Search results

The purpose of the current study is to examine a social network site (SNS) users' overall satisfaction with SNS use in conjunction with their fan page visiting activities. We examined overall satisfaction with SNS usage from the lens of people's perceptions acquired from the use of sub-components of SNS.

The current study employed uncertainty reduction theory (URT) and general systems theory (GST) to examine antecedents affecting overall satisfaction with SNS use. Five constructs were adopted: interactive and passive uncertainty reduction strategies, perceived usefulness and continuance visiting behavior, satisfaction, and perceived functional benefits. Using a web-based survey, we analyzed 200 SNS users who follow at least one company's fan page, utilizing seemingly unrelated regression models to test hypotheses empirically.

Research findings reveal that uncertainty reduction strategies supported by URT are significantly associated with the perceived usefulness of a company's fan page. In turn, we found that perceived usefulness becomes a strong motivator to continuance visits to the fan page. The frequency of return visiting behaviors eventually accounts for overall satisfaction with SNS. Perceived functional benefits moderates the relationship between perceived usefulness and visiting behaviors significantly.

The current study contributes to information systems (IS), electronic communication, and their adjacent academic disciplines in providing evidence, including (1) the impact of uncertainty reduction strategies on continuance visiting behaviors in the SNS context, (2) SNS functionalities influencing the relationship between people's belief and behavior, and (3) theoretical significant perceptional link between a sub-component and a whole.

The purpose of this paper is to assign topic‐specific ratings to web pages.

The paper uses power iteration to assign topic‐specific rating values (called relevance) to web pages, creating a ranking or partial order among these pages for each topic. This approach depends on a set of pages that are initially assumed to be relevant for a specific topic; the spatial link structure of the web pages; and a net‐specific decay factor designated ξ.

The paper finds that this approach exhibits desirable properties such as fast convergence, stability and yields relevant answer sets. The first property will be shown using theoretical proofs, while the others are evaluated through stability experiments and assessments of real world data in comparison with already established algorithms.

In the assessment, all pages that a web spider was able to find in the Nordic countries were used. It is also important to note that entities that use domains outside the Nordic countries (e.g..com or.org) are not present in the paper's datasets even though they reside logically within one or more of the Nordic countries. This is quite a large dataset, but still small in comparison with the entire worldwide web. Moreover, the execution speed of some of the algorithms unfortunately prohibited the use of a large test dataset in the stability tests.

It is not only possible, but also reasonable, to perform ranking of web pages without using Markov chain approaches. This means that the work of generating answer sets for complex questions could (at least in theory) be divided into smaller parts that are later summed up to give the final answer.

This paper contributes to the research on internet search engines.

The Web's link structure (termed the Web Graph) is a richly connected set of Web pages. Current applications use this graph for indexing and information retrieval purposes. In contrast the relationship between Web Graph and application is reversed by letting the structure of the Web Graph influence the behaviour of an application. Presents a novel Web crawling agent, AlienBot, the output of which is orthogonally coupled to the enemy generation strategy of a computer game. The Web Graph guides AlienBot, causing it to generate a stochastic process. Shows the effectiveness of such unorthodox coupling to both the playability of the game and the heuristics of the Web crawler. In addition, presents the results of the sample of Web pages collected by the crawling process. In particular, shows: how AlienBot was able to identify the power law inherent in the link structure of the Web; that 61.74 per cent of Web pages use some form of scripting technology; that the size of the Web can be estimated at just over 5.2 billion pages; and that less than 7 per cent of Web pages fully comply with some variant of (X)HTML.

A simple notation for describing the internal structure of a document is presented, and contrasted with other, more conventional notations for describing documents, in particular those related to subject‐classification systems and document description for bibliographic purposes, as well as with document metalanguage codes such as those of SGML. It is suggested such a notation should assist the science of human messaging through (1) permitting hypotheses to be more readily expressed and/or tested concerning document structure, and (2) facilitating the formation of taxonomies of documents based on their structures. Such a notation should also be of practical value in contributing to the processes of document specification, building and testing, and possibly also contribute to new generations of IR systems which link retrieval against record databases to the search systems internal to specific documents. It is suggested that, following formative criticism, professional standards for describing document structure should be sought based on the notation. The notation is at present limited to linear documents, but extensions to it to accommodate documents in non‐linear form (e.g. hypertext documents) and/or existing in physically distributed form, could usefully be constructed. Examples of the application of the notation are provided.

Brand fan pages on social networks have become very popular online services. However, empirical research on fan pages is still in its infancy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fan pages on the customer‐brand relationship and what motivates users to participate.

For this a framework was developed based on classical concepts of use and gratification theory, customer engagement, and involvement theory. The model is tested using a multi‐step approach of qualitative and quantitative methods.

The paper can show a significant influence from online service usage behavior on the fan page on the customer‐brand relationship. Furthermore, the paper identifies different values such as functional and hedonic content as drivers of fan‐page participation.

The results are limited by the used data set, which is not representative for all industries and is cross‐sectional. Further research could build up a database over a longitudinal time frame in different industries. The results are interesting for theory and practice. They confirm the positive effect of integration and engagement in general and show that fan pages are more than just tools to connect brand fans. They are also instruments for gaining new fans.

The present study is the first study that not only shows the effect of fan pages on customer behavior, but also analyses the motives for participation and the crucial constructs to manage them successfully.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how Edith Cowan University (ECU) Library improved the accessibility of their web site, aiming for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 Level AA. It describes the results obtained.

Initial testing by consultants was conducted in October 2012. The web site was defined as all webpages which appear part of the library web site, including supplier webpages, plus pages from the university web site and library web site. Library staff applied the recommendations to pages which they could edit, and discussed the recommendations with suppliers to improve their product ' s accessibility. The web site was re-tested in June 2013.

ECU Library web site failed WCAG 2.0 Level A standard in the initial testing and re-testing. Many individual pages which failed initially passed the re-test. The smallest improvement was seen in suppliers’ web sites.

This paper could help libraries to improve web site accessibility, as it covers negotiating with suppliers to upgrade their web sites, plus upgrading editable webpages. It shows initial and re-test results, allowing libraries to compare their results to those of ECU. Legislation and guidelines state web sites should be accessible to all users and organisations providing non-accessible web sites risk being sued.

A web site not complying with WCAG version 2.0 would be very difficult for people with disabilities to access. Upgrading ECU Library ' s web site will provide all users with more equal access to the resources.

This study describes problems in upgrading academic library webpages and related supplier web sites and organisation web site to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

This paper aims to show how information in digital collections that have been catalogued using high‐quality metadata can be retrieved more easily by users of search engines such as Google.

The research and proposals described arose from an investigation into the observed phenomenon that pages from the Glasgow Digital Library (gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk) were regularly appearing near the top of Google search results shortly after publication, without any deliberate effort to achieve this. The reasons for this phenomenon are now well understood and are described in the second part of the paper. The first part provides context with a review of the impact of Google and a summary of recent initiatives by commercial publishers to make their content more visible to search engines.

The literature research provides firm evidence of a trend amongst publishers to ensure that their online content is indexed by Google, in recognition of its popularity with internet users. The practical research demonstrates how search engine accessibility can be compatible with use of established collection management principles and high‐quality metadata.

The concept of data shoogling is introduced, involving some simple techniques for metadata optimisation. Details of its practical application are given, to illustrate how those working in academic, cultural and public‐sector organisations could make their digital collections more easily accessible via search engines, without compromising any existing standards and practices.

Finding specific information on the Web can be difficult and time‐consuming due to the Web’s tremendous size and the current speed of network connections. Information agents that search the Web on behalf of users are invaluable. Since information needs are diverse, there should be tools for users to build their own agents that specialize in finding the information they want. These tools should be usable by non‐programmers. This paper describes ARIS, a shell for constructing information agents without coding. Our approach is akin to expert system shells, where the user supplies the knowledge for each specialist agent, and a common engine utilizes the agents’ knowledge. An agent’s search is guided by knowledge about how Web sites in a given domain are typically structured. We also report on our experiences with two agents built using ARIS.