Credibility Commons: Improving Access to Credible Information?

Librarians and information specialists often express concern that the quality of online information varies widely and that credibility is an major issue. Consumers often decide whether to use the informaition on a web site based how professional the site appears or the site's information matches their personal views.

To address this issue, researchers from Syracuse University and the University of Washington have received a two-year $250,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to establish a Web service being called the Credibility Commons. Among other areas of research, the Commons will investigate the creation of a search engine that would direct users toward sites to which skilled searchers (reference librarians) frequently direct their customers.

An experimental Reference Extract site is already available.

According to the Credibility Commons project site, the project is an "experimental environment enabling individuals the opportunity to try out different approaches to improving access to credible information on the World Wide Web. Tools will be provided to researchers as well as the public, allowing them to try out search strategies, collections and other approaches to improving access to credible information. The Commons can be viewed as a collaborative space in which to share ideas, data sets, results and innovations."

The commons will have three primary components:

• TriPart Research: a series of studies the span individual credibility behaviors to collaborative group credibility actions. These research activities are tied to an ongoing coherent research agenda. Research takes data from external studies, information from public use of credibility tools and the evolving capabilities of Internet tools.
  
  
• Tools: working with developers and information providers regardless of industry sector or commercial status to incorporate new credibility tools and mechanisms into a wide array of information products. The commons shall facilitate translating the research of leading scholars and organizations into real tools and mechanisms.
  
  
• Public: tools and research of the commons shall have validation in real use. A major component of the Commons shall be a public Internet presence with tools, tutorials, research reports, consumer guides, and means of taking in user feedback.
  

The Credibility Commons is an outgrowth of the American Library Association’s Office of Information & Technology Policy and the University of Washington investigation into the issues of credibility of Internet information. Sphere: Related Content

Are OSS4Lib Networks Needed?

I just finished reading Rachel Singer Gordon and Michael Stephen's column in Linux Insider regarding open source for libraries. Like many articles on the topic it focuses on the uses of open source software in libraries, something I wholeheartedly support!!

However, I have a problem with libraries and open source software.

Libraries have traditionally banded together to pool resources with the common goals of obtaining monographs, serials, and databases as economically as possible. The decision to develop or become involved with a library network is to affect a positive change on a library’s ability to plan and budget.

Unlike these cooperative efforts of the past, libraries have chosen to work independently on information system solutions. With the significant costs involved in the purchasing and maintenance commerical information systems why haven't more libraries banded together to build library systems?

The open source for libraries approach to system development is different from past efforts to build “homegrown” information systems. Frequently, libraries that attempt to develop their own systems lack all the human elements to create scalable and portable systems. An IT staff with programming, testing, evaluation, troubleshooting, and user education skills is needed to create such systems. While a single library may lack the resources, a group of libraries working together has a greater chance of assembling a development team with a full complement of these skills.

An open source network can also serve as a peer review system that is missing from many homegrown development projects. When the programmer of a homegrown system leaves employment the system gradually falls apart and dies. With open source development someone in the development community usually takes over the management responsibilities of viable and useful systems and they continue to evolve.

In a continuing era where budgets are trim and the need for innovated and flexible library systems growing, libraries need to begin establishing new resource sharing networks that focus on the development of information systems needed to support Internet-based library services.

However, in order for this to happen library administrators need to refocus their vision. They need to begin viewing open source products as a commerical alternatives. They need to begin reallocating human and fiscal resources into the development of new systems that can change and adapt as fast as our environment. They need to rethink the services their library offers and how those services are delivered.

Otherwise, there will be too many 1.0 libraries struggling to exist in a 2.0 world. Sphere: Related Content

If You Read This Entire Web Page You Are An Exception To The Rule

In 2000, Jakob Nielsen authored the book Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity which emphasizes fast and efficient methods for improving the quality of user interfaces. He is currently a principal of the Nielsen/Norman Group and has been writing the AlertBox column since 1995.

Mr. Nielsen has recently taken to the road giving four seminars based on a recently completed an eye-tracking study that investigated how users consume Web pages. According interviews with ZDNet's Dan Farber and with USA Today's Edward C. Baig, "...peoples' eyes flitter fast across pages. Very little time is allocated to each page element, so you have to be brief and concise in communicating online."

According to the study web users don't look across the lines of a page. People look down web pages in an 'F' pattern with the right-hand side of a page often never viewed. ( So, what are your eyes doing over here?) Sometimes the eye tracking results in an 'E' pattern but the study finds it's usually an F.

The Nielsen/Norman Group asked more than 230 participants to research specific tasks and company information online. Tasks included learning to tie a type of knot called a "bowline," shopping for a mortgage and deciding whether to adopt a cairn terrier or pharaoh hound from an animal shelter.

The study also discovered that pictures, images and moving objects tend to be more of an obstacle. Image quality is a major factor in drawing attention with people in pictures that face forward and look directly at the user being more inviting and approachable. Pictures that provide useful information, not just decoration, are more effective and images in the middle of a page are problematic.

Advertisers should be concerned since the study revieled that web users will peek at ads in search engines as a secondary task since they usually have specific product targets in mind. Since users fixate on the first few words of a headline, but often only for a tenth of second,concise headlines need to be used.

By understanding the F principle, Nielsen feels that writing eye-catching and usable sites is possible.

I wonder how many libraries will revisit their sites and make changes based on this study? Sphere: Related Content

Broadband over Power Lines: Causing Static?

In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission set up a rules for companies rolling out tests of a technology called Broadband over Powerlines (BPL). BPL, commonly referred to as HomePlug or powerline communication (PLC), is a technology that uses radio waves, transmitted over power lines, to provide broadband Internet or other data connectivity.

BPL is attractive because of the power grid's ubiquity. It has been touted as a "third wire" into the home and a way to bring high-speed service to rural areas underserved by cable and phone companies. Such ubiquitous availability would make easier to attached other electronics, such as televisions, to a network. BPL offers obvious benefits over regular cable or digital subscriber line (DSL) connections since an extensive infrastructure is already available.

BPL service is established by inserting a radio-frequency signal on to the power line, much like a high-frequency signal is applied to phone lines to create DSL. The college radio station I worked at utilized a similar technology called carrier current to broadcast one of our stations to the dorms.

Unlike phone and cable wires, power lines that run above ground can act as large radio antennas, emitting the high-frequency signal as radio waves. In order to get broadband speeds, BPL uses a large number of frequencies. However, radio waves can create interference in other electronics. This is why air travelers are instructed to turn off their electronic devices during take off and landing. CableTV-based broadband gets around this by placing cabling with shielding underground. If interference continues to be a problem for BPL, it could result in upgrades to power networks and eliminating the cost effectiveness of BPL. The actual BPL signal itself could also be interfered with by other outside sources.

According to the American Radio Relay League , the national ham radio association, radio waves from an improperly designed system can drown out amateur radio within a quarter of a mile. A report issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Adminstration (NTIA) concluded that a BPL transmitter operating within limits would significantly increase the noise for a vehicle-mounted receiver operating in a residential neighborhood next to a BPL-energized line and that it "may experience harmful interference" depending on the frequency.

While the technology has great potential to close that final mile we will have to wait and see if it cleans up its signal enough for widespread deployment. Sphere: Related Content