Despite the ubiquity of search in many people’s daily lives, a lack of search literacy can make it difficult to find solutions to technical problems, such as completing software-based tasks like troubleshooting program installations. GSLIS Professor Michael Twidale and Assistant Professor Max Wilson of the University of Nottingham have received funding from Google for a project that aims to develop an understanding of search literacy, and to recommend best practices for teaching technical search literacy and creating tools in support of this kind of search.
Google has awarded Wilson (principal investigator) and Twidale (co-PI) $65,000 to pursue “Understanding Search Literacy and Search Skills Adoption: How People Solve Technical Problems via Search.”
In addition to his role at GSLIS, Twidale holds appointments with the Department of Computer Science, the Information Trust Institute, and the Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership at Illinois. His research interests include computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, human-computer interaction, information visualization, and museum informatics. Twidale holds a PhD in computing from Lancaster University and a BA in computer science from Cambridge University.
Wilson is an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science at Nottingham and a member of its Mixed Reality Lab, an interdisciplinary research group exploring the possibilities of ubiquitous interactive technology in daily life. Wilson’s work focuses on supporting exploratory search through search user interface design.