The Project Information Literacy (PIL) Progress Report, released in early February and co-authored by two iSchool faculty, is on the lips of information professionals, receiving over 2,100 downloads from the information literacy community in U.S., England, Australia, India, Europe, Canada, Japan and elsewhere.

PIL is a national study, based in the iSchool and led by Co-Principal Investigators Dr. Alison Head and Dr. Michael Eisenberg. The study, sponsored by a gift from ProQuest to the iSchool, seeks to understand how sophomores, juniors, and seniors conduct course-related research and "everyday life research" in the digital age.

The study asks: "With proliferation of online resources and new technologies, how do early adults recognize the information needs they may have and in turn, how do they locate, evaluate, select and use the information that is needed?"

PIL's 18-page report presents findings from 11 qualitative student discussion groups on seven U.S. campuses with 86 undergraduates, held last fall. Overall, the report argues students are challenged by research in the digital age, despite the plethora of technology and information resources, and are frustrated with efforts to obtain necessary contexts, which make conducting academic and everyday life research possible.

In particular, the PIL Team found:

• Seven out of 10 college students interviewed went to Wikipedia first for course-related research, instead of turning to the library, course texts, or professors' office hours. Further, students ignored faculty's warnings about using Wikipedia all together and just did not cite Wikipedia as a source in their papers.
• Students reported the most difficult part of the research process was traversing vast, complex information landscapes, both online and offline, and finding the materials they desired, knew existed, and needed on a "just in time basis."
• Eight out of 10 college students interviewed openly saw books (as an interface) as "antiquated interfaces" compared to other materials, usually culled from online sources, that were much shorter in length, right at their fingertips, and available 24 hours a day.
• Ninety percent of the students interviewed procrastinated on 90 percent of their research paper assignments, beginning assignments two or three days before they were due, assured they could "find something plausible to cite" somewhere" (which usually meant from online sources).

The fall sample was comprised of students enrolled full time and studying humanities or social sciences at the University of Washington (UW) Harvard, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mills College, Diablo Valley College (CA), West Valley College (CA), and Shoreline Community College (WA).

This spring, the PIL team will administer a quantitative survey to a sample of 900 students on three U.S. campuses to test their findings further.

The PIL team is seeking funding for administering a large-scale student survey in 2010 across multiple community college, public college and universities, and private colleges and universities in the U.S., as well as conducting a content analysis of professors' research assignment handouts. To date, PIL has 65 campuses in the Year Two volunteer sample (a random sample will also be used). All in all, PIL will be the largest research study about information literacy in the U.S. that has ever been undertaken.

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