189,445 research outputs found

    Developing a theoretical framework for web credibility assessment—A case of social Q&A sites: preliminary findings

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    As part of a larger study, this poster reports on preliminary findings of efforts to develop a theoretical framework for assessing the credibility of information on social question-and-answer (Q&A) sites. A literature analysis was conducted to identify relevant criteria for assessing web credibility on social Q&A sites, which were then mapped to an existing framework of web credibility assessment [1]. Specifically, 21 criteria identified by the literature analysis were categorized into one of six types of web credibility assessments—operator (author) trustworthiness, operator (author) expertise, con-tent trustworthiness, content expertise, design trustworthiness, and design expertise—to develop an information platform type-specific framework of in-formation credibility. Results show that existing criteria used in the literature have focused primarily on content-related attributes (e.g., evidence-based, structural completeness, and semantic clarity and comprehensive-ness), but less on operator (author)-related attributes (e.g., credentials) or de-sign features (e.g., interactive design, appropriateness of design, ease of use). Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed

    Dr. Google: what about the human papillomavirus vaccine?

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    To assess and analyze the information and recommendations provided by Google Web Search™ (Google) in relation to web searches on the HPV vaccine, indications for females and males and possible adverse effects.|In the comprehensive analysis of results, 72.2% of websites offer information favorable to HPV vaccination, with varying degrees of content detail, vs. 27.8% with highly dissuasive content in relation to HPV vaccination. The most frequent type of site is the blog or forum. The information found is frequently incomplete, poorly structured, and often lacking in updates, bibliography and adequate citations, as well as sound credibility criteria (scientific association accreditation and/or trust mark system).|Descriptive cross-sectional study of the results of 14 web searches. Comprehensive analysis of results based on general recommendation given (favorable/dissuasive), as well as compliance with pre-established criteria, namely design, content and credibility. Sub-analysis of results according to site category: general information, blog / forum and press.|Google, as a tool which users employ to locate medical information and advice, is not specialized in providing information that is necessarily rigorous or valid from a scientific perspective. Search results and ranking based on Google's generalized algorithms can lead users to poorly grounded opinions and statements, which may impact HPV vaccination perception and subsequent decision making

    Game-theoretic Models of Web Credibility

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    Research on Web credibility assessment can significantly benefit from new models that are better suited for evaluation and study of adversary strategies. Currently employed models lack several important aspects, such as the explicit modeling of Web content properties (e.g. presentation quality), the user economic incentives and assessment capabilities. In this paper, we introduce a new, game-theoretic model of credibility, referred to as the Credibility Game. We perform equilibrium and stability analysis of a simple variant of the game and then study it as a signaling game against naive and expert information consumers. By a generic economic model of the player payoffs, we study, via simulation experiments, more complex variants of the Credibility Game and demonstrate the effect of consumer expertise and of the signal for credibility evaluation on the evolutionary stable strategies of the information producers and consumers

    Factors affecting engagement in web-based health care patient information: narrative review of the literature

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    BACKGROUND: Web-based content is rapidly becoming the primary source of health care information. There is a pressing need for web-based health care content to not only be accurate but also be engaging. Improved engagement of people with web-based health care content has the potential to inform as well as influence behavioral change to enable people to make better health care choices. The factors associated with better engagement with web-based health care content have previously not been considered. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study are to identify the factors that affect engagement with web-based health care content and develop a framework to be considered when creating such content. METHODS: A comprehensive search of the PubMed and MEDLINE database was performed from January 1, 1946, to January 5, 2020. The reference lists of all included studies were also searched. The Medical Subject Headings database was used to derive the following keywords: "patient information," "online," "internet," "web," and "content." All studies in English pertaining to the factors affecting engagement in web-based health care patient information were included. No restrictions were set on the study type. Analysis of the themes arising from the results was performed using inductive content analysis. RESULTS: The search yielded 814 articles, of which 56 (6.9%) met our inclusion criteria. The studies ranged from observational and noncontrolled studies to quasi-experimental studies. Overall, there was significant heterogeneity in the types of interventions and outcome assessments, which made quantitative assessment difficult. Consensus among all authors of this study resulted in six categories that formed the basis of a framework to assess the factors affecting engagement in web-based health care content: easy to understand, support, adaptability, accessibility, visuals and content, and credibility and completeness. CONCLUSIONS: There is a paucity of high-quality data relating to the factors that improve the quality of engagement with web-based health care content. Our framework summarizes the reported studies, which may be useful to health care content creators. An evaluation of the utility of web-based content to engage users is of significant importance and may be accessible through tools such as the Net Promoter score. Web 3.0 technology and development of the field of psychographics for health care offer further potential for development. Future work may also involve improvement of the framework through a co-design process

    Prescription drug brand Web sites: Guidance where none exists

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    This paper applies insights from linguistics and discourse analysis to prescription drug brand Web sites, with special reference to the 100 top-selling drugs. Such sites give the outward appearance of being a place to go for straightforward information about a specific brand. In reality, they present a confused mix of brand information, health information and hype, muddled organization, and poor indication of authority, creating an imbalance between benefit and risk content. In so doing, they breach the letter and spirit of the regulations governing direct-to-consumer advertising, which the FDA has by default applied to such Web sites but which were not designed for this special type of discourse. The many communicative difficulties proven to be caused by Web sites in general, in particular for the elderly and less literate, also pose ethical problems. A rethinking of the verbal and visual design of these drug sites is needed -- and new regulatory guidance, for which this paper offers recommendations. At stake is not just the quality of health information at brand drug sites but also their credibility

    Credibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of readily available internet-based information on treatment and management of peripheral artery disease and intermittent claudication: review

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    BACKGROUND: Peripheral artery disease (PAD) affects millions of people worldwide, and a core component of management of the condition is self-management. The internet is an important source of health information for many people. However, the content of websites regarding treatment recommendations for PAD has not been fully evaluated. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the credibility, accuracy, and comprehensiveness of websites found via a common search engine, by comparing the content to current guidelines for treatment and management of PAD and intermittent claudication (IC). METHODS: A review of websites from hospitals, universities, governments, consumer organizations, and professional associations in the United States and the United Kingdom was conducted. Website recommendations for the treatment of PAD and IC were coded in accordance with the guidelines of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the American Heart Association (AHA). Primary outcomes were website credibility (4-item Journal of the American Medical Association benchmark), website accuracy (in terms of the percentage of accurate recommendations), and comprehensiveness of website recommendations (in terms of the percentage of guideline recommendations that were appropriately covered). Secondary outcomes were readability (Flesch–Kincaid grade level) and website quality (Health On the Net Foundation’s code of conduct). RESULTS: After screening, 62 websites were included in this analysis. Only 45% (28/62) of websites met the credibility requirement by stating they were updated after the NICE guidelines were published. Declaration of authorship and funding and the presence of reference lists were less commonly reported. Regarding accuracy, 81% (556/685) of website recommendations were deemed accurate on following NICE’s and the AHA’s recommendations. Comprehensiveness was low, with an average of 40% (25/62) of guideline treatment recommendations being appropriately covered by websites. In most cases, readability scores revealed that the websites were too complex for web-based consumer health information. CONCLUSIONS: Web-based information from reputable sources about the treatment and management of PAD and IC are generally accurate but have low comprehensiveness, credibility, and readability

    A crowdsourcing study of perceived credibility of Reddit content based on a novel data scraping tool

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    Crowdsourcing-tutkimus Reddit-sisällön koetusta uskottavuudesta uudenlaisen tiedonkaavintatyökalun avulla. Tiivistelmä. The internet is a forever growing trove of information. It is well known, both in the public and in academia that in the last years the unhindered access to the internet gave everyone more opportunities to post fake or misleading content. Furthermore, the growing interest in artificial intelligence and large language models showed how easy it is for people to be provided, possibly by mistake, with misleading content through AI tools. These tools are trained on content from the world wide web, but one might wonder, how might these AI tools know which content is believable and which is not? The current thesis aims to contribute to the credibility literature of online media through a crowdsourcing survey based on content gathered — through a tool designed and build for the purposes of this thesis — from the Reddit social media platform. The data gathering tool was designed to scrape Reddit and store historical data from Reddit posts, something that no other tool has done before, and using the scraped data it offers the possibility of creating surveys for assessing credibility of Reddit posts. The thesis aimed to find what features of Reddit posts affect credibility. Once the survey participants assessed the credibility of multiple Reddit posts, both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis were conducted on the results. Findings show that popularity does not affect perceived credibility, however topic familiarity and experience of using Reddit have a weak positive affect on credibility. Furthermore, agreeable and content that is easy to understand were also affecting credibility positively, however content that contained jargon or that participants disagreed with or found offensive impacted credibility negatively. Among other findings, this thesis defines three types of credibility evaluation, “shallow evaluation”, “in-depth evaluation” and “experience-based evaluation”, that can help future research in understanding and designing credibility studies. The thesis brings several contributions to the literature. Firstly, it both complements and challenges past findings in credibility research of online media. Furthermore, the research puts forward the three levels of credibility evaluation, which can be used in future research and analyzed more thoroughly. Finally, the artifact that was built for the study, the open-source data gathering tool, offers a new way for researchers to gather data from Reddit, but it also gives the possibility to store historical data of a post, something that no other tool does, and enables possible new avenues for research in this direction

    Sustainability Reporting Practices In Portugal: Greenwashing Or Triple Bottom Line?

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    This paper examines the status of sustainability reporting in Portugal.  The Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) guidelines for sustainability reporting is an initiative that attempts to create a paradigm of triple bottom line reporting that encompasses the economic, environmental, and social performance of business. Measurement and reporting of environmental and social aspects are in their infancy compared to financial/economic reporting. The objective of the GRI’s framework is to elevate environmental and social reporting to the level of financial reporting by developing reporting principles and information qualities similar to those used in corporate financial reporting. In the post-Enron corporate reporting environment, such credibility may be tarnished and lead stakeholders to suspect corporations of greenwashing their reputations by issuing reports that are environmental window dressing.Currently 860 companies in a variety of industries worldwide are voluntarily listed as using the guidelines on the GRI’s web site; however, only five are from Portugal. Two of the five companies are GRI organizational stakeholders and one is listed as reporting 'in accordance' with the guidelines. Content analysis will be used to examine both the quantity and quality of information in the GRI reports of Portuguese companies. An additional issue regarding the transparency and credibility of the information provided is whether the reports have been verified (a more generic term than audit used for a similar assurance-type service relative to GRI Reports). The results of the content analysis will be used to shed some light on whether the companies generating these reports are bridging or widening the sustainability reporting expectations gap between companies and stakeholders

    Assessment of the Quality of Internet-Based Health Information in the Indonesian Language about Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome: Kajian Kualitas Informasi Kesehatan Berbasis Internet Berbahasa Indonesia tentang Sindrom Ovarium Polikistik

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    Objectives: To investigate health information quality about PCOS on the internet in Indonesian language.Methods: Top website from two separate search engines (Google and Bing) was collected using the keyword of “sindrom ovarium polikistik” (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Analysis of health information quality on those websites was performed.Results: Sixty-nine websites were included for analysis. The majority of those websites have good information quality in terms of content accuracy and website credibility. There was no difference in quality between the two search engines. The website was found at the top two pages in each search engine to have better quality than the later pages (p=0.02). The educational website had better quality (p=0.05). The website made by healthcare organizations had better quality (p=0.04). The non-commercial website had better information quality (p=0.01).Conclusion: Criteria affecting health information quality on the internet were as follows: found at the top two pages on a search engine; educational website; made by healthcare organization; and non-commercial purpose.Keywords: health information quality, Indonesian language, internet-based, polycystic ovarian syndrome Abstrak Tujuan: Untuk melakukan kajian kualitas informasi kesehatan tentang PCOS di internet dalam Bahasa Indonesia.Metode: Situs web teratas dari dua mesin pencari terpisah (Google dan Bing) dikumpulkan dengan menggunakan kata kunci “sindrom ovarium polikistik”. Analisis kualitas informasi kesehatan pada situs-situs tersebut telah dilakukan.Hasil: Enam puluh sembilan situs web dimasukkan untuk analisis. Mayoritas situs web tersebut memiliki kualitas informasi yang baik dalam hal akurasi konten dan kredibilitas situs web. Tidak ada perbedaan kualitas antara kedua mesin pencari tersebut. Situs web ini ditemukan pada dua halaman teratas di setiap mesin pencari memiliki kualitas yang lebih baik daripada halaman-halaman selanjutnya (p = 0,02). Kualitas situs web berbasis pendidikan menunjukkan hasil lebih baik (p = 0,05). Kualitas website yang dibuat oleh organisasi kesehatan menunjukkan hasil lebih baik (p = 0,04). Situs web non-komersial memiliki kualitas informasi yang lebih baik (p = 0,01).Kesimpulan: Kriteria yang mempengaruhi kualitas informasi kesehatan di internet adalah sebagai berikut: ditemukan pada dua halaman teratas pada mesin pencari; situs web berbasis pendidikan; dibuat oleh organisasi kesehatan; dan tujuan non-komersial.Kata kunci : bahasa indonesia, berbasis internet, kualitas informasi kesehatan, sindrom ovarium polikistik
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