99,930 research outputs found

    Understanding User Behavioral Intention to Adopt a Search Engine that Promotes Sustainable Water Management

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    An increase in users’ online searches, the social concern for an efficient management of resources such as water, and the appearance of more and more digital platforms for sustainable purposes to conduct online searches lead us to reflect more on the users’ behavioral intention with respect to search engines that support sustainable projects like water management projects. Another issue to consider is the factors that determine the adoption of such search engines. In the present study, we aim to identify the factors that determine the intention to adopt a search engine, such as Lilo, that favors sustainable water management. To this end, a model based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is proposed. The methodology used is the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis with the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS). The results demonstrate that individuals who intend to use a search engine are influenced by hedonic motivations, which drive their feeling of contentment with the search. Similarly, the success of search engines is found to be closely related to the ability a search engine grants to its users to generate a social or environmental impact, rather than users’ trust in what they do or in their results. However, according to our results, habit is also an important factor that has both a direct and an indirect impact on users’ behavioral intention to adopt different search engines

    The Effect Of Public Information Sources On Satisfaction With Patient Search For A Physician

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    The purpose of this research study is to examine the effect of public information sources on an individual\u27s satisfaction with the search process undertaken to select a physician. A quasiexperimental research design was adopted to randomly divide the medical staff of a large central Florida medical group into control and intervention groups of approximately 77 physicians each. The intervention involved insertion of the website address to online physician report cards on to each intervention group physician’s profile in the physician directory on the medical group\u27s website. After two months, data were collected consisting of all individuals who had scheduled first-time appointments with one of the medical group\u27s physicians during the two-month intervention period. A random sample of patients was drawn from each group and sample members were mailed a 62-item questionnaire along with a cover letter, summary of the research and postage-paid reply envelope. A total of 706 questionnaires were mailed and 61 completed questionnaires were returned, an 8.64% response rate. Intent-to-treat analysis was conducted using independent-samples t-tests to compare the research study’s continuous variables\u27 mean scores for control and intervention group participants. The analysis revealed no significant difference in scores for control and intervention groups with the exceptions that the control group was somewhat more committed to conducting a search and selecting a new physician. The control group said the physician\u27s communications skills influenced their satisfaction with the search and selection of a new physician quite a lot while the intervention group said physician communication skills somewhat influenced their satisfaction with search and selection. iv Results of the covariance structure analysis demonstrated that information use and level of commitment to search and select a new physician independently predict search satisfaction. As information use and search commitment increase, a patient\u27s satisfaction with the search increases as well. Furthermore, as information use increases, the variety of information sources relied upon or used also increases. The findings support the alternative hypothesis that the positive or direct effect of physician report cards is demonstrated in the time and cost of patient search for a physician for both intervention and control groups. One other alternative hypothesis was partially supported, i.e., the effect of household income is confirmed in patient search and satisfaction in selecting a physician. The alternative hypotheses that proposed that physician report cards are more likely to be used to search for a medical specialist and that physician experience, office location and accepted insurance effect patient search and selection of a physician were not tested. Two other alternative hypotheses were rejected. The research findings also indicated that predictors of health care information search satisfaction vary based upon the environment and contextual factors in which the search is conducted

    Internet-based search of randomised trials relevant to mental health originating in the Arab world

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    BACKGROUND: The internet is becoming a widely used source of accessing medical research through various on-line databases. This instant access to information is of benefit to busy clinicians and service users around the world. The population of the Arab World is comparable to that of the United States, yet it is widely believed to have a greatly contrasting output of randomised controlled trials related to mental health. This study was designed to investigate the existence of such research in the Arab World and also to investigate the availability of this research on-line. METHODS: Survey of findings from three internet-based potential sources of randomised trials originating from the Arab world and relevant to mental health care. RESULTS: A manual search of an Arabic online current contents service identified 3 studies, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO searches identified only 1 study, and a manual search of a specifically indexed, study-based mental health database, PsiTri, revealed 27 trials. CONCLUSION: There genuinely seem to be few trials from the Arab world and accessing these on-line was problematic. Replication of some studies that guide psychiatric/psychological practice in the Arab world would seem prudent

    Supporting effective health and biomedical information retrieval and navigation: A novel facet view interface evaluation

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    AbstractThere is a need to provide a more effective user interface to facilitate non-domain experts’ health information seeking in authoritative online databases such as MEDLINE. We developed a new topic cluster based information navigation system called SimMed. Instead of offering a list of documents, SimMed presents users with a list of ranked clusters. Topically similar documents are grouped together to provide users with a better overview of the search results and to support exploration of similar literature within a cluster. We conducted an empirical user study to compare SimMed to a traditional document list based search interface. A total of 42 study participants were recruited to use both interfaces for health information exploration search tasks. The results showed that SimMed is more effective in terms of users’ perceived topic knowledge changes and their engagement in user-system interactions. We also developed a new metric to assess users’ efforts to find relevant citations. On average, users need significantly fewer clicks to find relevant information in SimMed than in the baseline system. Comments from study participants indicated that SimMed is more helpful in finding similar citations, providing related medical terms, and presenting better organized search results, particularly when the initial search is unsatisfactory. Findings from the study shed light on future health and biomedical information retrieval system and interface designs

    Factors that influence public engagement with eHealth: a literature review

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    Purpose: Public engagement with eHealth is generally viewed as beneficial. However, despite the potential benefits, public engagement with eHealth services remains variable. This article explores reasons for this variability through a review of published international literature. Methods: A focused search, conducted in January 2009, of three bibliographic databases, MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE, returned 2622 unique abstracts. Results: Fifty articles met the inclusion criteria for the review. Four main types of eHealth service were identified: health information on the Internet; custom-made online health information; online support; and telehealth. Public engagement with these services appears to depend on a number of factors: characteristics of users; technological issues; characteristics of eHealth services; social aspects of use; and eHealth services in use. Conclusions: Recommendations for policy makers, developers, users and health professionals, include: targeting efforts towards those underserved by eHealth; improving access; tailoring services to meet the needs of a broader range of users; exploiting opportunities for social computing; and clarifying of the role of health professionals in endorsement, promotion and facilitation

    American and French Perspectives on Trademark Keying: The Courts Leave Businesses Searching for Answers

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    Trademark owners in America and Europe are attacking the lucrative practice of selling search results and advertising linked to searches based on product names and trademarks, which is known as trademark keying. From makers of luxury products to travel companies, and insurance companies to home décor vendors, companies have sued Internet search providers to stop this practice that they believe amounts to trademark infringement. Recent cases against search engine companies in American and French courts reflect divergent views on the legality of the practice at this early stage of the debate. This Article evaluates recent rulings in both jurisdictions which illustrate the challenges that search engines and trademark owners face as they try to protect their interests

    Prospects of Mobile Search

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    Search faces (at least) two major challenges. One is to improve efficiency of retrieving relevant content for all digital formats (images, audio, video, 3D shapes, etc). The second is making relevant information retrievable in a range of platforms, particularly in high diffusion ones as mobiles. The two challenges are interrelated but distinct. This report aims at assessing the potential of future Mobile Search. Two broad groups of search-based applications can be identified. The first one is the adaptation and emulation of web search processes and services to the mobile environment. The second one is services exploiting the unique features of the mobile devices and the mobile environments. Examples of these context-aware services include location-based services or interfacing to the internet of things (RFID networks). The report starts by providing an introduction to mobile search. It highlights differences and commonalities with search technologies on other platforms (Chapter 1). Chapter 2 is devoted to the supply side of mobile search markets. It describes mobile markets, presents key figures and gives an outline of main business models and players. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the demand side of the market. It studies usersÂż acceptance and demand using the results on a case study in Sweden. Chapter 4 presents emerging trends in technology and markets that could shape mobile search. It is the author's view after discussing with many experts. One input to this discussion was the analysis of on forward-looking scenarios for mobile developed by the authors (Chapter 5). Experts were asked to evaluate these scenarios. Another input was a questionnaire to which 61 experts responded. Drivers, barriers and enablers for mobile search have been synthesised into SWOT analysis. The report concludes with some policy recommendations in view of the likely socio-economic implications of mobile search in Europe.JRC.DG.J.4-Information Societ

    Re-examining and re-conceptualising enterprise search and discovery capability: towards a model for the factors and generative mechanisms for search task outcomes.

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    Many organizations are trying to re-create the Google experience, to find and exploit their own corporate information. However, there is evidence that finding information in the workplace using search engine technology has remained difficult, with socio-technical elements largely neglected in the literature. Explication of the factors and generative mechanisms (ultimate causes) to effective search task outcomes (user satisfaction, search task performance and serendipitous encountering) may provide a first step in making improvements. A transdisciplinary (holistic) lens was applied to Enterprise Search and Discovery capability, combining critical realism and activity theory with complexity theories to one of the worlds largest corporations. Data collection included an in-situ exploratory search experiment with 26 participants, focus groups with 53 participants and interviews with 87 business professionals. Thousands of user feedback comments and search transactions were analysed. Transferability of findings was assessed through interviews with eight industry informants and ten organizations from a range of industries. A wide range of informational needs were identified for search filters, including a need to be intrigued. Search term word co-occurrence algorithms facilitated serendipity to a greater extent than existing methods deployed in the organization surveyed. No association was found between user satisfaction (or self assessed search expertise) with search task performance and overall performance was poor, although most participants had been satisfied with their performance. Eighteen factors were identified that influence search task outcomes ranging from user and task factors, informational and technological artefacts, through to a wide range of organizational norms. Modality Theory (Cybersearch culture, Simplicity and Loss Aversion bias) was developed to explain the study observations. This proposes that at all organizational levels there are tendencies for reductionist (unimodal) mind-sets towards search capability leading to fixes that fail. The factors and mechanisms were identified in other industry organizations suggesting some theory generalizability. This is the first socio-technical analysis of Enterprise Search and Discovery capability. The findings challenge existing orthodoxy, such as the criticality of search literacy (agency) which has been neglected in the practitioner literature in favour of structure. The resulting multifactorial causal model and strategic framework for improvement present opportunities to update existing academic models in the IR, LIS and IS literature, such as the DeLone and McLean model for information system success. There are encouraging signs that Modality Theory may enable a reconfiguration of organizational mind-sets that could transform search task outcomes and ultimately business performance

    Undergraduate Students\u27 Attitudes About the Collection, Use, and Privacy of Search Data in Academic Libraries

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    The purpose of this study was to understand undergraduate students’ attitudes about search data privacy in academic libraries and their preferences for how librarians should handle information about what students search for, borrow, and download. This is an important area of study due to the increasingly data-driven nature of evaluation, accountability, and improvement in higher education, along with libraries’ professional commitment to privacy, which has historically limited the amount of data collected about student use. Using a qualitative approach through the lens of interpretive description, I used the constant comparative method of data collection and analysis to conduct semi-structured interviews with 27 undergraduate students at a large, urban public research institution. Through inductive coding, I organized the data into interpretive themes and subthemes to describe students’ attitudes, and developed a conceptual/thematic description that illustrates how they are formed. Students revealed that a variety of life experiences and influences shaped their views on search data privacy in academic libraries. They viewed academic library search data as less personally revealing than internet search data. As a result, students were generally comfortable with libraries collecting search data so long as it is used for their benefit. They were comfortable with data being used to improve library collections and services, but were more ambivalent about use of search data for personalized search results and for learning analytics-based assessment. Most students expressed a desire for de-identification and user control of data. Some students expressed concern about search data being used in ways that reflect bias or favoritism. Participants had moderate concern about their library search data privacy being used by government agencies to protect public safety. Although some disagreed with the practice in concept, most did not feel that the search data would be useful, nor would it reveal much about their personal interests or selves. Students who were not comfortable with the idea of search data collection in academic libraries often held their convictions more strongly than peers who found the practice acceptable. The results of this study suggest that academic libraries should further explore student perspectives about search data collection in academic libraries to consider how and if they might adjust their data collection practices to be respectful of student preferences for privacy, while still meeting evaluation and improvement objectives. This study achieved the intended purpose of contributing a foundational body of knowledge about student attitudes regarding search data privacy in academic libraries. It positions librarian-researchers to develop studies that further this line of inquiry in an area that has significant implications for both user privacy and libraries’ practices for assessment and evaluation. Limitations of this study include its limited generalizability as a result of the qualitative research design, and the fact that it relied primarily on a convenience sampling method
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