Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report

This study has three aims; to provide an overview of the ways in which trust is either assessed or asserted in relation to the use and provision of resources in the Web environment for research and learning; to assess what solutions might be worth further investigation and whether establishing ways to assert trust in academic information resources could assist the development of information literacy; to help increase understanding of how perceptions of trust influence the behaviour of information users

Creating Context from Curiosity: The Role of Serendipity in the Research Process of Historians in Physical and Digital Environments

Serendipity, the word used to describe an unexpected encounter with information, people, or objects, has drawn much scholarly attention since its 1754 coinage by Horace Walpole. Historians commonly use this term when describing unexpected encounters during their research. However, historians have also been shown to be meticulous, organized researchers whose work is unlikely to contain elements that are unexpected. This thesis is an investigation of serendipity as it is recognized, defined, and experienced by historians in both physical and digital environments. Article One presents a grounded theory analysis of 20 interview transcriptions, Article Two presents a combination of grounded theory, content analysis, and narrative analysis of historians’ responses to an online survey, and Article Three summarizes the quantitative responses to the same survey, but focuses on digital environments. In Article One we found that historians frequently used active verbs to describe serendipity, and concluded that agency plays a prominent role in these experiences. In Article Two, responses from 142 participants reinforce the importance of agency, demonstrating that active research methods lead them to these serendipitous encounters. Article Three reports on the features of digital environments that historians found to support serendipity, including those that encourage exploration, connect people, have options for keyword searching, and highlight potentially relevant links. Taken together, these articles comprise a thesis that advances our current understanding of serendipity. Contributions to the field of LIS include acknowledging the role of agency in serendipitous encounters, and the use of multi-method analysis for investigating serendipity in a single population

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Ecological Informatics: translating ecological data into knowledge and decisions in a rapidly changing world: ICEI 2018

The Conference Proceedings are an impressive display of the current scope of Ecological Informatics. Whilst Data Management, Analysis, Synthesis and Forecasting have been lasting popular themes over the past nine biannual ICEI conferences, ICEI 2018 addresses distinctively novel developments in Data Acquisition enabled by cutting edge in situ and remote sensing technology. The here presented ICEI 2018 abstracts captures well current trends and challenges of Ecological Informatics towards: • regional, continental and global sharing of ecological data, • thorough integration of complementing monitoring technologies including DNA-barcoding, • sophisticated pattern recognition by deep learning, • advanced exploration of valuable information in ‘big data’ by means of machine learning and process modelling, • decision-informing solutions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem management in light of global changes

Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Ecological Informatics: translating ecological data into knowledge and decisions in a rapidly changing world: ICEI 2018

The Conference Proceedings are an impressive display of the current scope of Ecological Informatics. Whilst Data Management, Analysis, Synthesis and Forecasting have been lasting popular themes over the past nine biannual ICEI conferences, ICEI 2018 addresses distinctively novel developments in Data Acquisition enabled by cutting edge in situ and remote sensing technology. The here presented ICEI 2018 abstracts captures well current trends and challenges of Ecological Informatics towards: • regional, continental and global sharing of ecological data, • thorough integration of complementing monitoring technologies including DNA-barcoding, • sophisticated pattern recognition by deep learning, • advanced exploration of valuable information in ‘big data’ by means of machine learning and process modelling, • decision-informing solutions for biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem management in light of global changes

Bridging formalisation and expert judgement in searches for studies for systematic reviews

Systematic reviews aim to use pre-specified and explicitly described methods. This entails an element of formalisation in which methods are described according to a fixed structure. However, qualitative studies show that too much emphasis on formalisation can obscure how expert judgement is required even after clearly defined methods are established. Thus, there is a gap between how systematic review methods are formalised in guidance and reported in systematic reviews, and how they are carried out in practice using undisclosed expert judgement. The aim of this thesis is to describe and bridge the gap between formalisation and expert judgement with respect to searching for studies for systematic reviews, with a particular focus on forward citation searching and web searching. Forward citation searching and web searching are useful search methods to consider due to observed variability in both if and how they are used in systematic reviews, in contrast to searches of bibliographic databases which are routine in almost all systematic reviews. To this end, the thesis seeks to fulfil three objectives: first, to formalise the conduct and reporting of forward citation searching and web searching in systematic reviews; secondly, to describe and evaluate the conduct and reporting of forward citation searching and web searching in systematic reviews; thirdly, to explore the role of expert judgement when using forward citation searching and web searching. Both aggregative and configurative review types are considered throughout. The findings show that formalised approaches to searching are apparent in guidance to different degrees. However, systematic reviews do not always reflect formalised guidance. Qualitative investigation describes hitherto hidden practical knowledge which underpins searching decisions. The thesis draws these findings together and proposes that guidance on searching for studies should be framed in terms of the practical understanding which informs how searching is undertaken rather than limited to describing recommended processes

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia