• International Journal of Contents
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.61-68
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• 2012

Previous research on online health (e-health) information was primarily focused on consumer information search behavior and information quality. Although studies addressing online information quality have flourished, they have yet to thoroughly examine whether consumers actually use the information they search. The purspose of this study suggests a conceptual framework that examines the potential antecedents of a consumers' willingness to depend on e-health information as an indicator of the consumer's trust of the provided e-health information. The proposed antecedents include healthcare product involvement, online skill level, perceived quality, and credibility of the source. Using structural equation modeling on online survey data, seven hypotheses, which describe the relationships between the variables of the model, were tested. The results indicate that consumer willingness to depend on provided e-health information was significantly influenced by the consumers' perceived quality and credibility of specific e-health information. Consumer involvement in healthcare and their online skill-level, respectively, also positively related to perceived quality and credibility regarding e-health information.

• Journal of Science Education
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.49-55
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to examine how online knowledge-based search service is being used by students in science education. Reviewing information and summarizing data are important parts in scientific inquiry. As more and more information is available online, how to review and summarize online information for scientific inquiry also becomes an issue. In this study, we examined one of the popular online knowledge-based search services to see what kinds of information in secondary school chemistry are mostly sought and how reliable those information could be. The result indicated that users mostly seek scientific explanations and problem solving but about 30% of provided information appeared to be incorrect. It implicates that it is necessary to pay attention for teaching students how to obtain, evaluate, and communicate online information in science education to enhance students' ability for scientific inquiry.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.27
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• pp.265-289
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• 1994

Databases publicly available for online searching permit both citation and subject searching, however, subject searching has dominated the online search environment. Despite the power of citation searching, it may be underutilized This study explored the relationship between the number of cited references used in a citation search and information retrieval effectiveness, a relatively unstudied phenomenon. Three articles in the library and information science literature were chosen to represent sample questions. Cited reference searches were conducted for each article and each of its references. All searches were conducted in Social Scisearch and Scisearch on DIALOG. Relevance judgments on the retrieved citations were obtained from the authors of the original articles. This research focused on analyzing, in terms of information retrieval effectiveness, the overlap among postings sets retrieved by various combinations of cited references. The findings from the three case studies clearly showed that the more cited references used for the citation search, the better the performance, in terms of retrieving more relevant documents, up to a point of diminishing retums. In addition, generally the overall level of overlap among relevant documents sets was found to be low. Therefore, if only some of the cited references among many candidates are used for a citation search, a significant proportion of relevant documents may be missed. The analysis of the characteristics of cited references provided the ways to predict which cited refereces would be useful to improve information retrieval. The findings of this comprehensive exploratory study are of interest for both theoretical and practical reasons. They contribute to the development of a theoretical model for the effective use of the citation search. This model might also be implemented in operational online systems. In addition, the findings potentially will help online searchers improve their search strategies using the citation search so that they can better achieve their information retrieval goals: the retrieval of items relevant to a given question and the suppression of nonrelevant items.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.143-161
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• 1995

This paper defines online search strategy as a global approach to the resolution of online searching. Five search strategy models including Brief Search. Building Blocks Strategies. Successive Facet Strategies, Successive Fractions Approach, and Citation Pearl Growing, are critically reviewed. Applicability and adaptability of each strategy are examined in the real concrete online searching environment.

• Journal of the Korean Society for information Management
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.177-193
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• 2016

This study aims to analyze physicians' online information search process to solve the clinical questions at the point of care. To achieve this purpose, ten university hospital-based physicians participated in-depth interviews and observation studies. Based on Wilson's problem solving process, this study analyzed the characteristics of each information search stage and efficiency of online searching. The results showed that participants tend to relatively immediately formulate their clinical questions. However, basic searching strategies were only used and a few preferred information sources were chosen. However, average satisfaction degree of online searching appeared high with 5.7 (7 Likert-scale) and problem-solving index increased after searching. As physicians are likely to use well organized and evidenced-based credible information easily, it implies the needs for an integrated search system within the electronic medical record (EMR). In addition, as other online resources' awareness is lower comparing Google and PubMed, active promotions and training of other resources are needed.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.635-660
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• 2024

A growing body of research explores how users of online communities navigate through large-scale platforms to find the information they seek. This study builds on the theories of homophily, structural embeddedness, and social exchange to investigate how interest homophily and existing communication structures serve as mechanisms driving information searches and the subsequent formation of communication networks in these communities. Specifically, we analyze comment-on-post tie formation using network data from "Today's House," the largest online user community specializing in interior design in Korea. Employing the LR-QAP method, a permutation-based hypothesis testing algorithm for social network data, our research identifies that network tie formation is driven by both homophilous information searches based on instrumental and hedonic interests, as well as by structurally induced searches such as preferential attachment, reciprocity, and transitivity. In addition, we investigate the contingent effects of communication structure on homophilous tie formation. Our findings suggest that while network-wide structural characteristics enhance homophilous tie formation based on instrumental interests, local network processes leverage homophily based on hedonic interests. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of the differential influence of participation motivations on information search patterns and the practical implications for the design of online communities.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.143-167
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• 2006

Despite the popularity of e-commerce, the understanding of preferred product types for information searches and purchase on the internet are not sufficient. This paper studies the effect of risk perception on information search behavior through online only, offline only, and on-offline together. Specially, this study classifies product types into search goods, experience goods, and credence goods. The study attempts to determine how the relationship between the perceived risk and the information search is influenced by the product knowledge level. The results show that the higher the risk perceptions about experience goods and credence goods, the more the consumer searches information through online and offline together when the consumer's knowledge level is low. When the consumer's knowledge level is high, however, the higher the risk perception regarding search goods, the more the consumer searches information through online only.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.69-90
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• 2007

This study is set out to investigate the factors that influence customers' behavior of choice and switching between online and offline channels, separating the purchase decision into two stages, i.e., information search and purchase. Factors influencing channel choice are found to differ from stage to stage. The main results of this study are as follows. At the information search stage, customers' channel knowledge had impacts on the choice of the channel. Customers are more likely to visit offline bookstores when they have hedonic shopping orientation and higher involvement level with books. On the contrary, customers are more apt to search online when they have a lot of online shopping experiences. At the purchase stage, the results varied according to the search channel. When customers search for information online, the following variables lead to online purchases: online shopping experiences with books, price-focused shopping orientation, and time availability for shopping. Perceived risk made customers purchase offline even though they searched online. In case of offline searching, customers with more convenience-focused, hedonic-focused shopping orientation and less tim availability purchased offline.

• Journal of Information Management
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.61-79
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• 1995

The purpose of this paper is to investigate search efficiency of controlled vocabulary versus uncontrolled vocabulary subject access in online catalog systems. The question of the effectiveness of controlled versus uncontrolled vocabulary in information retrieval has been raised in many literatures. A debate continues in the Library and Information Science Professions over the relative merit, appropriateness, and efficiency of uncontrolled vocabulary subject access in online catalog systems. Actually users used to combine uncontrolled vocabulary subject searching with controlled vocabulary subject searching. But the success of user's subject search depends on his choice of search terms. Also the technical developments that facilitate cooperation among information services in general make it increasingly possible for such cooperation to take place on an international level. In this study, several common types of vocabularies on online catalog systems are described and compared, especially usages of vocabularies in multilingual environment are analyzed.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.31 no.12
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• pp.1721-1732
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• 2007

This study identified types of information source, and explored a path model for consumer information search by shopping attributes in the context of online decision making. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires during regularly scheduled classes. A total of 219 usable questionnaires were obtained from respondents who enroll at universities in the southwestern region of the United States. For data analysis, factor analysis and path model estimation were used. Consumer information source was classified into three types for online clothing purchases: Online source, Offline retail source, and Mass media. Consumers were more likely to rely on offline retail source for online clothing purchases, than other sources. In consumer information search by shopping attributes, online sources were more likely to be related to transaction-related attributes(e.g., incentive service), whereas offline retail source(e.g., displays in stores, manufacturer's catalogs and pamphlets) were more likely to be related to product and market related attributes(e.g., aesthetics, price) when purchasing clothing online. Also, the path model emphasizes the effect of shopping attributes on traditional retailer search behavior, leading to online purchase intention for clothing. This study supports consumer information search by attributes, and discusses a managerial implication of multi-channel retailing for apparel.