CONCEPTOS TIPO DE ACTIVIDAD

Some might argue that the Invisible Web need not be taught because search engines provide enough information already. Or they might say that the Invisible Web is difficult to teach, that there is barely enough time to teach the other important aspects of research, and that everyone

has been getting along well enough without it. Some of these same peo- ple believe that the search engine industry will eventually make all infor- mation, including Invisible Web resources, accessible and that, therefore, instruction about the Invisible Web is probably a waste of time or, at best, an interim measure. It is not clear, however, that the search engine com- panies have sufficient incentive to resolve all Invisible Web issues, since these companies currently make their revenue from advertising, not from search. On the other hand, some individuals may rise to the challenge and become research specialists. Companies and others in need of informa- tion could simply leave in-depth research to these specialists and, when pressed, concede that help is available—at a price—if and when needed.

But can it really be that difficult to teach about research and the Invisi- ble Web? And is it worth the risk of creating a digital divide between those who learn about how to mine the Invisible Web and those who do not? We have always felt that everyone would benefit from learning about the Invis- ible Web, and we have found that many other people agree. We believe the Invisible Web can easily be taught as part of any research or information lit- eracy program in schools at every level. Teaching about the Invisible Web is really only about giving a more complete picture of the information world. In support of our cause, we asked colleagues who have studied and written about the Invisible Web to comment on whether there is a need to teach it to students. Here are some of their responses.

Yazdan Mansourian, quoted in chapter 1 about the cognitive definition of the Invisible Web, had this to say about teaching the Invisible Web (e-mail, July 9, 2011):

Yes, I think we should teach our students about the Invisible Web and about all the causal reasons of information invisibility. Because, most of them are not very familiar with the process of information storage and retrieval on the Web, and they sometimes overestimate the effec- tiveness of general purpose search engines. My teaching experiences, as a university lecturer, show they basically trust Google and the other popular search engines and believe whatever these tools offer them in their result list is the only answer to their questions. They also mainly believe if something exists on the Web there is no reason that Goo- gle cannot find it! Therefore if they do not find what they are looking for, then it probably does not exist. Furthermore, they have a sort of

simplistic view about the relevance ranking in these tools. As a result, they mostly suppose the first page of the search result should inevita- bly have the most relevant documents that they need. Nevertheless, as you know, the notion of “relevance” is very contextual and conceptual and search tools are not necessarily as successful as we wish in rank- ing the relevant results.

In summary, I think our students should learn that as a result of the enormity and diversity of information resources on the Web, looking for the best answer to their questions on this ever-increasing ocean is not a very simple and straightforward procedure. Therefore, they firstly need to enhance their information literacy skills and secondly learn about the basic mechanism of information storage and retrieval on the Web. They should be aware of the major strengths and weak- nesses of Web-based search tools. Therefore, we hopefully will be able to provide them with a more holistic and realistic picture of the information retrieval process on the Web.

Wendy Boswell, author of The About.com Guide to Online Research, expressed a similar view (e-mail, July 27, 2011):

In my experience, as I’ve watched search engines and searchers for the last ten years, search skills have actually regressed. It’s true—after all, why do Web searchers need to know how to do a simple Boolean search or even put their searches in quotation marks when search engines intuitively know what they’re looking for even before they’ve finished typing it?

However, this doesn’t eliminate the need for a basic Web search skill set, and it certainly does not erase the fact that there is still a vastly underused Web of knowledge out there that 99% of Web searchers don’t even know exists. In addition, it also doesn’t mean that search results are going to be anything close to relevant. Algo- rithms will never substitute for human intelligence and intuition.

.  .  . I think the Invisible Web and learning about it, as well as advanced search techniques, are so important. A cursory search engine query is about as deep as many Web users are ever going to get, but if they could actually visualize the vast resources that are avail- able to them, I think it would be a very attractive prospect.

Maureen Henninger, author of The Hidden Web, wrote about the Invisible Web’s importance for knowledge workers especially (e-mail, July 27, 2011):

Search engine technologies and partnerships are bringing more of the invisible web to the surface and for the average information-seeker the fact that there is an invisible web is possibly not important. How- ever, I still believe that all students need to be information-literate and should be made aware of the vast amount of resources available on the Internet. However for students who are moving into information- intensive professions, e.g. researchers, investigative journalists, infor- mation managers, etc. formal teaching about the invisible web is essential.

Karen R. Diaz, author of the article “The Invisible Web: Navigating the Web outside Traditional Search Engines,” emphasized the shifting nature of the Invisible Web (e-mail, August 1, 2011):

Part of the “problem” is economic, political, and legal so technology can’t solve all the problems. Technology advances have changed the problem. In some respects they have alleviated the issue, and, as indi- cated in the personalization issue above, some advances in the tech- nology have brought about new problems in regards to discovery. . . .

I think that education about the invisible web needs to emphasize that this is an evolving issue, that it’s not easy to clearly define what’s invisible and what’s not, and that something that is visible today might be invisible tomorrow.

Laura Cohen, author of the web guide Internet Tutorials (www.web .archive.org/web/20130062015752/http://internettutorials.net/deepweb .asp, placed an emphasis on databases in her response (e-mail, July 8, 2011):

I do share the concern that people don’t know about the Invisi- ble Web. Because general search engines have integrated a growing amount of Invisible Web content into their results, it is easy to believe that “everything” is available through these tools. But this is far from the case.

Yes! Students are a prime population for learning about the Invisi- ble Web. To achieve academic success, students need to learn how to

do in-depth, scholarly research using a variety of high quality sources. Some material is available on the free Web, but there is much more of value that students need to be familiar with and to use. This is where academic libraries come into play. Academic libraries are purveyors of an enormous amount of material on the Invisible Web in the form of the many databases and e-journals they have purchased for schol- arly use.

The experts that we consulted were, with one exception, supportive of teaching the Invisible Web. True, they were all approached because of their publications on the subject, which already attested to their interest in and support of the topic. The lone dissenter, Ellis Horowitz, coauthor of the article “Indexing the Invisible Web: A Survey” (Ru and Horowitz 2005), was optimistic about the progress being made by search engines (e-mail, August 8, 2011):

Google (and other search engines) appear to me to be doing an ade- quate job identifying online databases that may contain relevant information in response to some query. And some online database sites do make special efforts to get their dynamic pages indexed.

In the future I believe that search engines will try (and be able) to answer far more sophisticated questions than what can be expressed in two or three words. This will necessitate a deeper understanding of the relationships among data residing at different websites, including deep websites. The next few years should see major improvements in search engines.

Horowitz’s optimism will undoubtedly be warranted someday, but can we afford to leave students in the dark until then?