Background and
Aim: Personal Information Management (PIM) is a novel approach comprising three
interactive parts of information resources, dimensions, and tools. The main aim of
this study was to determine the
degree of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) management and
information science students’ familiarity with PIM process.
Materials
and Methods: The present work is a qualitative-applied study and the population includes 145 TUMS management and medical information students in 2012. The subjects were randomly
selected and the data were finally obtained from 73 persons through semi-structured
interviews. The data collection tool was a questionnaire with 10
open-ended questions classified based on the conceptual
framework of interviews. The questions were about how to acquire, organize, maintain, and retrieve information. To analyse the interviews, the qualititative
data analysis software Nvivo 8 was employed.
Results:
According to the obtained
results, 51% (37 persons) of interviewed persons have applied methods and tools
in order to organize and maintain information and have had exclusive methods to
retrieve information. The most frequent worries were the information storage
49% (35 persons) and acquiring information 29% (21 persons).
Conclusion: It is
noteworthy to say that the PIM approach is not very popular among university
students, and many of them acquire, maintain, and organize their personal
information inappropriately in spite of their need for the method. Therefore,
educating the students and promoting their performance can result in the
improvement of main PIM-related problems.
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