Trustworthiness and authority of scholarly information in a digital age: Results of an international questionnaire

An international survey of over 3,600 researchers examined how trustworthiness and quality are determined for making decisions on scholarly reading, citing, and publishing and how scholars perceive changes in trust with new forms of scholarly communication. Although differences in determining trustworthiness and authority of scholarly resources exist among age groups and fields of study, traditional methods and criteria remain important across the board. Peer review is considered the most important factor for determining the quality and trustworthiness of research. Researchers continue to read abstracts, check content for sound arguments and credible data, and rely on journal rankings when deciding whether to trust scholarly resources in reading, citing, or publishing. Social media outlets and open access publications are still often not trusted, although many researchers believe that open access has positive implications for research, especially if the open access journals are peer reviewed.

[1]  Soo Young Rieh,et al.  Credibility: A multidisciplinary framework , 2007, Annu. Rev. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[2]  Dario Taraborelli,et al.  Soft peer review. Social software and distributed scientific evaluation , 2008, COOP.

[3]  Bryna Coonin Open Access Publishing in Business Research: The Authors’ Perspective , 2011 .

[4]  Morten Hertzum,et al.  Trust in information sources: seeking information from people, documents, and virtual agents , 2002, Interact. Comput..

[5]  M. Gad-el-Hak M. Grody W. McKelvey B. Trimble Sw. Bauerlein,et al.  We must stop the avalanche of low-quality research , 2010 .

[6]  Norman L. Chervany,et al.  What Trust Means in E-Commerce Customer Relationships: An Interdisciplinary Conceptual Typology , 2001, Int. J. Electron. Commer..

[7]  Susan Wiedenbeck,et al.  On-line trust: concepts, evolving themes, a model , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[8]  S. Rajasekaran Publish to flourish , 2012 .

[9]  Bo-Christer Björk,et al.  A study of open access journals using article processing charges , 2012, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[10]  G. Loewenstein,et al.  Measuring the Prevalence of Questionable Research Practices With Incentives for Truth Telling , 2012, Psychological science.

[11]  David Nicholas Trust and authority in scholarly communications , 2013 .

[12]  Nicholas H. Steneck,et al.  Fostering integrity in research: Definitions, current knowledge, and future directions , 2006, Science and Engineering Ethics.

[13]  D. Fanelli How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data , 2009, PloS one.

[14]  Benjamin K. Sovacool,et al.  Exploring Scientific Misconduct: Isolated Individuals, Impure Institutions, or an Inevitable Idiom of Modern Science? , 2008 .

[15]  Richard Van Noorden Science publishing: The trouble with retractions , 2011, Nature.

[16]  J. Bohannon Who's afraid of peer review? , 2013, Science.

[17]  Pat Gannon-Leary,et al.  The onus on us? Stage one in developing an i-Trust model for our users. , 2012 .

[18]  Li-Shia Huang,et al.  The Influence of Reading Motives on the Responses after Reading Blogs , 2008, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[19]  Ian Rowlands,et al.  Social media use in the research workflow , 2011, Inf. Serv. Use.

[20]  Carlo Batini,et al.  Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies and Techniques (Data-Centric Systems and Applications) , 2006 .

[21]  Barbara D. Klein User Perceptions of Data Quality: Internet and Traditional Text Sources , 2001, J. Comput. Inf. Syst..

[22]  Pat Gannon-Leary,et al.  Trust in 'E': Users' Trust in Information Resources in the Web Environment , 2010, CENTERIS.

[23]  Miriam J. Metzger,et al.  Credibility and trust of information in online environments: The use of cognitive heuristics , 2013 .

[24]  Eti Herman,et al.  The information enfranchisement of the digital consumer , 2010, Aslib Proc..

[25]  Gilad Mishne,et al.  Finding high-quality content in social media , 2008, WSDM '08.

[26]  J. H. Davis,et al.  An Integrative Model Of Organizational Trust , 1995 .

[27]  Suzie Allard,et al.  Perceived value of scholarly articles , 2011, Learn. Publ..

[28]  C. Oppenheim,et al.  Authors’ Awareness and Attitudes Toward Open Access Repositories , 2010 .

[29]  Jenny Fry,et al.  The intellectual and social organization of academic fields and the shaping of digital resources , 2007, J. Inf. Sci..

[30]  Craig W. Fisher,et al.  Introduction to Information Quality , 2006 .

[31]  A. Casadevall,et al.  Retracted Science and the Retraction Index , 2011, Infection and Immunity.

[32]  Shirlee-ann Knight,et al.  User perceptions of information quality in world wide web information retrieval behaviour , 2007 .

[33]  A. Pickard,et al.  Users' trust in information resources in the Web environment: a status report , 2010 .

[34]  Stefanie E Warlick,et al.  Factors influencing publication choice: why faculty choose open access , 2007, Biomedical Digital Libraries.

[35]  Jeffrey Beall,et al.  Predatory publishers are corrupting open access , 2012, Nature.

[36]  Jeffrey Beall,et al.  Unethical Practices in Scholarly, Open-Access Publishing , 2013 .

[37]  Carol Tenopir,et al.  Social media and scholarly reading , 2013, Online Inf. Rev..

[38]  Suzie Allard,et al.  Research Publication Characteristics and Their Relative Values: A , 2010 .

[39]  Ewald A. Kaluscha,et al.  Empirical research in on-line trust: a review and critical assessment , 2003, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[40]  L. Zirulia,et al.  The Economics of Scientific Misconduct , 2008 .

[41]  Carol Tenopir,et al.  How scholars implement trust in their reading, citing and publishing activities: Geographical differences , 2014 .

[42]  Suzie Allard,et al.  Trust and Authority in Scholarly Communications in the Light of the Digital Transition: setting the scene for a major study , 2014, Learn. Publ..

[43]  Lucy Carter,et al.  A case for a duty to feed the hungry: GM plants and the third world , 2007, Sci. Eng. Ethics.

[44]  Logan Wilson,et al.  The Academic Man: A Study in the Sociology of a Profession , 1995 .

[45]  Melissa S. Anderson,et al.  Scientists behaving badly , 2005, Nature.

[46]  Tharam S. Dillon,et al.  Content Quality Assessment Related Frameworks for Social Media , 2009, ICCSA.

[47]  R. David Lankes,et al.  Credibility on the internet: shifting from authority to reliability , 2008, J. Documentation.

[48]  Michael Moss,et al.  Is it a question of trust or why are we afraid to go to Nineveh? , 2011 .

[49]  Jennifer E. Rowley,et al.  Understanding trust formation in digital information sources: The case of Wikipedia , 2013, J. Inf. Sci..

[50]  Peter Williams,et al.  Google Generation II: web behaviour experiments with the BBC , 2011, Aslib Proc..

[51]  Carol Tenopir,et al.  Scholarly Reading by Faculty in the United States: Summary Results of a Study Conducted in 2012 in Five Universities , 2013 .

[52]  Rob Procter,et al.  If you build it, will they come? How researchers perceive and use web 2.0 , 2010 .

[53]  M. Nedeva,et al.  Rank and File: Managing Individual Performance in University Research , 2012 .

[54]  Carlo Batini,et al.  Data Quality: Concepts, Methodologies and Techniques , 2006, Data-Centric Systems and Applications.

[55]  Peter Igo-Kemenes,et al.  Highlights from the SOAP project survey. What Scientists Think about Open Access Publishing , 2011, ArXiv.

[56]  Rob Procter,et al.  If you build it, will they come? : how researchers perceive and use web 2.0 : a Research Information Network report , 2010 .

[57]  William A. Wallace,et al.  Trust in digital information , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Sci. Technol..

[58]  R VanNoorden THE TROUBLE WITH RETRACTIONS , 2011 .

[59]  Thomas Arrison,et al.  FOSTERING INTEGRITY IN RESEARCH , 2017 .