This research, beginning in January 2018 and now complete, looked to further our understanding of information sharing and information and communications technology (ICT) use by international student immigrants to Canada, focusing for exploratory purposes on students at the University of Alberta. It employed interviews with international student immigrants currently studying at the University of Alberta, to explore four main research questions: (1) their use of ICTs in their academic and everyday lives; (2) the role(s) ICTs play in their settlement process; (3) how they choose to share everyday and academic information with others using technology; and (4) any differences in these activities between the different communities and environments they are part of, such as their new country vs. their original home, or academic vs. everyday life uses.
The project was collaborative research with Jen Kendall, an MLIS graduate of the University of Alberta; and Erin Ballantyne, then a current MLIS student. Both served as research assistants during different stages of the project.
Publications
- Worrall, A., Ballantyne, E., & Kendall, J. (2019). “You don’t feel that you’re so far away”: Information sharing, technology use, and settlement of international student immigrants. In C. Blake & C. Brown (Eds.), Proceedings of the 82nd ASIS&T Annual Meeting: Information... anyone, anywhere, any time, any way, Melbourne, VIC, Australia, October 19-23, 2019. Association for Information Science and Technology. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.25