Information Gathering and Internet Learning

To gathering information and learning from different internet sources, one must be able to solve information- based problems. An information-based problem is a problem that only can be solved by searching information because there is a gap between prior knowledge and the required knowledge to accomplish the (learning) task successfully. Brand-Gruwel et al. (2005) introduced the notion of Information Problem Solving (IPS; see, also, Eisenberg and Berkowitz 1990) and defined IPS as the ability to solve information-based problems; one must be able to identify information needs and define the problem, to locate corresponding information sources, to extract and organize relevant information from each source, and to synthesize information from a variety of sources into cogent, productive uses. In the chapter the concept is elaborated and research issues are addressed.