Showing papers in "Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology in 2005"

Introduction to bioinformatics

Abstract: Bioinformatics is a multifaceted discipline combining many scientific fields including computational biology, statistics, mathematics, molecular biology, and genetics. Bioinformatics enables biomedical investigators to exploit existing and emerging computational technologies to seamlessly store, mine, retrieve, and analyze data from genomics and proteomics technologies. This is achieved by creating unified data models, standardizing data interfaces, developing structured vocabularies, generating new data visualization methods, and capturing detailed metadata that describes various aspects of the experimental design and analysis methods. Already there are a number of related undertakings that are dividing the field into more specialized groups. Clinical Bioinformatics and Biomedical Informatics are emerging as transitional fields to promote the utilization of genomics and proteomics data combined with medical history and demographic data towards personalized medicine, molecular diagnostics, pharmacogenomics and predicting outcomes of therapeutic interventions. The field of bioinformatics will continue to evolve through the incorporation of diverse technologies and methodologies that draw experts from disparate fields to create the latest computational and informational tools specifically design for the biomedical research enterprise.

Conceptual framework for tasks in information studies

Abstract: Today information-intensive work tasks in professional settings involve highly dynamic information utilization in which information seeking and searching tasks are taking a more central role. This article considers the concept of task in the context of information studies in order to provide a definitional clarity for task-based information seeking and retrieval studies. We identify (1) the central task levels as well as (2) the kinds of dimensions connected to the levels from the perspective of information studies. The analysis is aimed to serve as a conceptual starting point for empirical studies in the research area. The focus is on some central aspects of tasks that are recognized within information studies as well as related research areas (e.g., organizational studies). We define two levels of information-related subtasks: information seeking tasks and information search tasks. Information retrieval tasks are explicitly considered as a specific type of information search task. We describe differences and connections between these task levels. Finally, the implications of the proposed conceptual framework for information studies are discussed.

Understanding Seeking From Electronic Knowledge Repositories: An Empirical Study

Abstract: Knowledge is a critical resource that can help organizations to sustain strategic advantage in competitive environments. Organizations in Asia and elsewhere are turning to knowledge management (KM) initiatives and technologies to leverage their knowledge resources. As a key component of KM initiatives, electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs) are deployed by organizations to store codified knowledge for future reuse. Although EKRs have been used for some time, there is a lack of understanding of what motivate employees' usage of an EKR. This study formulates and empirically tests a theoretical model relating potential antecedents to EKR usage for knowledge seeking. The model was operationalized and the survey instrument subjected to a conceptual validation process. The survey was administered to 160 knowledge professionals in public-sector organizations in Singapore who had accessed EKRs in the course of their work. Results reveal that perceived output quality directly affects EKR usage for knowledge seeking. Further, resource availability affects EKR usage for knowledge seeking particularly when task tacitness is low and incentives affect EKR usage particularly when task interdependence is high. Implications of these results for further research and improving EKR implementation are discussed.

How users assess web pages for information seeking

Abstract: In this article, we investigate the criteria used by online searchers when assessing the relevance of Web pages for information-seeking tasks. Twenty-four participants were given three tasks each, and they indicated the features of Web pages that they used when deciding about the usefulness of the pages in relation to the tasks. These tasks were presented within the context of a simulated work-task situation. We investigated the relative utility of features identified by participants (Web page content, structure, and quality) and how the importance of these features is affected by the type of information-seeking task performed and the stage of the search. The results of this study provide a set of criteria used by searchers to decide about the utility of Web pages for different types of tasks. Such criteria can have implications for the design of systems that use or recommend Web pages.

A probabilistic similarity metric for Medline records: A model for author name disambiguation

Abstract: We present a model for estimating the probability that a pair of author names (sharing last name and first initial), appearing on two different Medline articles, refer to the same individual. The model uses a simple yet powerful similarity profile between a pair of articles, based on title, journal name, coauthor names, medical subject headings (MeSH), language, affiliation, and name attributes (prevalence in the literature, middle initial, and suffix). The similarity profile distribution is computed from reference sets consisting of pairs of articles containing almost exclusively author matches versus nonmatches, generated in an unbiased manner. Although the match set is generated automatically and might contain a small proportion of nonmatches, the model is quite robust against contamination with nonmatches. We have created a free, public service (“Author-ity”: http://arrowsmith.psych.uic.edu) that takes as input an author’s name given on a specific article, and gives as output a list of all articles with that (last name, first initial) ranked by decreasing similarity, with match probability indicated.

A temporal comparison of AltaVista Web searching

Abstract: Major Web search engines, such as AltaVista, are essential tools in the quest to locate online information. This article reports research that used transaction log analysis to examine the characteristics and changes in AltaVista Web searching that occurred from 1998 to 2002. The research questions we examined are (1) What are the changes in AltaVista Web searching from 1998 to 2002? (2) What are the current characteristics of AltaVista searching, including the duration and frequency of search sessions? (3) What changes in the information needs of AltaVista users occurred between 1998 and 2002? The results of our research show (1) a move toward more interactivity with increases in session and query length, (2) with 70% of session durations at 5 minutes or less, the frequency of interaction is increasing, but it is happening very quickly, and (3) a broadening range of Web searchers' information needs, with the most frequent terms accounting for less than 1% of total term usage. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of Web search engines.

An analysis of the relative hardness of Reuters‐21578 subsets

Abstract: The existence, public availability, and widespread acceptance of a standard benchmark for a given information retrieval (IR) task are beneficial to research on this task, because they allow different researchers to experimentally compare their own systems by comparing the results they have obtained on this benchmark.The Reuters-21578 test collection, together with its earlier variants, has been such a standard benchmark for the text categorization (TC) task throughout the last 10 years.However, the benefits that this has brought about have somehow been limited by the fact that different researchers have “carved” different subsets out of this collection and tested their systems on one of these subsets only; systems that have been tested on different Reuters-21578 subsets are thus not readily comparable.In this article, we present a systematic, comparative experimental study of the three subsets of Reuters-21578 that have been most popular among TC researchers.The results we obtain allow us to determine the relative hardness of these subsets, thus establishing an indirect means for comparing TC systems that have, or will be, tested on these different subsets.

Predicting reading difficulty with statistical language models

Abstract: A potentially useful feature of information retrieval systems for students is the ability to identify documents that not only are relevant to the query but also match the student's reading level. Manually obtaining an estimate of reading difficulty for each document is not feasible for very large collections, so we require an automated technique. Traditional readability measures, such as the widely used Flesch-Kincaid measure, are simple to apply but perform poorly on Web pages and other non-traditional documents. This work focuses on building a broadly applicable statistical model of text for different reading levels that works for a wide range of documents. To do this, we recast the well-studied problem of readability in terms of text categorization and use straightforward techniques from statistical language modeling. We show that with a modified form of text categorization, it is possible to build generally applicable classifiers with relatively little training data. We apply this method to the problem of classifying Web pages according to their reading difficulty level and show that by using a mixture model to interpolate evidence of a word's frequency across grades, it is possible to build a classifier that achieves an average root mean squared error of between one and two grade levels for 9 of 12 grades. Such classifiers have very efficient implementations and can be applied in many different scenarios. The models can be varied to focus on smaller or larger grade ranges or easily retrained for a variety of tasks or populations.

Statistical relationships between downloads and citations at the level of individual documents within a single journal: Book Reviews

Abstract: Statistical relationships between downloads from ScienceDirect of documents in Elsevier's electronic journal Tetrahedron Letters and citations to these documents recorded in journals processed by the Institute for Scientific InformationsThomson Scientific for the Science Citation Index (SCI) are examined. A synchronous approach revealed that downloads and citations show different patterns of obsolescence of the used materials. The former can be adequately described by a model consisting of the sum of two negative exponential functions, representing an ephemeral and a residual factor, whereas the decline phase of the latter conforms to a simple exponential function with a decay constant statistically similar to that of the downloads residual factor. A diachronous approach showed that, as a cohort of documents grows older, its download distribution becomes more and more skewed, and more statistically similar to its citation distribution. A method is proposed to estimate the effect of citations upon downloads using obsolescence patterns. It was found that during the first 3 months after an article is cited, its number of downloads increased 25p compared to what one would expect this number to be if the article had not been cited. Moreover, more downloads of citing documents led to more downloads of the cited article through the citation. An analysis of 1,190 papers in the journal during a time interval of 2 years after publication date revealed that there is about one citation for every 100 downloads. A Spearman rank correlation coefficient of 0.22 was found between the number of times an article was downloaded and its citation rate recorded in the SCI. When initial downloads—defined as downloads made during the first 3 months after publication—were discarded, the correlation raised to 0.35. However, both outcomes measure the joint effect of downloads upon citation and that of citation upon downloads. Correlating initial downloads to later citation counts, the correlation coefficient drops to 0.11. Findings suggest that initial downloads and citations relate to distinct phases in the process of collecting and processing relevant scientific information that eventually leads to the publication of a journal article. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The bibliometric properties of article readership information

Abstract: Digital libraries such as the NASA Astrophysics Data System (Kurtz et al., 2005) permit the easy accumulation of a new type of bibliometric measure, the number of electronic accesses (“reads”) of individual articles. We explore various aspects of this new measure. We examine the obsolescence function as measured by actual reads and show that it can be well fit by the sum of four exponentials with very different time constants. We compare the obsolescence function as measured by readership with the obsolescence function as measured by citations. We find that the citation function is proportional to the sum of two of the components of the readership function. This proves that the normative theory of citation is true in the mean. We further examine in detail the similarities and differences among the citation rate, the readership rate, and the total citations for individual articles, and discuss some of the causes. Using the number of reads as a bibliometric measure for individuals, we introduce the read–cite diagram to provide a two-dimensional view of an individual's scientific productivity. We develop a simple model to account for an individual's reads and cites and use it to show that the position of a person in the read–cite diagram is a function of age, innate productivity, and work history. We show the age biases of both reads and cites and develop two new bibliometric measures which have substantially less age bias than citations: SumProd, a weighted sum of total citations and the readership rate, intended to show the total productivity of an individual; and Read10, the readership rate for articles published in the last 10 years, intended to show an individual's current productivity. We also discuss the effect of normalization (dividing by the number of authors on a paper) on these statistics. We apply SumProd and Read10 using new, nonparametric techniques to compare the quality of different astronomical research organizations.

When is “enough” enough? Modeling the information-seeking and stopping behavior of senior arts administrators

Abstract: Among managers, those who are responsible for nonprofit organizations in general and arts organizations in particular have been an understudied group. These managers have much in common with their for-profit counterparts, but their environment also differs in significant ways. The goal of this exploratory research effort was to identify how senior administrators in fine arts museums and symphony orchestras go about identifying and acquiring the information they want to complete a range of management tasks. Deciding when and where to look for information, obtaining the “right” information at the time it is needed, evaluating its credibility and utility, and determining when “enough” information has been collected are challenges facing this group of information users every day. A multiple-case studies design involving a replication strategy was selected to structure the research process. Data were collected from 12 arts administrators using a pretested interview protocol that included the Critical Incident Technique. Patterns in the data were identified, and the data were further reviewed for disconfirming evidence. The study resulted in a list of the types and sources of information that arts administrators use as well as a list of the factors or “stopping criteria” that influence them to end their informationseeking process. A model describing the way in which arts administrators go about acquiring the information they want was also developed. The main findings of the study are (a) arts administrators do not consider information seeking to be a discrete management task, (b) they rely heavily on direct personal experience to fill their information-seeking needs, and (c) they are “satisficers” when it comes to seeking information. Based on Simon’s alternative to rational choice theory, satisficers are people who are willing to pursue a “good enough” option rather than the best possible option (maximizers) (Simon, 1956). Since arts administrators have not been studied in the context of LIS research before, understanding more about where they go for information, what factors influence the level of effort they are willing to invest in seeking information, and how they decide when they have “enough” information provides insights into the information-seeking behavior of a new user group. Furthermore, although this research effort is focused on specific users in a specific field, the results from this study may be compared to what we already know about other user groups to confirm and expand existing models of information-seeking behavior.

Web search strategies and human individual differences: Cognitive and demographic factors, Internet attitudes, and approaches

Abstract: 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.

Web citation data for impact assessment: A comparison of four science disciplines

Abstract: The number and type of Web citations to journal articles in four areas of science are examined: biology, genetics, medicine, and multidisciplinary sciences. For a sample of 5,972 articles published in 114 journals, the median Web citation counts per journal article range from 6.2 in medicine to 10.4 in genetics. About 30% of Web citations in each area indicate intellectual impact (citations from articles or class readings, in contrast to citations from bibliographic services or the author's or journal's home page). Journals receiving more Web citations also have higher percentages of citations indicating intellectual impact. There is significant correlation between the number of citations reported in the databases from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI, now Thomson Scientific) and the number of citations retrieved using the Google search engine (Web citations). The correlation is much weaker for journals published outside the United Kingdom or United States and for multidisciplinary journals. Web citation numbers are higher than ISI citation counts, suggesting that Web searches might be conducted for an earlier or a more fine-grained assessment of an article's impact. The Web-evident impact of non-UK/USA publications might provide a balance to the geographic or cultural biases observed in ISI's data, although the stability of Web citation counts is debatable.

Relying on electronic journals: Reading patterns of astronomers

Abstract: Surveys of the members of the American Astronomical Society identify how astronomers use journals and what features and formats they prefer While every work field is distinct, the patterns of use by astronomers may provide a glimpse of what to expect of journal patterns and use by other scientists Astronomers, like other scientists, continue to invest a large amount of their time in reading articles and place a high level of importance on journal articles They use a wide variety of formats and means to get access to materials that are essential to their work in teaching, service, and research They select access means that are convenient - whether those means be print, electronic, or both The availability of a mature electronic journals system from their primary professional society has surely influenced their early adoption of e-journals

Analysis of the query logs of a web site search engine

Abstract: A large number of studies have investigated the transaction log of general-purpose search engines such as Excite and AltaVista, but few studies have reported on the analysis of search logs for search engines that are limited to particular Web sites, namely, Web site search engines. In this article, we report our research on analyzing the search logs of the search engine of the Utah state government Web site. Our results show that some statistics, such as the number of search terms per query, of Web users are the same for general-purpose search engines and Web site search engines, but others, such as the search topics and the terms used, are considerably different. Possible reasons for the differences include the focused domain of Web site search engines and users' different information needs. The findings are useful for Web site developers to improve the performance of their services provided on the Web and for researchers to conduct further research in this area. The analysis also can be applied in e-government research by investigating how information should be delivered to users in government Web sites.

Image querying by image professionals

Abstract: This article reports the analysis of two samples of search logs from a commercial image provider over a 1-month period. The study analyzes image searches and queries, user query modification strategies, and user browsing and downloading of results. Unique term searches are less frequent than earlier research has shown; descriptive and thematic queries are more common. Boolean searching, although heavily employed, appears to be ineffective and leads to query modifications. Although there was a large amount of query modification (61.7% of queries across the two samples), the tactics overall do not appear to be carefully thought out and seem to be largely experimental. Given the willingness to modify queries but the inability to do so in an effective way, more support for query modification may be beneficial.

Similarity measures, author cocitation analysis, and information theory

Abstract: The use of Pearson's correlation coefficient in Author Cocitation Analysis was compared with Salton's cosine measure in a number of recent contributions. Unlike the Pearson correlation, the cosine is insensitive to the number of zeros. However, one has the option of applying a logarithmic transformation in correlation analysis. Information calculus is based on both the logarithmic transformation and provides a non-parametric statistics. Using this methodology, one can cluster a document set in a precise way and express the differences in terms of bits of information. The algorithm is explained and used on the data set, which was made the subject of this discussion.

The effects of expertise and feedback on search term selection and subsequent learning

Abstract: Query formation and expansion is an integral part of nearly every effort to search for information. In the work reported here we investigate the effects of domain knowledge and feedback on search term selection and reformation. We explore differences between experts and novices as they generate search terms over 10 successive trials and under two feedback conditions. Search attempts were coded on quantitative dimensions such as the number of unique terms and average time per trial, and as a whole in an attempt to characterize the user's conceptual map for the topic under differing conditions of participant-defined domain expertise. Nine distinct strategies were identified. Differences emerged as a function of both expertise and feedback. In addition, strategic behavior varied depending on prior search conditions. The results are considered from both a theoretical and design perspective, and have direct implications for digital library usability and metadata generation, and query expansion systems.

Comparing faculty information seeking in teaching and research: Implications for the design of digital libraries

Abstract: ADEPT is a 5-year project whose goals are to develop, deploy, and evaluate inquiry learning capabilities for the Alexandria Digital Library, an extant digital library of primary sources in geography. We interviewed nine geography faculty members who teach undergraduate courses about their information seeking for research and teaching and their use of information resources in teaching. These data were supplemented by interviews with four faculty members from another ADEPT study about the nature of knowledge in geography. Among our key findings are that geography faculty are more likely to encounter useful teaching resources while seeking research resources than vice versa, although the influence goes in both directions. Their greatest information needs are for research data, maps, and images. They desire better searching by concept or theme, in addition to searching by location and place name. They make extensive use of their own research resources in their teaching. Among the implications for functionality and architecture of geographic digital libraries for educational use are that personal digital libraries are essential, because individual faculty members have personalized approaches to selecting, collecting, and organizing teaching resources. Digital library services for research and teaching should include the ability to import content from common office software and to store content in standard formats that can be exported to other applications. Digital library services can facilitate sharing among faculty but cannot overcome barriers such as intellectual property rights, access to proprietary research data, or the desire of individuals to maintain control over their own resources. Faculty use of primary and secondary resources needs to be better understood if we are to design successful digital libraries for research and teaching.

Scholarly Work and the Shaping of Digital Access

Abstract: In the cycle of scholarly communication, scholars play the role of both consumer and contributor of intellectual works within the stores of recorded knowledge. In the digital environment scholars are seeking and using information in new ways and generating new types of scholarly products, many of which are specialized resources for access to research information. These practices have important implications for the collection and organization of digital access resources. Drawing on a series of qualitative studies investigating the information work of scientists and humanities scholars, specific information seeking activities influenced by the Internet and two general modes of information access evident in research practice are identified in this article. These conceptual modes of access are examined in relation to the digital access resources currently being developed by researchers in the humanities and neuroscience. Scholars’ modes of access and their “working” and “implicit” assemblages of information represent what researchers actually do when gathering and working with research materials and therefore provide a useful framework for the collection and organization of access resources in research libraries.

Metric for web accessibility evaluation

Abstract: A novel metric for quantitatively measuring the content accessibility of the Web for persons with disabilities is proposed. The metric is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) checkpoints, an internationally accepted standard, that can be automatically tested using computer programs. Problems with current accessibility evaluation and the need for a good Web accessibility metric are discussed. The proposed metric is intended to overcome the deficiencies of the current measurements used in Web accessibility studies. The proposed metric meets the requirements as a measurement for scientific research. Examples of large-scale Web accessibility evaluations using the metric are given. The examples cover a comparison of Web accessibility of top medical journal Web sites and a longitudinal study of a Web site over time. The validity of the metric was tested using a large number of Web sites with different levels of compliance (rating categories) to the standard WCAG. The metric, which uses a predetermined simple weighting scheme, compares well to the more complex C5.0 machine learning algorithm in separating Web sites into different rating categories.

Worldwide use and impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System digital library

Abstract: The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), along with astronomy's journals and data centers (a collaboration dubbed URANIA), has developed a distributed online digital library which has become the dominant means by which astronomers search, access, and read their technical literature. Digital libraries permit the easy accumulation of a new type of bibliometric measure: the number of electronic accesses (“reads”) of individual articles. By combining data from the text, citation, and reference databases with data from the ADS readership logs we have been able to create second-order bibliometric operators, a customizable class of collaborative filters that permits substantially improved accuracy in literature queries. Using the ADS usage logs along with membership statistics from the International Astronomical Union and data on the population and gross domestic product (GDP), we have developed an accurate model for worldwide basic research where the number of scientists in a country is proportional to the GDP of that country, and the amount of basic research done by a country is proportional to the number of scientists in that country times that country's per capita GDP. We introduce the concept of utility time to measure the impact of the ADS/URANIA and the electronic astronomical library on astronomical research. We find that in 2002 it amounted to the equivalent of 736 full-time researchers, or $250 million, or the astronomical research done in France.

The social and discursive construction of computing skills

Abstract: In this article a social constructionist approach to information technology (IT) literacy is introduced. This approach contributes to the literature on IT literacy by introducing the concept of IT self as a description of the momentary, context-dependent, and multilayered nature of interpretations of IT competencies. In the research literature, IT literacy is often defined as sets of basic skills to be learned, and competencies to be demonstrated. In line with this approach, research on IT competencies conventionally develops models for explaining user acceptance, and for measuring computer-related attitudes and skills. The assumption is that computer-related attitudes and self-efficacy impact IT adoption and success in computer use. Computer self-efficacy measures are, however, often based on self-assessments that measure interpretations of skills rather than performance in practice. An analysis of empirical interview data in which academic researchers discuss their relationships with computers and IT competence shows how a self-assessment such as “computer anxiety” presented in one discussion context can in another discussion context be consigned to the past in favor of a different and more positive version. Here it is argued that descriptions of IT competencies and computer-related attitudes are dialogic social constructs and closely tied with more general implicit understandings of the nature of technical artifacts and technical knowledge. These implicit theories and assumptions are rarely taken under scrutiny in discussions of IT literacy yet they have profound implications for the aims and methods in teaching computer skills.

Evaluating the effectiveness of and patterns of interactions with automated searching assistance

Abstract: We report quantitative and qualitative results of an empirical evaluation to determine whether automated assistance improves searching performance and when searchers desire system intervention in the search process. Forty participants interacted with two fully functional information retrieval systems in a counterbalanced, within-participant study. The systems were identical in all respects except that one offered automated assistance and the other did not. The study used a client-side automated assistance application, an approximately 500,000-document Text REtrieval Conference content collection, and six topics. Results indicate that automated assistance can improve searching performance. However, the improvement is less dramatic than one might expect, with an approximately 20% performance increase, as measured by the number of userselected relevant documents. Concerning patterns of interaction, we identified 1,879 occurrences of searcher– system interactions and classified them into 9 major categories and 27 subcategories or states. Results indicate that there are predictable patterns of times when searchers desire and implement searching assistance. The most common three-state pattern is Execute Query–View Results: With Scrolling–View Assistance. Searchers appear receptive to automated assistance; there is a 71% implementation rate. There does not seem to be a correlation between the use of assistance and previous searching performance. We discuss the implications for the design of information retrieval systems and future research directions.

Clearing up “implicit knowledge”: Implications for Knowledge Management, information science, psychology, and social epistemology

Abstract: “Implicit knowledge” and “tacit knowledge” in Knowledge Management (KM) are important, often synonymous, terms. In KM they often refer to private or personal knowledge that needs to be made public. The original reference of “tacit knowledge” is to the work of the late scientist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi (Polanyi, 1969), but there is substantial evidence that the KM discourse has poorly understood Polanyi's term. Two theoretical problems in Knowledge Management's notion of “implicit knowledge,” which undermine empirical work in this area, are examined. The first problem involves understanding the term “knowledge” according to a folk-psychology of mental representation to model expression. The second is epistemological and social: understanding Polanyi's term, tacit knowing as a psychological concept instead of as an epistemological problem, in general, and one of social epistemology and of the epistemology of the sciences, in particular. Further, exploring Polanyi's notion of tacit knowing in more detail yields important insights into the role of knowledge in science, including empirical work in information science. This article has two parts: first, there is a discussion of the folk-psychology model of representation and the need to replace this with a more expressionist model. In the second part, Polanyi's concept of tacit knowledge in relation to the role of analogical thought in expertise is examined. The works of philosophers, particularly Harre and Wittgenstein, are brought to bear on these problems. Conceptual methods play several roles in information science that cannot satisfactorily be performed empirically at all or alone. Among these roles, such methods may examine historical issues, they may critically engage foundational assumptions, and they may deploy new concepts. In this article the last two roles are examined.

Impact of personality on technology adoption: An empirical model

Abstract: An innovator's personality along with the perceived attributes of an innovation predicts the rate of diffusion. The current study focuses on the personality factors that determine the likelihood of adoption of a technological innovation. To that end, the study distinguishes between global innovativeness and context-specific innovativeness. An information processing model was tested where technological innovativeness was purported to be indirectly influenced by an individual's global innovativeness, through its impact on communication and media use behaviors. The structural model was tested on two separate technology clusters, and partial support was found for linking sophistication in information search, and prior technology ownership to technological innovativeness.

A temporal comparison of AltaVista Web searching: Research Articles

Abstract: Major Web search engines, such as AltaVista, are essential tools in the quest to locate online information. This article reports research that used transaction log analysis to examine the characteristics and changes in AltaVista Web searching that occurred from 1998 to 2002. The research questions we examined are (1) What are the changes in AltaVista Web searching from 1998 to 2002? (2) What are the current characteristics of AltaVista searching, including the duration and frequency of search sessions? (3) What changes in the information needs of AltaVista users occurred between 1998 and 2002? The results of our research show (1) a move toward more interactivity with increases in session and query length, (2) with 70p of session durations at 5 minutes or less, the frequency of interaction is increasing, but it is happening very quickly, and (3) a broadening range of Web searchers' information needs, with the most frequent terms accounting for less than 1p of total term usage. We discuss the implications of these findings for the development of Web search engines. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Ranking the research productivity of library and information science faculty and schools: An evaluation of data sources and research methods

Abstract: This study evaluates the data sources and research methods used in earlier studies to rank the research productivity of Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty and schools. In doing so, the study identifies both tools and methods that generate more accurate publication count rankings as well as databases that should be taken into consideration when conducting comprehensive searches in the literature for research and curricular needs. With a list of 2,625 items published between 1982 and 2002 by 68 faculty members of 18 American Library Association– (ALA-) accredited LIS schools, hundreds of databases were searched. Results show that there are only 10 databases that provide significant coverage of the LIS indexed literature. Results also showthat restricting the data sources to one, two, or even three databases leads to inaccurate rankings and erroneous conclusions. Because no database provides comprehensive coverage of the LIS literature, researchers must rely on a wide range of disciplinary and multidisciplinary databases for ranking and other research purposes. The study answers such questions as the following: Is the Association of Library and Information Science Education’s (ALISE’s) directory of members a reliable tool to identify a complete list of faculty members at LIS schools? Howmany and which databases are needed in a multifile search to arrive at accurate publication count rankings? What coverage will be achieved using a certain number of databases? Which research areas are well covered by which databases? What alternative methods and tools are available to supplement gaps among databases? Did coverage performance of databases change over time? What counting method should be used when determining what and howmany items each LIS faculty and school has published? The authors recommend advanced analysis of research productivity to provide a more detailed assessment of research productivity of authors and programs.

Technology, security, and individual privacy: New tools, new threats, and new public perceptions

Abstract: Highly portable information collection and transmission technologies such as radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and smart cards are becoming ubiquitous in government and businessemployed in...

Developing a protocol for bioinformatics analysis: An integrated information behavior and task analysis approach

Abstract: The purpose of this research is to capture, understand, and model the process used by bioinformatics analysts when facing a specific scientific problem. Integrating information behavior with task analysis, we interviewed 20 bioinformatics experts about the process they follow to conduct a typical bioinformatics analysis - a functional analysis of a gene, and then used a task analysis approach to model that process. We found that each expert followed a unique process in using bioinformatics resources, but had significant similarities with their peers. We synthesized these unique processes into a standard research protocol, from which we developed a procedural model that describes the process of conducting a functional analysis of a gene. The model protocol consists of a series of 16 individual steps, each of which specifies detail for the type of analysis, how and why it is conducted, the tools used, the data input and output, and the interpretation of the results. The linking of information behavior and task analysis research is a novel approach, as it provides a rich high-level view of information behavior while providing a detailed analysis at the task level. In this article we concentrate on the latter.