention navigation issues and lack of information as barriers to their search; specifically a lack of information related to search techniques. Respondents’ ratings of markers show a need for more research and instructional information, two types of knowledge that were rated as important as collection and interaction information.The main recommendations from this research include providing more information related to research and instruction, to complement what is already available about collections and interaction. Doing so will particularly help novice users, but also strengthen the relation with expert researchers. Defining professional archival terminology more systematically and adding links to existing resources would likely increase users’ autonomy online. These recommendations are also in line with current work on archival literacy and efforts to update existing educational standards for archival programs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.020 | 0.023 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.018 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.008 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".