Evaluating the use of search engine development tools in IT education

Authors:
Michael Chau;Cho Hung Wong;Yilu Zhou;Jialun Qin;Hsinchun Chen
Affiliations:
School of Business, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong;School of Business, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong;Information Systems and Technology Management, George Washington University, Washington, DC;Department of Management, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA;Department of Management Information Systems, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Venue:
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Year:
2010

Citing 0
Cited 2

Bringing undergraduate students closer to a real-world information retrieval setting: methodology and resources

Proceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
Using 3D virtual environments to facilitate students in constructivist learning

Decision Support Systems

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

It is important for education in computer science and information systems to keep up to date with the latest development in technology. With the rapid development of the Internet and the Web, many schools have included Internet-related technologies, such as Web search engines and e-commerce, as part of their curricula. Previous research has shown that it is effective to use search engine development tools to facilitate students' learning. However, the effectiveness of these tools in the classroom has not been evaluated. In this article, we review the design of three search engine development tools, SpidersRUs, Greenstone, and Alkaline, followed by an evaluation study that compared the three tools in the classroom. In the study, 33 students were divided into 13 groups and each group used the three tools to develop three independent search engines in a class project. Our evaluation results showed that SpidersRUs performed better than the two other tools in overall satisfaction and the level of knowledge gained in their learning experience when using the tools for a class project on Internet applications development. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.