Profiling
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study It has been said before and you hear it everywhere. Information is power (The Pennsylvania State University, 2008). The notion of information plays a fundamental role in the development of the society. Information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person who receives it. This approach to information, like most human-centered approaches to information, leads one to emphasize the meaning and use of message, ``what the message is about?" and ``what is known already?" over the information carrying messenger and the message itself (Bob Losee, n.d.).
Kuhlthau (2005) depicts the information-search process as a sequential set of intellectual stages: becoming aware of the lack of knowledge or understanding identifying a problem area or topic,exploring the problem, defining the problem ,collecting relevant information (collection), and explaining what the person learned (presentation). This model does not address the effort required to transition through the various information-seeking stages. (Ellis, n.d) characterizes six different types of information activities: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring and extracting. He emphasizes the information-seeking activities, rather than the nature of the problems or criteria used for determining when to stop the information search process. Dervin (2003) uses the term “outcome” to denote the information-seeking objective. Accomplishing that objective implies the conclusion of the information-seeking episode. Since it emphasizes the importance of the situation in seeking information and recognizes the episodic nature of information seeking, it does not explicitly address the factors associated with stopping behavior, although sense-making recognizes that given the incomplete nature of reality, the information-seeking process is only ever partially fulfilled.
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study It has been said before and you hear it everywhere. Information is power (The Pennsylvania State University, 2008). The notion of information plays a fundamental role in the development of the society. Information is data that has been processed in such a way as to be meaningful to the person who receives it. This approach to information, like most human-centered approaches to information, leads one to emphasize the meaning and use of message, ``what the message is about?" and ``what is known already?" over the information carrying messenger and the message itself (Bob Losee, n.d.).
Kuhlthau (2005) depicts the information-search process as a sequential set of intellectual stages: becoming aware of the lack of knowledge or understanding identifying a problem area or topic,exploring the problem, defining the problem ,collecting relevant information (collection), and explaining what the person learned (presentation). This model does not address the effort required to transition through the various information-seeking stages. (Ellis, n.d) characterizes six different types of information activities: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring and extracting. He emphasizes the information-seeking activities, rather than the nature of the problems or criteria used for determining when to stop the information search process. Dervin (2003) uses the term “outcome” to denote the information-seeking objective. Accomplishing that objective implies the conclusion of the information-seeking episode. Since it emphasizes the importance of the situation in seeking information and recognizes the episodic nature of information seeking, it does not explicitly address the factors associated with stopping behavior, although sense-making recognizes that given the incomplete nature of reality, the information-seeking process is only ever partially fulfilled.