engleski

Scholars' domain of information space

The article addresses Croatian scholars' information behaviour and how they use technology to acquire information in three areas of their work: teaching, research, and administrative activities. Our study aimed to find which communication channels scholars utilize to find and share knowledge. Are they those targeting a broader audience, i.e., formal-explicit communication, or those targeting a narrower one, i.e., informal-implicit communication? The questionnaire included 4 questions regarding scholar activities, with 9 possible components of communication channels, scored on a seven-point Likert scale. Considering many channels for each area of activity, a reduction was made through Principal Component Analysis (PCA), to determine latent components in various channels. In finding information for teaching activities the main communication channel is informal and implicit, while research and administrative activities is formal and explicit. PCA shows a distinction between social and technical domains of science in terms of how scholars collect material for administrative tasks. A further communication channel is reduced to two factors for all questions, where the first factor has formal- explicit and other informal-implicit characteristic. This work is part of a larger study aimed at determining the mechanisms of information diffusion within an academic institution utilizing Information space model.

I-space model, scholars, communication channels

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