Search Engine Users

Presents findings from a survey conducted in May and June 2004. Looks at confidence in search ability; satisfaction with results; overall trust of search engines; and demographic differences among searchers

Data Mining in Electronic Commerce

Modern business is rushing toward e-commerce. If the transition is done properly, it enables better management, new services, lower transaction costs and better customer relations. Success depends on skilled information technologists, among whom are statisticians. This paper focuses on some of the contributions that statisticians are making to help change the business world, especially through the development and application of data mining methods. This is a very large area, and the topics we cover are chosen to avoid overlap with other papers in this special issue, as well as to respect the limitations of our expertise. Inevitably, electronic commerce has raised and is raising fresh research problems in a very wide range of statistical areas, and we try to emphasize those challenges.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000204 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Vital Decisions

Presents findings from surveys conducted in 2001 and 2002. Looks at how Internet users make decisions about what online health information to trust. Includes a guide from the Medical Library Association about smart health-search strategies

Privacy Implications of Health Information Seeking on the Web

This article investigates privacy risks to those visiting health- related web pages. The population of pages analyzed is derived from the 50 top search results for 1,986 common diseases. This yielded a total population of 80,124 unique pages which were analyzed for the presence of third-party HTTP requests. 91% of pages were found to make requests to third parties. Investigation of URIs revealed that 70% of HTTP Referer strings contained information exposing specific conditions, treatments, and diseases. This presents a risk to users in the form of personal identification and blind discrimination. An examination of extant government and corporate policies reveals that users are insufficiently protected from such risks

Developing an Information System for Assistive Technology Apps

The goal of this project was to create an easy, accessible way for Seven Hills employees to find apps to assist the various needs of their clients. To accomplish this goal, we have created the following deliverables: an assistive technology (AT) apps database, and both written and video tutorials for the database. This system currently contains over four hundred apps that are searchable by various identifiers such as name, category, and disability to name a few. It also allows users to request new apps to be added, and allows administrators to edit and delete apps. Most of the research the staff conducts are through peer review, so the system also includes rankings and comments. The tutorials are for both users and administrators, and explain how to search, edit, and maintain the database

Accessibility and Usability of Search Engine Interfaces: Preliminary Testing

Due to the enormous amount of information on the Internet today, search engines have become an indispensable tool for finding specific, appropriate information. Therefore, it is essential for search engines to offer user interfaces that are easy to use and accessible to all. In this study we describe the initial steps of a project aimed at evaluating the accessibility and usability of several popular search tools. The analysis is centered on two user categories: sighted and blind users. With this goal in mind, we collected individual feedback in order to determine whether it is possible to improve interface design

Library Services for Blind and Visually Impaired People

This literature review summarizes, evaluates and compares some of the existent literature about Library Services for Blind and Visually Impaired People. It provides a critical overview of the presence and organization in different areas of Library Services for readers who cannot make use of the traditional printed material, while pointing out their strengths and weak points. It also singles out themes and critical trends regarding the subject, while suggesting ways to improve the above said services. The necessity of further studies in the field is also put forward and strongly recommended

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research