College Students' Credibility Judgments in the Information-Seeking Process

Part of the Volume on Digital Media, Youth, and CredibilityThis chapter presents an in-depth exploration of how college students identify credible information in everyday information-seeking tasks. The authors find that credibility assessment is an over-time process rather than a discrete evaluative event. Moreover, the context in which credibility assessment occurs is crucial to understand because it affects both the level of effort as well as the strategies that people use to evaluate credibility. College students indicate that although credibility was an important consideration during information seeking, they often compromised information credibility for speed and convenience, especially when the information sought was less consequential

Knowledge-Context in search systems: Toward information-literate actions

In this perspectives paper we define knowledge-context as meta information that searchers use when making sense of information displayed in and accessible from a search engine results page (SERP). We argue that enriching the knowledge-context in SERPs has great potential for facilitating human learning, critical thinking, and creativity by expanding searchers’ information-literate actions such as comparing, evaluating, and differentiating between information sources. Thus it supports the development of learning-centric search systems. Using theories and empirical findings from psychology and the learning sciences, we first discuss general effects of Web search on memory and learning. After reviewing selected research addressing metacognition and self-regulated learning, we discuss design goals for search systems that support metacognitive skills required for long-term learning, creativity, and critical thinking. We then propose that SERPs make both bibliographic and inferential knowledge-context readily accessible to motivate and facilitate information-literate actions for learning and creative endeavors. A brief discussion of related ideas, designs, and prototypes found in prior work follows. We conclude the paper by presenting future research directions and questions on knowledge-context, information-literate actions, and learning-centric search systems.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148270/1/Smith and Rieh Knowledge-Context in Search Systems CHIIR2019.pd

Editorial: Recent advances on searching as learning: An introduction to the special issue

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147348/1/Hansen and Rieh JIS Special Issue Editorial 2016.pd

Topic 1: All universities should have an institutional repository

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/62149/1/1720350407_ftp.pd

Participatory web users’ information activities and credibility assessment.

This study examines people’s perceptions of online information credibility within a more diverse set of information activities, in the context of their everyday lives.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106417/1/Rieh_KSLIS2010.pd

Credibility and cognitive authority of information

This entry defines the concepts of information credibility and cognitive authority, introduces the key terms and dimensions of each, and discusses major theoretical frameworks tested and proposed in library and information science (LIS) and related fields. It also lays out the fundamental notions of credibility and cognitive authority in historical contexts to trace the evolution of the understanding and enhancement of the two concepts. This entry contends that the assessment of information credibility and cognitive authority is a ubiquitous human activity given that people constantly make decisions and selections based on values of information in a variety of information seeking and use contexts. It further contends that information credibility and cognitive authority assessment can be seen as an ongoing and iterative process rather than a discrete information evaluation event. The judgments made in assessment processes are highly subjective given their dependence on individuals’ accumulated beliefs, existing knowledge, and prior experiences. The conclusion of this entry suggests the need for more research by emphasizing the contributions that credibility and cognitive authority research can make to the field of LIS.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106416/1/Rieh_ELIS_published.pd

Dual roles in information mediation at work: Analysis of advice‐receiving and advice‐providing diary surveys

In everyday work, people often turn to their colleagues for information. Those colleagues play the role of information mediators by intervening in the information seeking and use of others. This study investigates how people initiate the information mediation process, how they influence one another's subsequent information behavior, and how they benefit from the process, from the perspectives of both the information seeker and the information mediator. To examine the dynamics of the information mediation process, an online diary survey was conducted in a real‐world workplace setting, followed by in‐depth interviews. This paper reports on a preliminary analysis of 450 diary entries in which participants reported the work tasks that required advice from colleagues as well as the extent of the advice provided. Analysis of the diary data revealed the types of tasks, types of advice, and relationship between task and advice types. The results suggest that people perceive tasks differently depending on whether they play the role of information seeker or information mediator, while their perception of advice seems to be independent of their role in the information mediation process. These typologies serve as a basis for further analyzing reciprocal influences between information seekers and mediators.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96434/1/14504901263_ftp.pd

The value of social search: Seeking collective personal experience in social Q&A

In this paper, we examine the value of social question‐answering (Q&A) services as a platform for social search. We present a quasi‐field study where we instructed 20 study participants to use a social Q&A service, Yahoo! Answers, for a period of one week, and interviewed them about their experience with Yahoo! Answers based on the questions (N=99) they posted to the site. The results indicate that participants turned to a social search system when they needed firsthand information, diverse perspectives, and others' value judgments. Participants also preferred social search systems over web search engines in situations where they could obtain tailored information, access original and non‐popular information, filter out information, and interact with real people. Various strategies that participants employed to ensure that their questions would be likely to be answered were also identified. This study contributes to the field of information science by investigating a social Q&A service using the framework of social search from the information seeker's perspective. The results have implications for developers and designers of social search systems.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106937/1/14505001067_ftp.pd

Credibility: A multidisciplinary framework

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61241/1/1440410114_ftp.pd

Take your time first, time your search later: How college students perceive time in Web searching

This study explores people's perception of time during their Web searches. Time is a major component of the context for information behavior, but in empirical studies it has been implied rather than investigated explicitly. The data were collected from Web search experiments in which participants were asked to conduct searches on three given tasks under differing search time conditions. The paper reports on findings drawn primarily from the exit interviews of 45 undergraduate and graduate students on their perception of time in Web searching. Study results indicate that at the beginning of their searching activity, participants did not explicitly consider temporal issues. However, these issues usually surface with the passage of time, especially when searches fail to go as planned. Perception of time is closely entangled with familiarity and difficulty of search task. In general, participants enjoyed spending time in searching and were not excessively concerned about time constraints. On the other hand, participants' affective experiences were sometimes caused by temporal issues. In conclusion, the study results indicate that temporal issues interlace with other contextual and affective factors in the process of Web searching.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78317/1/1450460253_ftp.pd