Understanding Judgment of Information Quality and Cognitive Authority in the WWW

In the WWW, people are engaging in interaction with more, and more diverse information than ever before, so there is an increasing need for information “filtering.” But because of the diversity of information resources, and the lack of traditional quality control on the WWW, the criteria of authority and quality of information that people have used for this purpose in past contexts may no longer be relevant. This paper reports on a study of people’s decision making with respect to quality and authority in the WWW. Seven facets of judgment of information quality were identified: source, content, format, presentation, currency, accuracy, and speed of loading. People mentioned source credibility with two levels: institutional level and individual level. Authority was identified as a underlying theme in source credibility. Institutional authority involved: institutional domain identified by URL; institution type; and institution reputation recognized by names. Individual authority involved: identification of creator/author; creator/author affiliation; and creator/author’s name. People were more or less concerned with evaluating information quality depending upon: the consequence of use of information; act or commitment based on information; and the focus of inquiry. It was also found that people believed that the web, as an institution, was less authoritative and less credible than other types of information systems.