Search results

Exploratory search activities are ubiquitous in various information systems. Much potentially useful or even serendipitous information is discovered during the exploratory search process. Given its irreplaceable role in information systems, exploratory search has attracted growing attention from the information system community. Since few studies have methodically reviewed current publications, researchers and practitioners are unable to take full advantage of existing achievements, which, in turn, limits their progress in this field. Through a literature review, this study aims to recapitulate important research topics of exploratory search in information systems, providing a research landscape of exploratory search.

Automatic and manual searches were performed on seven reputable databases to collect relevant literature published between January 2005 and July 2023. The literature pool contains 146 primary studies on exploratory search in information system research.

This study recapitulated five important topics of exploratory search, namely, conceptual frameworks, theoretical frameworks, influencing factors, design features and evaluation metrics. Moreover, this review revealed research gaps in current studies and proposed a knowledge framework and a research agenda for future studies.

This study has important implications for beginners to quickly get a snapshot of exploratory search studies, for researchers to re-align current research or discover new interesting issues, and for practitioners to design information systems that support exploratory search.

Online knowledge communities make great contributions to global knowledge sharing and innovation. Resource tagging approaches have been widely adopted in such communities to describe, annotate and organize knowledge resources mainly through users’ participation. However, it is unclear what causes the adoption of a particular resource tagging approach. The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that drive users to use a hybrid social tagging approach.

Technology acceptance model and social cognitive theory are adopted to support an integrated model proposed in this paper. Zhihu, one of the most popular online knowledge communities in China, is taken as the survey context. A survey was conducted with a questionnaire and collected data were analyzed through structural equation model.

A new hybrid social resource tagging approach was refined and described. The empirical results revealed that self-efficacy, perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived ease of use exert positive effect on users’ attitude. Moreover, social influence, PU and attitude impact significantly on users’ intention to use a hybrid social resource tagging approach.

Theoretically, this study enriches the type of resource tagging approaches and recognizes factors influencing user adoption to use it. Regarding the practical parts, the results provide online information system providers and designers with referential strategies to improve the performance of the current tagging approaches and promote them.

Serendipitous information discovery has become a unique and important approach to discovering and obtaining information, which has aroused a growing interest for serendipity in human information behavior. Despite numerous publications, few have systematically provided an overview of current state of serendipity research. Consequently, researchers and practitioners are less able to make effective use of existing achievements, which limits them from making advancements in this domain. Against this backdrop, we performed a systematic literature review to explore the world of serendipity and to recapitulate the current states of different research topics.

Guided by a prior designed review protocol, this paper conducted both automatic and manual search for available studies published from January 1990 to December 2020 on seven databases. A total of 207 serendipity studies closely related to human information behavior form the literature pool.

We provide an overview of distinct aspects of serendipity, that is research topics, potential benefits, related concepts, theoretical models, contextual factors and data collection methods. Based on these findings, this review reveals limitations and gaps in the current serendipity research and proposes an agenda for future research directions.

By analyzing current serendipity research, developing a knowledge framework and providing a research agenda, this review is of significance for researchers who want to find new research questions or re-align current work, for beginners who need to quickly understand serendipity, and for practitioners who seek to cultivate serendipity in information environments.

This paper intends to provide a thematic literature review of the scholarly research articles orbiting the Sino–African education cooperation and exchange, published between 2005 and 2022.

The methodology used in this paper is qualitative in nature with a thematic approach. The author used content analysis techniques to spotlight the major themes of the topic studied. The author selected the papers and theses, based on their heuristic capacity, from two major databases for the English and Chinese literature: Web of Science and CNKI. The selection process resulted in 60 high-quality peer-reviewed articles and theses. Another 30 research articles and theses were used as supplementary resources.

The literature concentrates on six points: the historical development, the nature of the exchange, the frameworks of the cooperation, vocational training and knowledge transfer, African students in China and their experiences, and education cooperation and soft power. However, research tends to be somewhat polemical rather than an academic debate between Chinese researchers and their western peers. Therefore, empirical studies beyond the geopolitical preoccupations and the “YEA” or “NAY” to the Sino–African education exchange are critically needed.

The implications of this study go beyond the east/west or developed/developing world rhetoric and focus more on sustainable educational development on a global scale. Understanding how the literature on the Sino–African education engagement is shaping, provides valuable insights into international education in the global south. It can also be implied to approach educational engagement with other destinations such as India, Türkiye and Brazil.

This thematic literature review concentrates on the educational aspect of Sino–African relations. It compares English and Chinese peer-reviewed scholarly articles and theses on China–Africa educational engagement and has heuristic implications for sustainable educational development globally.

The present study provides a comprehensive review of the advancements in five active heating modes for cold-proof clothing as of 2021. It aims to evaluate the current state of research for each heating mode and identify their limitations. Further, the study provides insights into the optimization of intelligent temperature control algorithms and design considerations for intelligent cold-proof clothing.

This article presents a classification of active heating systems based on five different heating principles: electric heating system, solar heating system, phase-change material (PCM) heating system, chemical heating system and fluid/air heating system. The systems are analyzed and evaluated in terms of heating principle, research advancement, scientific challenges and application potential in the field of cold-proof clothing.

The rational utilization of active heating modes enhances the thermal efficiency of cold-proof clothing, resulting in enhanced cold-resistance and reduced volume and weight. Despite progress in the development of the five prevalent heating modes, particularly with regard to the improvement and advancement of heating materials, the current integration of heating systems with cold-proof clothing is limited to the torso and limbs, lacking consideration of the thermal physiological requirements of the human body. Additionally, the heating modes of each system tend to be uniform and lack differentiation to meet the varying cold protection needs of various body parts.

The effective application of multiple heating modes helps the human body to maintain a constant body temperature and thermal equilibrium in a cold environment. The research of heating mode is the basis for realizing the temperature control of cold-proof clothing and provides an effective guarantee for the future development of the intelligent algorithms for temperature control of non-uniform heating of body segments.

The integration of multiple heating modes ensures the maintenance of a constant body temperature and thermal balance for the wearer in cold environments. The research of heating modes forms the foundation for the temperature regulation of cold-proof clothing and lays the groundwork for the development of intelligent algorithms for non-uniform heating control of different body segments.

The present article systematically reviews five active heating modes suitable for use in cold-proof clothing and offers guidance for the selection of heating systems in future smart cold-proof clothing. Furthermore, the findings of this research provide a basis for future research on non-uniform heating modes that are aligned with the thermal physiological needs of the human body, thus contributing to the development of cold-proof clothing that is better suited to meet the thermal needs of the human body.