- Web search engines and distributed assessment systems
Pragmatics & Cognition, Vol. 14, No. 2. (2006), pp. 387-409.
I analyse the impact of search engines on our cognitive and epistemic practices. For that purpose, I describe the processes of assessment of documents on the Web as relying on distributed cognition. Search engines together with Web users, are distributed assessment systems whose task is to enable efficient allocation of cognitive resources of those who use search engines. Specifying the cognitive function of search engines within these distributed assessment systems allows interpreting anew the changes that have been caused by search engine technologies. I describe search engines as implementing reputation systems and point out the similarities with other reputation systems. I thus call attention to the continuity in the distributed cognitive processes that determine the allocation of cognitive resources for information gathering from others.
- Extracting Trust from Domain Analysis: A Case Study on the Wikipedia Project
Autonomic and Trusted Computing (2006), pp. 362-373.
The problem of identifying trustworthy information on the World Wide Web is becoming increasingly acute as new tools such as wikis and blogs simplify and democratize publications. Wikipedia is the most extraordinary example of this phenomenon and, although a few mechanisms have been put in place to improve contributions quality, trust in Wikipedia content quality has been seriously questioned. We thought that a deeper understanding of what in general defines high-standard and expertise in domains related to Wikipedia – i.e. content quality in a collaborative environment – mapped onto Wikipedia elements would lead to a complete set of mechanisms to sustain trust in Wikipedia context. Our evaluation, conducted on about 8,000 articles representing 65% of the overall Wikipedia editing activity, shows that the new trust evidence that we extracted from Wikipedia allows us to transparently and automatically compute trust values to isolate articles of great or low quality.
- Social Networks and Trust (Theory and Decision Library C)
(31 March 2002)
Social Networks and Trust discusses two possible explanations for the emergence of trust via social networks. If network members can sanction untrustworthiness of actors, these actors may refrain from acting in an untrustworthy manner. Moreover, if actors are informed regularly about trustworthy behavior of others, trust will grow among these actors.
A unique combination of formal model building and empirical methodology is used to derive and test hypotheses about the effects of networks on trust. The models combine elements from game theory, which is mainly used in economics, and social network analysis, which is mainly used in sociology.
The hypotheses are tested (1) by analyzing contracts in information technology transactions from a survey on small and medium-sized enterprises and (2) by studying judgments of subjects in a vignette experiment related to hypothetical transactions with a used-car dealer.
- Reputation in Artificial Societies: Social Beliefs for Social Order (Multiagent Systems, Artificial Societies, and Simulated Organizations)
(31 October 2002)
Reputation In Artificial Societies discusses the role of reputation in the achievement of social order. The book proposes that reputation is an agent property that results from transmission of beliefs about how the agents are evaluated with regard to a socially desirable conduct. This desirable conduct represents one or another of the solutions to the problem of social order and may consist of cooperation or altruism, reciprocity, or norm obedience.
Reputation In Artificial Societies distinguishes between image (direct evaluation of others) and reputation (propagating metabelief, indirectly acquired) and investigates their effects with regard to both natural and electronic societies. The interplay between image and reputation, the processes leading to them and the set of decisions that agents make on their basis are demonstrated with supporting data from agentbased simulations.
- Are people biased in their use of search engines?
Commun. ACM, Vol. 51, No. 2. (February 2008), pp. 49-52.
Search-engines are among the most used resources on the Internet. Google [2], for example, now hosts over eight billion items and returns answers to queries in a fraction of a second; thus realising some of the more far-fetched predictions envisioned by the pioneers of the World Web Web [1]. In the present study, we assess whether people are biased in their use of a search-engine; specifically we assess whether people tend to click on those items that are presented as being the most relevant in the search engine’s result list (i.e., those items listed at the top of the result list). To test this bias hypothesis, we simulated the Google environment systematically reversing Google’s normal relevance-ordering of the items presented to users. Our results show that people do manifest some bias, favouring items at the top of result lists, though they also seek out high-relevance items listed further down a list. Later, we discuss whether this bias arises from people’s implicit trust in search engines such as Google, or some other effect.
- Google and the Mind: Predicting Fluency With PageRank
Psychological Science, Vol. 18, No. 12. (December 2007), pp. 1069-1076.
- Web search strategies and human individual differences: Cognitive and demographic factors, Internet attitudes, and approaches
Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 56, No. 7. (2005), pp. 741-756.
The research reported here was an exploratory study that sought to discover the effects of human individual differences on Web search strategy. These differences consisted of (a) study approaches, (b) cognitive and demographic features, and (c) perceptions of and preferred approaches to Web-based information seeking. Sixty-eight master's students used AltaVista to search for information on three assigned search topics graded in terms of complexity. Five hundred seven search queries were factor analyzed to identify relationships between the individual difference variables and Boolean and best-match search strategies. A number of consistent patterns of relationship were found. As task complexity increased, a number of strategic shifts were also observed on the part of searchers possessing particular combinations of characteristics. A second article (published in this issue of JASIST; Ford, Miller, & Moss, 2005) presents a combined analyses of the data including a series of regression analyses.
- Research on Web search behavior
Library & Information Science Research, Vol. 23, No. 2. ( 2001), pp. 167-185.
This article reviews studies, conducted between 1995 and 2000, on Web search behavior. These studies reported on children as well as on adults. Most of the studies on children described their interaction with the Web. Research on adult searchers focused on describing search patterns, and many studies investigated effects of selected factors on search behavior, including information organization and presentation, type of search task, Web experience, cognitive abilities, and affective states. What distinguishes the research on adult searchers is the use of multiple data-gathering methods. The research on Web search behavior reflects researchers' commitment to examine users in their information environment and exhibits rigor in design and data analysis. However, many studies lack external validity. Implications of this body of research are discussed.
- The New Metrics of Scholarly Authority
The Chronicle (15 June 2007)
- Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning)
(01 December 2007)
Today we have access to an almost inconceivably vast amount of information, from sources that are increasingly portable, accessible, and interactive. The Internet and the explosion of digital media content have made more information available from more sources to more people than at any other time in human history. This brings an infinite number of opportunities for learning, social connection, and entertainment. But at the same time, the origin of information, its quality, and its veracity are often difficult to assess. This volume addresses the issue of credibility--the objective and subjective components that make information believable--in the contemporary media environment.
The contributors look particularly at youth audiences and experiences, considering the implications of wide access and the questionable credibility of information for youth and learning. They discuss such topics as the credibility of health information online, how to teach credibility assessment, and public policy solutions. Much research has been done on credibility and new media, but little of it focuses on users younger than college students. Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility fills this gap in the literature.
Contributors:
Matthew S. Eastin, Gunther Eysenbach, Brian Hilligoss, Frances Jacobson Harris, R. David Lankes, Soo Young Rieh, S. Shyam Sundar, Fred W. Weingarten.
- Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology (Oxford Handbook Series)
(04 May 2007)
Over one billion people use the Internet globally. Psychologists are beginning to understand what people do online, and the impact being online has on behaviour. It's making us re-think many of our existing assumptions about what it means to be a social being. For instance, if we can talk, flirt, meet people and fall in love online, this challenges many of psychology's theories that intimacy or understanding requires physical co-presence. "The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology" brings together many of the leading researchers in what can be termed 'Internet Psychology'. Though a very new area of research, it is growing at a phenomenal pace. In addition to well-studied areas of investigation, such as social identity theory, computer-mediated communication and virtual communities, the volume also includes chapters on topics as diverse as deception and misrepresentation, attitude change and persuasion online, Internet addiction, online relationships, privacy and trust, health and leisure use of the Internet, and the nature of interactivity. With over 30 chapters written by experts in the field, the range and depth of coverage is unequalled, and serves to define this emerging area of research. Uniquely, this content is supported by an entire section covering the use of the Internet as a research tool, including qualitative and quantitative methods, online survey design, personality testing, ethics, and technological and design issues. While it is likely to be a popular research resource to be 'dipped into', as a whole volume it is coherent and compelling enough to act as a single text book. "The Oxford Handbook of Internet Psychology" is the definitive text on this burgeoning field. It will be an essential resource for anyone interested in the psychological aspects of Internet use, or planning to conduct research using the 'net'.
- Aspects of Augmented Social Cognition: Social Information Foraging and Social Search
Online Communities and Social Computing (2007), pp. 60-69.
In this paper, we summarized recent work in modeling how users socially forage and search for information. One way to bridge between different communities of users is to diversify their information sources. This can be done using not only old mechanisms such as email, instant messages, newsgroups and bulletin boards, but also new ones such as wikis, blogs, social tags, etc. How do users work with diverse hints from other foragers? How do interference effects change their strategies? How can we build tools that help users cooperatively search? We seek theories that might help us answer these questions, or at least point us toward the right directions.
- Social Foraging Theory
(15 May 2000)
Although there is extensive literature in the field of behavioral ecology that attempts to explain foraging of individuals, social foraging--the ways in which animals search and compete for food in groups--has been relatively neglected. This book redresses that situation by providing both a synthesis of the existing literature and a new theory of social foraging. Giraldeau and Caraco develop models informed by game theory that offer a new framework for analysis. Social Foraging Theory contains the most comprehensive theoretical approach to its subject, coupled with quantitative methods that will underpin future work in the field. The new models and approaches that are outlined here will encourage new research directions and applications.To date, the analysis of social foraging has lacked unifying themes, clear recognition of the problems inherent in the study of social foraging, and consistent interaction between theory and experiments. This book identifies social foraging as an economic interaction between the actions of individuals and those of other foragers. This interdependence raises complex questions about the size of foraging groups, the diversity of resources used, and the propensity of group members to exploit each other or forage cooperatively. The models developed in the book will allow researchers to test their own approaches and predictions. Many years in development, Social Foraging Theory will interest researchers and graduate students in such areas as behavioral ecology, population ecology, evolutionary biology, and wildlife management.
- Online Communities and Social Computing: Second International Conference, OCSC 2007, Held as Part of HCI International 2007, Beijing, China, July 22-27, ... (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)
(17 August 2007)
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Online Communities and Social Computing, OCSC 2007, held in Beijing, China in July 2007 in the framework of the 12th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2007 with 8 other thematically similar conferences.
The 56 revised papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers accepted for presentation thoroughly cover the thematic area of online communities and social computing, addressing the following major topics: designing and developing on-line communities, as well as knowledge, collaboration, learning and local on-line communities.
- Analysis of multiple query reformulations on the web: the interactive information retrieval context
Information Processing and Management, Vol. 42, No. 3. (May 2006), pp. 751-768.
This study examines the facets and patterns of multiple Web query reformulations with a focus on reformulation sequences. Based on IR interaction models, it was presumed that query reformulation is the product of the interaction between the user and the IR system. Query reformulation also reflects the interplay between the surface and deeper levels of user interaction. Query logs were collected from a Web search engine through the selection of search sessions in which users submitted six or more unique queries per session. The final data set was composed of 313 search sessions. Three facets of query reformulation (content, format, and resource) as well as nine sub-facets were derived from the data. In addition, analysis of modification sequences identified eight distinct patterns: specified, generalized, parallel, building-block, dynamic, multitasking, recurrent, and format reformulation. Adapting Saracevic's stratified model, the authors develop a model of Web query reformulation based on the results of the study. The implications for Web search engine design are finally discussed and the functions of an interactive reformulation tool are suggested.
- The Economics of Surfing
Quarterly Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 1, No. 3. (2000), pp. 203-214.
We have established that depending on the domain of inquiry, users display different and regular patterns of surfing. This difference can be exploited in order to benefit information providers. We propose mechanisms for implementing temporal discrimination in surfing by dynamically configuring sites and versioning information services.
- A Model of Single-page Web Search: The Effect of Interdependence on Link Assessment
(2004)
- Good enough but I'll just check: web-page search as attentional refocusing
(2004), pp. 46-51.
- Depth- and breadth-first processing of search result lists
(2004), pp. 1539-1539.
- Optimizing web search using social annotations
(2007), pp. 501-510.
This paper explores the use of social annotations to improve websearch. Nowadays, many services, e.g. del.icio.us, have been developed for web users to organize and share their favorite webpages on line by using social annotations. We observe that the social annotations can benefit web search in two aspects: 1) the annotations are usually good summaries of corresponding webpages; 2) the count of annotations indicates the popularity of webpages. Two novel algorithms are proposed to incorporate the above information into page ranking: 1) SocialSimRank (SSR)calculates the similarity between social annotations and webqueries; 2) SocialPageRank (SPR) captures the popularity of webpages. Preliminary experimental results show that SSR can find the latent semantic association between queries and annotations, while SPR successfully measures the quality (popularity) of a webpage from the web users' perspective. We further evaluate the proposed methods empirically with 50 manually constructed queries and 3000 auto-generated queries on a dataset crawledfrom delicious. Experiments show that both SSR and SPRbenefit web search significantly.
- Can social bookmarking enhance search in the web?
(2007), pp. 107-116.
Social bookmarking is an emerging type of a Web service that helps users share, classify, and discover interesting resources. In this paper, we explore the concept of an enhanced search, in which data from social bookmarking systems is exploited for enhancing search in the Web. We propose combining the widely used link-based ranking metric with the one derived using social bookmarking data. First, this increases the precision of a standard link-based search by incorporating popularity estimates from aggregated data of bookmarking users. Second, it provides an opportunity for extending the search capabilities of existing search engines. Individual contributions of bookmarking users as well as the general statistics of their activities are used here for a new kind of a complex search where contextual, temporal or sentiment-related information is used. We investigate the usefulness of social bookmarking systems for the purpose of enhancing Web search through a series of experiments done on datasets obtained from social bookmarking systems. Next, we show the prototype system that implements the proposed approach and we present some preliminary results.
- Web search engines and distributed assessment systems
Pragmatics & Cognition, Vol. 14, No. 2., pp. 387-409.
I analyse the impact of search engines on our cognitive and epistemic practices. For that purpose, I describe the processes of assessment of documents on the Web as relying on distributed cognition. Search engines together with Web users, are distributed assessment systems whose task is to enable efficient allocation of cognitive resources of those who use search engines. Specifying the cognitive function of search engines within these distributed assessment systems allows interpreting anew the changes that have been caused by search engine technologies. I describe search engines as implementing reputation systems and point out the similarities with other reputation systems. I thus call attention to the continuity in the distributed cognitive processes that determine the allocation of cognitive resources for information gathering from others.
- On the visibility of information on the Web: an exploratory experimental approach
Research Evaluation, Vol. 15, No. 2. (1 August 2006), pp. 107-115.
- Web indicators for complex innovation systems
Research Evaluation, Vol. 15, No. 2. (1 August 2006), pp. 85-95.
- Quality and Value: The True Purpose of peer review
Nature (2006)
Given its importance in steering the global research enterprise, peer review seems under-studied. There is a growing literature on the subject, some of which is highlighted at the quadrennial Peer Review Congress, but for the most part we are still only seeing snapshots 1 . A more systematic approach is needed if we are to understand peer review as it is currently practiced, or to evaluate the pros and cons of any alternative approaches.
- Rethinking Scholarly Communication: Building the System that Scholars Deserve
D-Lib Magazine, Vol. 10, No. 9. (September 2004)
- Evolving peer review for the internet
Nature (2006)
- Information Foraging Theory: Adaptive Interaction with Information (Oxford Series in Human-Technology Interaction)
(16 March 2007)
Although much of the hubris and hyperbole surrounding the 1990's Internet has softened to a reasonable level, the inexorable momentum of information growth continues unabated. This wealth of information provides resources for adapting to the problems posed by our increasingly complex world,
but the simple availability of more information does not guarantee its successful transformation into valuable knowledge that shapes, guides, and improves our activity. When faced with something like the analysis of sense-making behavior on the web, traditional research models tell us a lot about
learning and performance with browser operations, but very little about how people will actively navigate and search through information structures, what information they will choose to consume, and what conceptual models they will induce about the landscape of cyberspace.
Thus, it is fortunate that a new field of research, Adaptive Information Interaction (AII), is becoming possible. AII centers on the problems of understanding and improving human-information interaction. It is about how people will best shape themselves to their information environments, and how
information environments can best be shaped to people. Its roots lie in human-computer interaction (HCI), information retrieval, and the behavioral and social sciences.
This book is about Information Foraging Theory (IFT), a new theory in Adaptive Information Interaction that is one example of a recent flourish of theories in adaptationist psychology that draw upon evolutionary-ecological theory in biology. IFT assumes that people (indeed, all organisms) are
ecologically rational, and that human information-seeking mechanisms and strategies adapt the structure of the information environments in which they operate. Its main aim is to create technology that is better shaped to users. Information Foraging Theory will be of interest to student and
professional researchers in HCI and cognitive psychology.
- Group formation in large social networks: membership, growth, and evolution
(2006), pp. 44-54.
- Social Browsing on Flickr
(7 Dec 2006)
The new social media sites - blogs, wikis, del.icio.us and Flickr, among others - underscore the transformation of the Web to a participatory medium in which users are actively creating, evaluating and distributing information. The photo-sharing site Flickr, for example, allows users to upload photographs, view photos created by others, comment on those photos, etc. As is common to other social media sites, Flickr allows users to designate others as “contacts” and to track their activities in real time. The contacts (or friends) lists form the social network backbone of social media sites. We claim that these social networks facilitate new ways of interacting with information, e.g., through what we call social browsing. The contacts interface on Flickr enables users to see latest images submitted by their friends. Through an extensive analysis of Flickr data, we show that social browsing through the contacts' photo streams is one of the primary methods by which users find new images on Flickr. This finding has implications for creating personalized recommendation systems based on the user's declared contacts lists.