SGER: Student Notetaking in the Digital Age

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While the traditional method of note-taking is a practice rooted in the past, in the age of ubiquitous digital technologies a new Web-based note-taking paradigm is rapidly emerging. Students can no longer successfully conduct research in the library, work with group members, run experiments in the lab, or come to class equipped solely with a paper notebook and pen. Rather, they are now expected to record and assimilate, in different locations and at different times, information that comes from a variety of disparate digital sources in order to accomplish a wide range of tasks. To effectively do this, students need tools and access points that allow them to combine notes effectively from many sources and on multiple computer platforms. To lay the groundwork for the development of such tools, the PI will in this project examine how students' note-taking practices have evolved, how they differ from traditional paper-based note-taking, what the new expectations are for students in higher education, and how students' tasks and requirements dictate the need for new software tools. To these ends, she will interview up to 50 undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of disciplines and review their current note-taking habits, paying particular attention to questions of how and why they currently take academic notes electronically, where they take notes, where they store their notes, what the components of their notes are, what the source of their notes are, which tasks they currently have difficulty with and which they feel are well supported by existing tools. She will also interview up to 20 instructors and professors to learn how they utilize digital resources in their courses, and what they expect of students taking their classes in terms of accessing and integrating these sources.Broader Impacts: This research is a necessary first step in assessing the need for software tools to assist students with their digital note-taking tasks. The PI expects the development of such tools to prove invaluable to society as a whole, by helping people in all walks of life manage their daily tasks.