WQ: An Environment for Teaching Information Access Skills.

WQ is a Web-based system that reflects some of the ideas found in WebQuests. This paper analyzes the characteristics that make the WebQuests so popular and determines which of their components give them the greatest educational value. The WQ system, which the authors have implemented, presents sites to be browsed and searched. It allows students to make notes on those sites, and it lets the student manage those notes to respond to the Quest. Ultimately, the WQ system is intended to incorporate collaboration, integrate digital libraries, be scalable, and support a wide variety of content areas. (Contains 19 references and 2 figures.) (Author)