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Judgment of information quality and cognitive authority in the Web
Open accessAbstract
In the Web, making judgments of information quality and authority is a difficult task for most users because overall, there is no quality control mechanism. This study examines the problem of the judgment of information quality and cognitive authority by observing people's searching behavior in the Web. Its purpose is to understand the various factors that influence people's judgment of quality and authority in the Web, and the effects of those judgments on selection behaviors. Fifteen scholars from diverse disciplines participated, and data were collected combining verbal protocols during the searches, search logs, and postsearch interviews. It was found that the subjects made two distinct kinds of judgment: predictive judgment, and evaluative judgment. The factors influencing each judgment of quality and authority were identified in terms of characteristics of information objects, characteristics of sources, knowledge, situation, ranking in search output, and general assumption. Implications for Web design that will effectively support people's judgments of quality and authority are also discussed.
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Citations
Cited by
Metzger, M. J. (2007) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.20672 · Cited by 871
Diviani, N., van den Putte, B., Giani, S., & van Weert, J. C. (2015) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/jmir.4018 · Cited by 638
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Self-citationCredibility: A multidisciplinary framework
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Self-citationSun, Y., Zhang, Y., Gwizdka, J., & Trace, C. B. (2019) · Journal of Medical Internet Research · doi:10.2196/12522 · Cited by 333
Kang, J.-W., & Namkung, Y. (2019) · International Journal of Hospitality Management · doi:10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.10.011 · Cited by 343
Choi, S. M., & Rifon, N. J. (2002) · Journal of Interactive Advertising · doi:10.1080/15252019.2002.10722064 · Cited by 248
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Hughes, B., Joshi, I., Lemonde, H., & Wareham, J. (2009) · International Journal of Medical Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2009.04.008 · Cited by 217
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Greiner, M. E., & Wang, H. (2010) · International Journal of Electronic Commerce · doi:10.2753/jec1086-4415150204 · Cited by 185
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Kammerer, Y., Bråten, I., Gerjets, P., & Strømsø, H. I. (2013) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.012 · Cited by 129
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Balatsoukas, P., & Ruthven, I. (2012) · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.22707 · Cited by 66
Neal, D. M., Campbell, A. J., Williams, L. Y., Liu, Y., & Nussbaumer, D. (2011) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2010.07.015 · Cited by 58
Jamali, H. R., Nicholas, D., Watkinson, A., Herman, E., Tenopir, C., Levine, K., Allard, S., Christian, L., Volentine, R., Boehm, R., et al. (2014) · Library & Information Science Research · doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2014.08.002 · Cited by 51
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Little, D., & Green, D. A. (2022) · Higher Education Research & Development · doi:10.1080/07294360.2020.1871325 · Cited by 44
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Alpar, P., Engler, T. H., & Schulz, M. (2015) · Information Processing & Management · doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2015.01.004 · Cited by 36
Barnoy, S., Volfin‐Pruss, D., Ehrenfeld, M., & Kushnir, T. (2011) · Nursing & Health Sciences · doi:10.1111/j.1442-2018.2011.00626.x · Cited by 15
Tafesse, W., & Sandhu, M. (2026) · Cogent Business & Management · doi:10.1080/23311975.2026.2667448 · Cited by 4
The impact of generative AI search result design on user perceptions and information adoption
Li, A. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3786304.3787937
Metadata
- Authors
- Rieh, S. Y.
- Venue
- Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2001-12-14
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 145-161
- ISSN
- 1532-2882 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-2890
- OpenAlex
- W4256659977
- Cited by
- 612
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 17.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
