Guide to the professional literature

Citation

(2007), "Guide to the professional literature", Online Information Review, Vol. 31 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/oir.2007.26431bae.001

Guide to the professional literature

This column is designed to alert readers to pertinent wider journal literature on digital information and research.

Modeling Successful Performance in Web Searching

Aula, A. and Nordhausen, K. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1668-1693

Several previous studies have measured differences in the information search success of novices and experts. However, the definitions of novices and experts have varied greatly between the studies, and so have the measures used for search success. Instead of dividing the searchers into different groups based on their expertise, we chose to model search success with task completion speed, TCS. Towards this goal, 22 participants performed three fact-finding tasks and two broader tasks in an observational user study. In our model, there were two variables related to the web experience of the participants. Other variables included, for example, the speed of query iteration, the length of the queries, the proportion of precise queries, and the speed of evaluating result documents. Our results showed that the variables related to web experience had expected effects on TCS. The increase in the years of web use was related to improvement in TCS in the broader tasks, whereas the less-frequent web use was related to a decrease in TCS in the fact-finding tasks. Other variables having significant effects on TCS in either of the task types were the speed of composing queries, the average number of query terms per query, the proportion of precise queries, and the participants’ own evaluation of their search skills. In addition to the statistical models, we present several qualitative findings of the participants’ search strategies. These results give valuable insight into the successful strategies in web search beyond the previous knowledge of the expert-novice differences.

Fair Use or Exploitation? The Google Book Search Controversy

Baksik, C. in portal – Libraries and the Academy, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2006, pp. 399-415

The Google Book Search Library Project, in which millions of books from libraries will be scanned and made searchable on the web, has led to controversy and legal action. Publishers are suing Google for copyright infringement, while Google claims their use falls under the fair use privilege of the Copyright Act. An overview of the library project is followed by an examination of the controversy and a look at the beta program in practice.

Web Links and Search Engine Ranking: The Case of Google and the Query “Jew”

Bar-Ilan, J. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1581-1589

The Worldwide web has become one of our more important information sources, and commercial search engines are the major tools for locating information; however, it is not enough for a web page to be indexed by the search engines-it also must rank high on relevant queries. One of the parameters involved in ranking is the number and quality of links pointing to the page, based on the assumption that links convey appreciation for a page. This article presents the results of a content analysis of the links to two top pages retrieved by Google for the query “jew” as of July 2004: the “jew” entry on the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, and the home page of “Jew Watch”, a highly anti-Semitic site. The top results for the query “jew” gained public attention in April 2004, when it was noticed that the “Jew Watch” homepage ranked number 1. From this point on, both sides engaged in “Googlebombing” (i.e. increasing the number of links pointing to these pages). The results of the study show that most of the links to these pages come from blogs and discussion links, and the number of links pointing to these pages in appreciation of their content is extremely small. These findings have implications for ranking algorithms based on link counts, and emphasise the huge difference between web links and citations in the scientific community.

Methods for Evaluating Dynamic Changes in Search Engine Rankings: A Case Study

Bar-Ilan, J., Levene, M. and Mat-Hassan, M. in Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62, No. 6, 2006, pp. 708-729

The objective of this paper is to characterise the changes in the rankings of the top ten results of major search engines over time and to compare the rankings between these engines. The paper compare rankings of the top ten results of the search engines Google and AlltheWeb on ten identical queries over a period of three weeks. The findings in this paper show that the rankings of AlltheWeb were highly stable over each period, while the rankings of Google underwent constant yet minor changes, with occasional major ones. Changes over time can be explained by the dynamic nature of the web or by fluctuations in the search engines’ indexes. The top ten results of the two search engines had surprisingly low overlap. With such small overlap, the task of comparing the rankings of the two engines becomes extremely challenging.

Digital Object Identifier System: An Overview

Chandrakar, R. in The Electronic Library, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2006, pp. 445-452

This paper aims to describe the digital object identifier (DOI) system, an implementation of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives handle system, where a handle is designed to provide an efficient, extensible, and secured global name to an intellectual object. The management of intellectual objects in a digital environment such as the internet, which is flooded with various kind of objects like research articles, e-books, electronic theses and dissertations etc. requires the existence of persistent, reliable identifiers for each distinguishable piece of content and associated services activated by these identifiers to manage access and other digital rights. The DOI is the essential part of the electronic publishing especially for the management and the access of the resources is concerned. The DOI system is the new technology developed for persistent identification and interoperable exchange of intellectual property on digital networks.

When Online Reviews Meet Hyperdifferentiation: A Study of the Craft Beer Industry

Clemons, E.K., Gao, G.D. and Hitt, L.M. in Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2006, pp. 149-171

We analyse how online reviews are used to evaluate the effectiveness of product differentiation strategies based on the theories of hyper-differentiation and resonance marketing. Hyper-differentiation says that firms can now produce almost anything that appeals to consumers and they can manage the complexity of the increasingly diverse product portfolios that result. Resonance marketing says that informed consumers will purchase products that they actually truly want. When consumers become more informed, firms that provide highly differentiated products should experience higher growth rates than firms with less differentiated offerings. We construct measures of product positioning based on online ratings and find supportive evidence using sales data from the craft beer industry. In particular, we find that the variance of ratings and the strength of the most positive quartile of reviews play a significant role in determining which new products grow fastest in the marketplace.

Can Electronic Journal Usage Data Replace Citation Data as a Measure of Journal Use? An Empirical Examination

 Duy, J. and Vaughan, L. in Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol. 32, No. 5, 2006, pp. 512-517

Citation and print journal use data have been used to measure quality and usefulness of library journal titles. This study examined relationships among different measurements and found that electronic usage correlates with print usage and that local citation data are a valid reflection of total journal usage but impact factors are not as valid.

The Ethics of DeCSS Posting: Towards Assessing the Morality of the Internet Posting of DVD Copyright Circumvention Software

Eschenfelder, K.R., Howard, R.G. and Desai, A.C. in Information Research – an International Electronic Journal, Vol. 11, No. 4, 2006, pp. 268-273

We investigate the conditions under which posting software known as “DeCSS” on the internet is ethical. DeCSS circumvents the access and copy control protection measures on commercial DVDs. Through our investigation, we point to limitations in current frameworks used to assess ethical computer based civil disobedience. Drawing on theorizing from political philosophy and the existing frameworks, the paper compares characteristics of actual DeCSS posting to the existing frameworks. The paper points out six areas that require further attention in ethical frameworks: determining motivation for posting, deciding whether some groups have more moral standing to post, assessing knowledge of the laws related to circumvention and posting, determining if protesters have taken related political actions, the legality of various formats of circumvention devices, and the physical geography of the participants.

The Invisible Web: An Empirical Study of “Cognitive Invisibility”

Ford, N. and Mansourian, Y. in Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62, No. 5, 2006, pp. 584-596

This was an exploratory qualitative study based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 members of academic staff from three biology-related departments at the University of Sheffield. Concepts emerged from an inductive analysis of the inter-view data to form a tentative model. A distinction is drawn between technical objective conceptions of the “invisible web” that commonly appear in the literature, and a cognitive subjective conception based on searchers’ perceptions of search failure, and a tentative model of “cognitive invisibility” is presented. The relationship between objective and subjective conceptions, and implications for training, are discussed.

The Seven Levels of Identification: An Overview of the Current State of Identifying Objects within Digital Libraries

Hakala, J. in Program - Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2006, pp. 361-371

This article aims to describe the state of the art of bibliographic identifiers used in digital libraries. A model with seven layers is used to define the scope of the identifiers that exist within the digital library field. Based on an analysis of the identifiers a conclusion is drawn that many new identifiers must be developed in order to cater to the growing needs of libraries and other organisations involved with creation and dissemination of publications. Also, traditional identifiers must be modified in order to make them more suitable to the needs of electronic publishing.

Redesigning a Web site In-House to Improve Information Literacy: Experiences of a Small Library

Humbert, S.I. and Tilley, E.A. in Program – Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2006, pp. 346-360

The paper aims to provide advice, suggestions and encouragement for small budget-restricted libraries contemplating the need for web site redesign where an underlying goal for improving users’ information literacy is a key factor. The initial planning is set within the context of a broader project examining user education in the library, with a set of desired outcomes, based on user surveys, resulting in the web site as one focus. Project planning techniques employed are described. Information architecture is used as a basis for research, planning, design and implementation of a redesigned web site. Accessibility and usability were predominant in the minds of the designers. The process of redesign is set firmly within a context of little or no actual funds available, and a small, subject-specific, active user-base. The case for providing a complementary information literacy programme is highlighted, given the nature of the initial project.

Gabriel: Gateway to Europe’s National Libraries

Jefcoate, G. in Program – Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 325-333

This paper seeks to look into Gabriel – the web server for those European national libraries represented in the Conference of European National Librarians (CENL), providing a single point of access on the internet for the retrieval of information about their functions, services and collections. Above all, it serves as a gateway to their online services. Three national libraries emerged as natural partners in setting up a pilot project on behalf of the CENL membership as a whole. Following the success of the Portico prototype, a development project was launched with the aim of creating a well-founded service and building up coverage of British Library services and collections by adding home pages for directorates and departments. The service has been developed through an international project involving the national libraries of the UK, The Netherlands, Finland and Germany. Gabriel has the potential of becoming a model for collaboration in the networking field across a wide geographical area and among diverse institutions.

 fKWIC: Frequency-based Keyword-in-context Index for Filtering Web Search Results

 Kaki, M. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1606-1615

Enormous web search engine databases combined with short search queries result in large result sets that are often difficult to access. Result ranking works fairly well, but users need help when it fails. For these situations, we propose a filtering interface that is inspired by keyword-in-context (KWIC) indices. The user interface lists the most frequent keyword contexts (fKWIC). When a context is selected, the corresponding results are displayed in the result list, allowing users to concentrate on the specific context. We compared the keyword context index user interface to the rank order result listing in an experiment with 36 participants. The results show that the proposed user interface was 29 per cent faster in finding relevant results, and the precision of the selected results was 19 per cent higher. In addition, participants showed positive attitudes toward the system.

Web Indicators for Complex Innovation Systems

Katz, J.S. and Cothey, V. in Research Evaluation, Vol. 15 No. 2, 2006, pp. 85-95

The web and innovation systems are interacting complex systems that impact each other. Web indicators used to inform decision-makers about the impact they are having on each must be reproducible and relevant. Web metrics research is young and best-practice methodologies for producing robust indicators are evolving. This study describes a methodology for producing robust indicators of the web presence of the European and Canadian innovation systems. It demonstrates that the emergent properties and scaling characteristics expected of complex systems are captured by these indicators. It illustrates how these indicators can be used to measure the amount of recognition a nation or province’s web presence receives from other nations and provinces in their innovation systems.

 Measuring Online Information Seeking Context, Part 1: Background and Method

Kelly, D. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 13, 2006, pp. 1729-1739

Context is one of the most important concepts in information seeking and retrieval research. However, the challenges of studying context are great; thus, it is more common for researchers to use context as a post hoc explanatory factor, rather than as a concept that drives inquiry. The purposes of this study were to develop a method for collecting data about information seeking context in natural online environments, and identify which aspects of context should be considered when studying online information seeking. The study is reported in two parts. In this, the first part, the background and method are presented. Results and implications of this research are presented in Part 2 (Kelly, in press). Part 1 discusses previous literature on information seeking context and behaviour and situates the current work within this literature. This part further describes the naturalistic, longitudinal research design that was used to examine and measure the online information seeking contexts of users during a 14-week period. In this design, information seeking context was characterised by a user’s self-identified tasks and topics, and several attributes of these, such as the length of time the user expected to work on a task and the user’s familiarity with a topic. At weekly intervals, users evaluated the usefulness of the documents that they viewed, and classified these documents according to their tasks and topics. At the end of the study, users provided feedback about the study method.

Toward an Understanding of Web-Based Subscription Database Acceptance

Kim, J.A. in Journal of The American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 13, 2006, pp. 1715-1728

Under-utilisation of web-based subscription databases and the importance of promoting them have been recognised in previous research. To determine the factors affecting user acceptance of web-based subscription databases, this study tests an integrated model of the antecedents and consequences of user beliefs about intended use by extending the technology acceptance model. The research employs a cross-sectional field study using a web survey method targeting undergraduate students who have experience with web-based subscription databases. Overall, the research model performs well in explaining user acceptance of web-based subscription databases. The effects of the cognitive instrumental determinants of usefulness perceptions are examined. Terminology clarity and accessibility were found to be important determinants for ease of use of the databases. The results indicate that user training has no impact on either perceptions of usefulness or ease of use, and that there is a need to re-examine the effectiveness of user training in the context of web-based subscription databases. The results suggest that user acceptance of the databases depends largely on the utility they offer. The findings also suggest that although a subjective norm does not directly affect intended use, it exerts a positive influence on user beliefs about the utility of the databases.

Co-occurrence Matrices and Their Applications in Information Science: Extending ACA to the Web Environment

Leydesdorff, L. and Vaughan, L. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1616-1628

Co-occurrence matrices, such as co-citation, co-word, and co-link matrices, have been used widely in the information sciences. However, confusion and controversy have hindered the proper statistical analysis of these data. The underlying problem, in our opinion, involved understanding the nature of various types of matrices. This article discusses the difference between a symmetrical co-citation matrix and an asymmetrical citation matrix as well as the appropriate statistical techniques that can be applied to each of these matrices, respectively. Similarity measures (such as the Pearson correlation coefficient or the cosine) should not be applied to the symmetrical co-citation matrix but can be applied to the asymmetrical citation matrix to derive the proximity matrix. The argument is illustrated with examples. The study then extends the application of co-occurrence matrices to the web environment, in which the nature of the available data and thus data collection methods are different from those of traditional databases such as the Science Citation Index. A set of data collected with the Google Scholar search engine is analysed by using both the traditional methods of multivariate analysis and the new visualisation software, Pajek, which is based on social network analysis and graph theory.

Online Cultural Heritage Exhibitions: A Survey of Strategic Issues

Liew, C.L. in Program – Electronic Library and Information Systems, Vol. 40, No. 4, 2006, pp. 372-388

This paper reports findings from a study that looked at a range of strategic issues faced in the development, management and maintenance of online cultural heritage exhibitions. The study examined exhibitions from different types of cultural agencies and asked questions about whether, for instance, the exhibitions are part of the strategic plan of the institutions, what their objectives are, how they are funded and a range of other management as well as technical issues. A number of strategic management and technical issues related to the development and management of online exhibition projects have been identified in this study. It needs to be noted however, that the survey sample consists of far more museums than other types of memory institutions.

Do I Trust You Online, and If So, Will I Buy? An Empirical Study of Two Trust-Building Strategies

Lim, K.H., Sia, C.L., Lee, M.K.O. and Benbasat, I. in Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2006, pp. 233-266

This research investigates the effectiveness of various trust-building strategies to influence actual buying behaviour in online shopping environments, particularly for first-time visitors to an internet store that does not have an established reputation. Drawing from the literature on trust, we developed a model of how trust-building strategies could affect trust and the consequences of trust. We investigated two trust-building strategies: portal association (based on reputation categorisation and trust transference) and satisfied customer endorsements (based on unit grouping, reputation categorisation, and trust transference). Of the two strategies investigated, satisfied customer endorsement by similar peers, but not portal association, was found to increase consumers’ trusting beliefs about the store. This, in turn, positively influenced consumers’ attitudes toward the store and their willingness to buy from the store, which ultimately led to actual buying behaviour. To gather further insights on the two web strategies investigated, a second study was conducted using a questionnaire survey approach. Overall, the findings corroborated those in the first study. Specifically, it shows that endorsements by similar (local, non-foreign) peers, but not by dissimilar (foreign) peers, were effective means of developing trust among first-time visitors to online stores.

Consumer Perceptions and Willingness to Pay For Intrinsically Motivated Online Content

Lopes, A.B. and Galletta, D.F. in Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2006, pp. 203-231

Providing profitable online content has been an elusive goal, challenging many companies. Charging for content has been hit-or-miss, attributable to a lack of generally applicable models of information value. Previous studies in the management information systems literature emphasised extrinsically motivated content (addressing tangible gains), while many sites target intrinsic goals such as entertainment or education. This study examines potential factors influencing willingness to pay for intrinsically motivated online content. Data from 392 university students indicate that even when analysing content whose potential rewards are intangible and nonquantifiable, potential consumers focus on “expected benefits” as the main antecedent for willingness to pay. Other antecedents, such as perceived quality and provider reputation, only affected willingness to pay indirectly through expected benefits. Researchers are offered a baseline model for future study, and practitioners are advised to provide initial visitors a clear message about benefits of use to entice them to pay for content.

Combining Quantitative Methods and Grounded Theory for Researching e-Reverse Auctions

Losch, A. in Libri, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2006, pp. 133-144

Even though many authors claim that e-reverse auctions (e-RAs) are detrimental to the effective building and management of buyer-supplier relationships (Emiliani and Stec, 2004), not much is known about how specific characteristics of e-RAs may contribute to such negative effects on buyer-seller relations (Jap, 2003). This study sets out not only to provide a first investigation of context, participants’ information behaviour, and buyer-supplier relationships in e-RAs, but also to illustrate new methods for theory building in the e-RA and information systems domain. Following a grounded-theory approach, a comprehensive online questionnaire was developed (Losch and Lambert, 2006) based on the critical review of the literature and the results of a preceding exploratory study (Losch, 2005). Usable responses were received from 89 buyers and 54 suppliers, including both users and non-users of e-RAs. The data were analyzed using a novel approach to quantitative analysis based on suggestions by Glaser (1994). The results indicate that e-RAs have fewer negative effects on buyer-supplier relationships than currently assumed. They also show how context and the participants’ information behaviour correlate with buyer-supplier relationships, thus providing first suggestions for a better management of e-RAs. The paper also thus provides a first illustration of how quantitative methodology might be usefully applied to information systems research, an area that is dominated by the use of qualitative methodology.

Children’s Use of the Internet for Information-seeking – What Strategies Do They Use, and What Factors Affect Their Performance?

Madden, A.D., Ford, N.J., Miller, D. and Levy, P. in Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62, No. 6, 2006, pp. 744-761

A common criticism of research into information seeking on the internet is that information seekers are restricted by the demands of the researcher. Another criticism is that the search topics, are often imposed by the researcher, and; particularly when working with children, domain knowledge could be as important as information-seeking skills. The research reported here attempts to address both these problems. The paper finds that the factors that determined a child’s ability to search successfully appeared to be: the amount of experience the child had of using the internet; the amount of guidance, both from adults and from peers; and the child’s ability to explore the virtual environment, and to use the tools available for so doing.

The Open Video Digital Library: A Mobius Strip of Research and Practice

Marchionini, G., Wildemuth, B.M. and Geisler, G. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1629-1643

The Open Video Digital Library (OVDL) provides digital video files to the education and research community and is distinguished by an innovative user interface that offers multiple kinds of visual surrogates to people searching for video content. The OVDL is used by several thousand people around the world each month and part of this success is due to its user interface. This article examines the interplay between research and practice in the development of this particular digital library with an eye toward lessons for all digital libraries. We argue that theoretical and research goals blur into practical goals and practical goals raise new research questions as research and development progress – this process is akin to walking along a Mobius strip in which a locally two-sided surface is actually part of a globally one-sided world. We consider the gulf between the theories that guide current digital library research and current practice in operational digital libraries, provide a developmental history of the OVDL and the research frameworks that drove its development, illustrate how user studies informed its implementation and revision, and conclude with reflections and recommendations on the interplay between research and practice.

Constructing Experimental Indicators for Open Access Documents

Mayr, P. in Research Evaluation, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2006, pp. 127-132

The ongoing paradigm change in the scholarly publication system makes it necessary to construct alternative evaluation criteria/metrics which appropriately take into account the unique characteristics of electronic publications and other research output in digital formats. Today, major parts of scholarly open access (OA) publications and the self-archiving area are not well covered in traditional citation and indexing databases. The growing share and importance of freely accessible research output demands new approaches/metrics for measuring and evaluating these new types of scientific publication. We propose a simple quantitative method, which establishes indicators by measuring the access/download pattern of OA documents and other web entities of a single web server. The experimental indicators are constructed, based on standard local web usage data. This new type of web-based indicator is developed to model the specific demand for better study/evaluation of the accessibility, visibility and interlinking of open accessible documents.

E-citizen: Developing Research-based Marketing Communications to Increase Awareness and Take-up of Local Authority e-Channels

Mellor, N. in Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 58, No. 5, 2006, pp. 436-446

At the English local authority level, there has been significant investment in e-government infrastructure (e-channels) in the last five years, but take-up of these e-channels is low. This paper aims to look at e-citizen, a 3 million pound project funded by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and led by Norwich City Council, which has developed a methodology to enable local authorities to encourage their citizens to use e-channels. The study finds that there are a large number of English adults who are ready, willing and able to use e-channels, the so-called potential early adopters of e-government. Take-up is low, however, because awareness of e-channels is low. One solution to increase take-up is to run targeted marketing communications campaigns. The gross potential take-up market in England is 17.5 million adults aged 15+.

Extracting Link Chains of Relationship Instances from a Web site

Naing, M.M., Lim, E.P. and Chiang, R.H.L. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 13, 2006, pp. 1590-1605

Web pages from a web site can often be associated with concepts in an ontology, and pairs of web pages also can be associated with relationships between concepts. With such associations, the web site can be searched, browsed, or even reorganized based on the concept and relationship labels of its web pages. In this article, we study the link chain extraction problem that is critical to the extraction of web pages that are related. A link chain is an ordered list of anchor elements linking two web pages related by some semantic relationship. We propose a link chain extraction method that derives extraction rules for identifying the anchor elements forming the link chains. We applied the proposed method to two well-structured web sites and found that its performance in terms of precision and recall is good, even with a small number of training examples.

Developing a Digital Library on Ceramics

Patra, C. in The Electronic Library, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2006, pp. 453-468

The rapid growth of digital libraries together with professional publications and the popular press have created a lot of hopes as well as myths about digital libraries. Research on digital libraries began about a decade ago and a number of digital libraries were created as a result. The article begins with giving an overview of digital libraries, and then discusses the need for a digital library on ceramics, highlighting the importance of ceramics on society. The paper shows that a digital library on ceramics is needed to provide students, scientists, artist and industrial community with an open and interoperable platform to help facilitate research and education, to promote ceramic art, to promote global cooperation, to foster economic development – including rural development, and to help facilitate archaeological research.

The eAdmissions National Project: A Research Informed Approach

Peters, L., Derrick, A., Damen, T., Marsh, M. and Ovenden, R. in Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 58, No. 5, 2006, pp. 447-461

The purpose of this paper is to describe the eAdmissions National Project and provide some insights into a selection of the forms of research which have been conducted to inform the Project effectively. Four different kinds of studies are described as examples of different themes being pursued towards developing a better understanding of parents’/carers’ needs and providing information and guidelines to help local authorities achieve their objectives in relation to online school admissions. The paper finds that the success of the work undertaken by the National Project is reflected in the increasing numbers of local authorities (LAs) that have already, or are in the process of, offering an online school admissions facility, as well as in the take-up of this service by parents/carers within some of these authorities. Research undertaken by the Project has been key to this success and is now being directed towards the important issue of effecting significant take-up of the online service by all local authorities that have responsibility for education. The outcomes from this research work have been applied to spread good practice, share information with all LAs and inform marketing campaigns. The effects of this research are beginning to be evidenced in the growing take-up of online admissions.

User-defined Relevance Criteria in Web Searching

Savolainen, R. and Kari, J. in Journal of Documentation, Vol. 62, No. 6, 2006, pp. 685-707

The purpose of this paper is to specify user-defined relevance criteria by which people select hyperlinks and pages in web searching. Altogether, 18 different criteria for selecting hyperlinks and web pages were found. The selection is constituted, by two, intertwined processes: the relevance judgement of hyperlinks, and web pages by user-defined criteria, and decision-making concerning the acceptance or rejection of hyperlinks and web pages. The study focuses on the former process. Of the individual criteria, specificity, topicality, familiarity, and variety were used most frequently in relevance judgements. The study shows that despite the high number of individual criteria used in the judgements, a few criteria such as specificity and topicality tend to dominate. Searchers were less critical in the judgement of hyperlinks than deciding whether the activated web pages should be consulted in more detail.

Online Campaign Communication and the Phenomenon of Blogging – an Analysis of Web Logs during the 2005 British General Election Campaign

Stanyer, J. in Aslib Proceedings, Vol. 58, No. 5, 2006, pp. 404-415

In light of the phenomenon of blogging in the 2004 US presidential campaign, this article aims to examine blogging during the 2005 British general election campaign. The article seeks to establish how widespread blogging was, the extent of bloggers’ partisanship, what issues blogs were concerned with, what the purpose of the messages posted by the bloggers were, and what if any impact blogs had beyond the immediate community of users. These questions were addressed through a content analysis of over 300 blogs and 1,300 posted messages, by additional searches of the Lexis-Nexis newspaper archive, and via the use of internet poll data on blogging. The research showed that blogging in the UK is in its infancy. There were few bloggers posting messages about the campaign and few people accessed blogs regularly. Most of the comments posted focused on campaign issues and were observational. While some of the bloggers exhibited an overt partisan identity, most did not. There was also some evidence of partisan networks, with blogs of a particular partisan/ideological position hyperlinking to others with a similar outlook. However, unlike the 2004 US presidential election campaign, blogs had no impact on the campaign news agenda.

Investigating Triple Helix Relationships Using URL Citations: A Case Study of the UK West Midlands Automobile Industry

Stuart, D. and Thelwall, M. in Research Evaluation, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2006, pp. 97-106

The growth in the importance of co-operation between universities, industry and government to contemporary research has created a need to understand how cross-sector research collaborations occur in practice. Hence quantitative methods are needed to identify and assess the strength of connections within particular university-industry-government groups. The web is a free source of timely information about all three sectors and hence should be tested for whether it can deliver relevant information. In this project, the potential use of web URL citations, collected through Google’s API, as weak benchmarking indicators to estimate the levels of collaboration between different organisations, is explored through a case study of the automobile industry in the UK West Midlands region. URL citation practices are found to differ, depending on whether the web site belongs to an academic, commercial, or governmental organisation. While URL citations may sometimes reflect real world relationships, most real-world relationships probably do not result in an URL citation, particularly in the commercial sector.

Are Raw RSS Feeds Suitable for Broad Issue Scanning? A Science Concern Case Study

Thelwall, M., Prabowo, R. and Fairclough, R. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 12, 2006, pp. 1644-1654

Broad issue scanning is the task of identifying important public debates arising in a given broad issue; really simple syndication (RSS) feeds are a natural information source for investigating broad issues. RSS, as originally conceived, is a method for publishing timely and concise information on the internet, for example, about the main stories in a news site or the latest postings in a blog. RSS feeds are potentially a non-intrusive source of high-quality data about public opinion: Monitoring a large number may allow quantitative methods to extract information relevant to a given need. In this article we describe an RSS feed-based co-word frequency method to identify bursts of discussion relevant to a given broad issue. A case study of public science concerns is used to demonstrate the method and assess the suitability of raw RSS feeds for broad issue scanning (i.e. without data cleansing). An attempt to identify genuine science concern debates from the corpus through investigating the top 1,000 “burst” words found only two genuine debates, however. The low success rate was mainly caused by a few pathological feeds that dominated the results and obscured any significant debates. The results point to the need to develop effective data cleansing procedures for RSS feeds, particularly if there is not a large quantity of discussion about the broad issue, and a range of potential techniques is suggested. Finally, the analysis confirmed that the time series information generated by real-time monitoring of RSS feeds could usefully illustrate the evolution of new debates relevant to a broad issue.

Web Crawling Ethics Revisited: Cost, Privacy and Denial of Service

Thelwall, M. and Stuart, D. in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 57, No. 13, 2006, pp. 1771-1779

Ethical aspects of the employment of web crawlers for information science research and other contexts are reviewed. The difference between legal and ethical uses of communications technologies is emphasised as well as the changing boundary between ethical and unethical conduct. A review of the potential impacts on web site owners is used to underpin a new framework for ethical crawling, and it is argued that delicate human judgement is required for each individual case, with verdicts likely to change over time. Decisions can be based upon an approximate cost-benefit analysis, but it is crucial that crawler owners find out about the technological issues affecting the owners of the sites being crawled in order to produce an informed assessment.

On the Visibility of Information on the Web: An Exploratory Experimental Approach

Wouters, P., Reddy, C. and Aguillo, I. in Research Evaluation, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2006, pp. 107-115

On the web, information that is not presented by the search engine in response to a specific query is in fact inaccessible. This problem has been defined as “the invisible web” or the “deep web” problem. Specific characteristics of the format of information may make it inaccessible to the crawlers that create the databases of search engines. We explore the dimensions of the invisible web in the European Research Area. We propose that information visibility is an emergent property of the web as complex system. Visibility of information is a highly unstable feature that is determined by a complex interaction between the local structure of the web environment, the search engine, the web sites on which the information resides, the format of the information, and the temporal dimensions of the search.

The Effect of Open Access on Citation Impact: A Comparison Study Based on Web Citation Analysis

Zhang, Y.J. in Libri, Vol. 56, No. 3, 2006, pp. 145-156

The academic impact advantage of Open Access (OA) is a prominent topic of debate in the library and publishing communities. Web citations have been proposed as comparable to, even replacements for, bibliographic citations in assessing the academic impact of journals. In our study, we compare web citations to articles in an OA journal, The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC), and a traditional access journal, New Media & Society (NMS), in the communication discipline. Web citation counts for JCMC are significantly higher than those for NMS. Furthermore, JCMC receives significantly higher web citations from the formal scholarly publications posted on the web than NMS does. The types of web citations for journal articles were also examined. In the web context, the impact of a journal can be assessed using more than one type of source: citations from scholarly articles, teaching materials and non-authoritative documents. The OA journal has higher percentages of citations from the third type, which suggests that, in addition to the research community, the impact advantage of open access is also detectable among ordinary users participating in web-based academic communication. Moreover, our study also proves that the OA journal has impact advantage in developing countries. Compared with NMS, JCMC has more web citations from developing countries.