TY - JOUR AB - To clarify the subject of a project and indicate its limits, investigators must define for readers their work's key concepts. In most information behaviour research, definition of “information” itself is critical, although it may be difficult to do this immediately, as the researcher may be initially unsure of the nature of the phenomenon of interest. A definition may be evolved retrospectively and informed by data collected. In assembling a definition, the investigator may consider whether to draw a distinction between “knowledge” and “information”, whether information is believed to be of the purely “objective” kind and the purposes for which information is required. A decision also needs to be made on whether the researcher's construct of “information” should be imposed on study participants. Whatever the approaches taken, the definition must be at least partially grounded in widely held assumptions and not inspired solely by the need to control the work's scope. VL - 56 IS - 6 SN - 0001-253X DO - 10.1108/00012530410570408 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530410570408 AU - Shenton Andrew K. PY - 2004 Y1 - 2004/01/01 TI - Operationalising the concept of “information” for research into information behaviour T2 - Aslib Proceedings PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 367 EP - 372 Y2 - 2024/03/28 ER -