Who Uses the Web as a Health Information Source?

This article presents some preliminary results from a larger ongoing study on health information in media. An attempt is made to profile typical users of Web resources concerning health. Three groups of people in different health situations were interviewed on their use of different information sources in their search for health information. In this paper the focus is on health information sources found on the Internet. The aim was to examine whether there are any differences in the use due to gender, age, education and occupation as well as current health status. The use of a point-giving system, which gave higher points to sources used more frequently or considered more reliable by the respondents, revealed differences between pregnant women, persons with diabetes and a control group consisting of healthy people. The groups of pregnant women and diabetics were generally more active Web-users than the control group and used discussion forums and health portals more while members of the control group read online newspapers more actively than the others did. Some differences in gender and age were also found: men were more likely to read newspapers than women, but women were more active users of discussion forums. The younger respondents were also often more active than the older ones were. The findings were generally similar to those of previous studies.

Exploring the information behaviour of users of Welsh Newspapers Online through web log analysis

Purpose

– Webometric techniques have been applied to many websites and online resources, especially since the launch of Google Analytics (GA). To date, though, there has been little consideration of information behaviour in relation to digitised newspaper collections. The purpose of this paper is to address a perceived gap in the literature by providing an account of user behaviour in the newly launched Welsh Newspapers Online (WNO).

Design/methodology/approach

– The author collected webometric data for WNO using GA and web server content logs. These were analysed to identify patterns of engagement and user behaviour, which were then considered in relation to existing information behaviour.

Findings

– Use of WNO, while reminiscent of archival information seeking, can be understood as centring on the web interface rather than the digitised material. In comparison to general web browsing, users are much more deeply engaged with the resource. This engagement incorporates reading online, but users’ information seeking utilises website search and browsing functionality rather than filtering in newspaper material. Information seeking in digitised newspapers resembles the model of the “user” more closely than that of the “reader”, a value-laden distinction which needs further unpacking.

Research limitations/implications

– While the behaviour discussed in this paper is likely to be more widely representative, a larger longitudinal data set would increase the study’s significance. Additionally, the methodology of this paper can only tell us what users are doing, and further research is needed to identify the drivers for this behaviour.

Originality/value

– This study provides important insights into the underinvestigated area of digitised newspaper collections, and shows the importance of webometric methods in analysing online user behaviour.

Employing log metrics to evaluate search behaviour and success: case study BBC search engine

This paper argues that metrics can be generated from search transactional web logs that can help evaluate search engine effectiveness. Search logs from the BBC website were analysed and metrics extracted. Two search metrics — the time lapse between searches and the number of searches in a session — were developed to see whether they could measure search success or satisfaction. In all, 4 million search statements by 900,000 users were evaluated. The BBC search engine possessed a number of functional attributes which sought to improve retrieval and these were subjected to the two metrics to help determine how successful they were in practice. There was some evidence to support the proposition that the search outcome metrics did indeed indicate the effectiveness of engine functionality. The authors argue that this result is significant in that the identification of search outcome metrics will pave the way for assessing the effectiveness of site specific search engines and a greater understanding of the effectiveness of search engine functionality.

Site navigation and its impact on the content viewed by the virtual scholar: a deep log analysis

This paper presents early findings of a unique analysis that related questionnaire data to site usage as recorded in the transaction log reports of ScienceDirect, for the same people. Its focus is the differences in the online behaviour of three types of navigational users: those accessing the site via a gateway (either via a reference hyperlink or subject search facility), those using the on site search facility and those employing menus. Towards this end 16,865 sessions were analysed and grouped by navigational entry and compared over three types of online behaviour: the viewing of articles in press (AIP), the number of different journals viewed in a session and the viewing of old material. A strong association was found between form of navigation and behavioural trait. Those using menus were more likely to view AIPs, while those using the search facility were more likely to view a greater number of different journals and were more likely to view older material. This supports a hypothesis proposed by Nicholas et al. (2006) that use of the online searching facility increases the visibility of material irrespective of journal and age and results in a greater use of older material and a more diverse journal use compared to other online and off-line information retrieval methods. Although research has been undertaken on the different strategies that users employ to navigate and find their way around a collection of content (e.g. a digital library), this we believe is the first time the effect of different navigational strategies on outcomes (for example, what is viewed) has been investigated.