Digital Information Quality: Difference between revisions

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[[Portal:Digital Information Quality]]
= Narratives =
= Narratives =


== TVNewser==
 
The rise of digital natives and their relationship to the internet raises questions with regard to digital information quality that are considerably distinct from quality conflicts in offline situations. Consider the following narratives for an illustration of such issues:
 
 
'''TVNewser'''


When people in the television news business want to catch up with the newest gossip in the industry, they turn to a blog called TVNewser. TVNewser was created three years ago by Brian Stelter, then an 18-year old digital native studying at Towson University. Brian initially concealed his identity so that his growing audience would take him seriously. People thought that he was a bald disgruntled 40-something executive and obsessively checked his blog to keep up with the latest news.
When people in the television news business want to catch up with the newest gossip in the industry, they turn to a blog called TVNewser. TVNewser was created three years ago by Brian Stelter, then an 18-year old digital native studying at Towson University. Brian initially concealed his identity so that his growing audience would take him seriously. People thought that he was a bald disgruntled 40-something executive and obsessively checked his blog to keep up with the latest news.
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Today, Brian’s identity is revealed but the whole industry still pays attention to his blog. In the meanwhile, Brian is a senior majoring in mass communication and the editor of the student newspaper. By 9 am, he is awake and blogs about the newest gossip and events in the news media industry from his apartment as well as in class, the student union, and his desk in a corner of the newspaper office. Brian has earned the grudging trust of many of his readers, who e-mail him hundreds of Tipps a day that often translate into scoops. The biggest TV executives, such as Jonathan Klein, president of CNN’s national news division, look at this kid’s Web site all the time. Despite his youth and inexperience, Brian is generally thought of as a reliable reporter in the industry.
Today, Brian’s identity is revealed but the whole industry still pays attention to his blog. In the meanwhile, Brian is a senior majoring in mass communication and the editor of the student newspaper. By 9 am, he is awake and blogs about the newest gossip and events in the news media industry from his apartment as well as in class, the student union, and his desk in a corner of the newspaper office. Brian has earned the grudging trust of many of his readers, who e-mail him hundreds of Tipps a day that often translate into scoops. The biggest TV executives, such as Jonathan Klein, president of CNN’s national news division, look at this kid’s Web site all the time. Despite his youth and inexperience, Brian is generally thought of as a reliable reporter in the industry.


Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/business/media/20newser.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=c88b1ae2174b53fd&ex=1184126400 Bosman, J: The Kid With All the News About the TV News, in: The New York Times, 11/20/2006.]
Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/business/media/20newser.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=c88b1ae2174b53fd&ex=1184126400 Bosman, J.: The Kid With All the News About the TV News, in: The New York Times, 11/20/2006.]
 


== Dr. Google ==
'''Dr. Google'''
 
My children have in recent weeks decided that they have leprosy, irritable bowel syndrome and Lyme disease.


<<My children have in recent weeks decided that they have leprosy, irritable bowel syndrome and Lyme disease.
“I’m contagious,” my 9-year-old said, looking up from the laptop on which she had just typed her symptoms one morning last week. “I shouldn’t go to school with strip throat.”
“I’m contagious,” my 9-year-old said, looking up from the laptop on which she had just typed her symptoms one morning last week. “I shouldn’t go to school with strip throat.”
“It’s strep throat,” I said, not looking up from my breakfast. “And you don’t have it. So go get dressed.”
“It’s strep throat,” I said, not looking up from my breakfast. “And you don’t have it. So go get dressed.”
In the old days, children dreaded a visit to the pediatrician, where getting a shot was always a possibility. But now that Dr. Google makes house calls, mine spend hours online typing queries into search boxes to investigate symptoms — “Mom, does this image of ringworm look like the thing on my leg?” — before printing out proof that they should not be required to walk the dog in the cold.
In the old days, children dreaded a visit to the pediatrician, where getting a shot was always a possibility. But now that Dr. Google makes house calls, mine spend hours online typing queries into search boxes to investigate symptoms — “Mom, does this image of ringworm look like the thing on my leg?” — before printing out proof that they should not be required to walk the dog in the cold.
Nobody is really sick at my house; the suspected ringworm turned out to be nothing more than an elastic mark from a sock. But my children definitely are exhibiting the symptoms of a new syndrome.
Nobody is really sick at my house; the suspected ringworm turned out to be nothing more than an elastic mark from a sock. But my children definitely are exhibiting the symptoms of a new syndrome.
By taking their symptoms online without the benefit of stethoscopes, much less medical degrees, they are following in the footsteps of plenty of grown-ups. As a host of recent studies show, a growing number of people — as many as 40 percent of the 39,000 adults surveyed for a 2006 Consumer Reports study — are researching their medical conditions online.  
By taking their symptoms online without the benefit of stethoscopes, much less medical degrees, they are following in the footsteps of plenty of grown-ups. As a host of recent studies show, a growing number of people — as many as 40 percent of the 39,000 adults surveyed for a 2006 Consumer Reports study — are researching their medical conditions online.
But those people are getting mixed results. According to the same survey, 41 percent of primary-care physicians reported that patients arrived in their office armed with bad information they found on the Internet. The American Medical Association, which warns that Web sites with inaccurate information may confuse people or even endanger their health, cautions patients not to consult Dr. Google instead of a real M.D.>>
 
Literally citation from [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/fashion/24Cyber.html?ex=1337659200&en=f6ba7e4bef4e7fd0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever. NYT, 24.05.2007.]
 
== Distracting Gadgets and Attention Deficits in Schools ==
 
"Now that computers are a staple in schools around the country, perhaps the machines should come with a warning label for teachers: 'Beware: Students may no longer hear a word you say.'
 
Today 80 percent of public schools have high-speed Internet access in at least one classroom, according to Market Data Retrieval, an education research company. Among colleges, 69 percent have classroom Internet access and 70 percent have wireless networks. Students start tapping away behind laptop lids with no way for professors to know if they are taking notes or checking Hotmail. 
 
'I've never been in a lecture where I haven't seen someone checking their e-mail when they were supposed to be doing stuff,' said Bill Walsh, a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instant messages, news tickers and games like solitaire beckon too. 
 
Joe Huber, the technology coordinator for the public schools in Greenwood, Ind., said that teachers routinely complain about gadget-distraction among students. 'It is a huge problem with anyone who teaches with any kind of technology,' he said. 
 
Even in rooms without computers or Internet access, students have other devices to draw their attention away from academics. Cellphones may be prohibited at many schools, but that doesn't stop students from putting them on vibrate and trading text messages under their desks. That is, when they aren't fiddling with their organizers or music players.  Teachers have started to fight back. All agree that the best weapon against attention deficit is the same one that worked before the dawn of computers: strong teaching. But new strategies don't hurt, either. Some teachers have found, in fact, that the best defense against the distractions of technology is other technology. Here are five examples of teachers who are fighting fire with fire."
 
Counter-strategies adopted by teachers:
 
- use of (interactive) games in classroom
 
- threat to reboot without saving assignment
 
- classroom layout that allows teacher to watch students' laptops screens (MIT)
 
- remote controlled student computers, e.g. with option to "freeze" operations when teacher explains
 
From [http://tech2.nytimes.com/mem/technology/techreview.html?res=9B0DE5D7113FF93AA2575BC0A9629C8B63 Lisa Guernsey, ''When Gadgets Get in the Way'', N.Y. Times, Aug. 19, 2004, at 1.]
 
== Narrative 2: Reliability of New Intermediaries ==
 
[- Wikipedia: John Seigenthaler (involvement in JFK's assassination), Adam Curry ("inventor" of podcasting), danah boyd (how to fix your own bio), Tron controversy] 24129770415337984575495
 
= Problems =
 
== The Information Quality Challenge ==
 
(from Urs' essay draft)
 
a) information quality = “reference to a set of characteristics aimed at stating whether a ‘message’ meets the functional, cognitive, aesthetic, and ethical requirements of different stakeholders, such as information creators, administrators, users, experts, etc.”


b) Current safeguards for information quality mostly apply to traditional (mass-scale, demand-driven) media (dominated by small number of professionals in commercial, hierarchical, centralized media companies):
But those people are getting mixed results. According to the same survey, 41 percent of primary-care physicians reported that patients arrived in their office armed with bad information they found on the Internet. The American Medical Association, which warns that Web sites with inaccurate information may confuse people or even endanger their health, cautions patients not to consult Dr. Google instead of a real M.D.


- Indirect ex ante regulation of broadcasting, for instance, in Europe
Literally citation from: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/fashion/24Cyber.html?ex=1337659200&en=f6ba7e4bef4e7fd0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever, in: The New York Times, 05/24/2007.]


- Code of Practices (e.g. UK), Press Councils, Ombudsmen


- Code of Ethics, voluntarily adopted by news organizations and media companies
'''Rewriting History'''


- Ex post interventions, like lawsuits against libel, defamation
Mr. Seigenthaler Sr., a U.S. journalist and former political aide, has read an entry about his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia where everybody can contribute. He was shocked to hear that he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, who Seigenthaler had worked for as an assistant. The false information had been on the site for several months and an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.


c) Now, new modes of information production (large number of non-professionals involved; highly decentralized; different set of principles and motivations)
What is the value of Wikipedia and the nature of online information in general? To what extent is online information reliable? And who is accountable for bad quality information on the internet?


- Large-scale context shifts
After his defamation, Mr. Seigenthaler found that his biographer was anonymous. He came to know that the writer was a customer of BellSouth Internet, but that federal privacy laws do not reveal the identity of Internet customers, even if they disseminate defamatory material.


- High level of access to information
Sources: [http://www.tecchannel.de/news/international/445051/ Tech Chanel: Wikipedia to highlight quality issues, 2006.] [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html?ei=5090&en=6a97402d6595c6f1&ex=1291352400&pagewanted=print Seelye, K.: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar, 12.06.2005.]


- Quality assessment at the edges (users)


== Attention Deficit Disorder/Cognitive Overload ==
''' Divided Opinions on Wikipedia '''


From an [http://news.com.com/Why cant you pay attention anymore/2008-1022_3-5637632.html interview with psychiatrist Edward Hallowell]
„I was at a college graduation ceremony yesterday, and when one of the student speakers mentioned Wikipedia the graduates broke into applause. "Now we can finally admit that we use Wikipedia for research," the speaker continued. That brought another round of cheers from the kids as well as some futile boos and hisses from parents and faculty." [http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/05/facebookpedia.php (Nicolas Carr)]


Q: What is ADT?
Depending on your lights, Wikipedia is either one of the noblest experiments of the Internet age or a nightmare embodiment of relativism and the withering of intellectual standards.


A: It's sort of like the normal version of attention deficit disorder. But it's a condition induced by modern life, in which you've become so busy attending to so many inputs and outputs that you become increasingly distracted, irritable, impulsive, restless and, over the long term, underachieving. In other words, it costs you efficiency because you're doing so much or trying to do so much, it's as if you're juggling one more ball than you possibly can.


Q: Are some people just better at multitasking than others?
'''Questions Raised From these Narratives'''


A: No one really multitasks. You just spend less time on any one thing. When it looks like you're multitasking--you're looking at one TV screen and another TV screen and you're talking on the telephone--your attention has to shift from one to the other. You're brain literally can't multitask. You can't pay attention to two things simultaneously. You're switching back and forth between the two. So you're paying less concerted attention to either one.
* Is the internet a reliable source of information?
* Can non-professionals really create high quality information? Why should they?
* Does the creation of low quality content by a vast number of amateurs dilute high quality online information?
* What role do offline credentials play in online situations?
* Can the abuse of offline brands harm the overall credibility of the internet?
* Can young, vulnerable information receivers be appropriately protected from low quality information?
* Who are the overall winners? Who are the loosers?


I think in general, why some people can do well at what they call multitasking is because the effort to do it is so stimulating. You get adrenaline pumping that helps focus your mind. What you're really doing is focusing better at brief spurts on each stimulus. So you don't get bored with either one.
= What Is Information Quality? =


Q: Do you think this is a generational thing? Kids now are growing up with e-mail, cell phones and so on. Maybe they'll be able to cope better than we do?
* Information quality refers to information that is fit for its intended use. E.g. correct, complete, unbiased, and coherent information would be considered as high quality information.


A: I think maybe they'll be more adept with these tools when they get to the workplace, but I think the same principles will apply. How you allocate your time and your attention is crucial. What you pay attention to and for how long really makes a difference. If you're just paying attention to trivial e-mails for the majority of your time, you're wasting time and mental energy. It's the great seduction of the information age. You can create the illusion of doing work and of being productive and creative when you're not. You're just treading water.
* A general definition of the term „information quality“ is not suitable as the quality of information depends on the respective circumstances and the affected individuals.


* A number of normative and descriptive criteria can constitute a general framework to evaluate the quality of information in particular contexts. Sample:


From [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/2004/1128/cover.html Seven, Life Interrupted, Seattle Times (2004)]
[[Image: Infoquality.jpg|center]]


"'We have so many options, reward centers that we never had before,' says John Ratey, who teaches at Harvard and is a psychiatrist specializing in attention deficit disorder. 'I think that's why we're seeing more of this. There are more demands on our attention and less training for us to stop and take it all in. We seem to be amazing ourselves to death.'
Source: [http://www.computing.dcu.ie/news/newsitems/sem2_04-05/info_quality/markus.pdf Eppler, M., Helfert, M., Gasser, U.: Information Quality: Organizational, technological, and legal perspectives, 2004.]


This is of particular interest when it comes to children who have grown up in the fast lane where Web pages that take more than five seconds to load are considered lame. Is the speed and ease compromising their attention spans? Their perspective? Their humanity? Even their work ethic? Or are we just threatened that they will lap us old fogies?


Little is understood about the Information Age's effect on this generation, but it is a burgeoning area of research. Ratey wonders if kids would read 'The Red Badge of Courage' to complete their homework or simply comb the Internet for essays explaining it all for them."
= How Does the Internet Foster High Quality Information? =


The internet has fundamentally changed the way how digital natives create, distribute, access and use information.


From [http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2004/pr040605.cfm Jiang et al.: We weren't made to multitask (2004)]:
* Creation: Everybody with a computer and internet access can be a publisher on the internet. Information is no longer created by a small group of hierarchal organized professionals but by integrating the a large number of digital natives. Digital information on the internet is mostly not reviewed by institutional reviewers such as newspaper editors.
* Distribution: Information can be distributed in real-time. No time verlust through printing
* Accessibility: With almost no cost, you can access information. You only need a computer and internet. Digital information is accessible. It is more fluent.
* Use: Digital natives are not only passive receivers of information, rather they actively engage with actual topics and deal with it by transforming, derivative, creative, artful way.
Consider our “digital creators” chapter for deeper insights into these issues.


"It's readily apparent that handling two things at once is much harder than handling one thing at a time. Spend too much time trying to juggle more than one objective and you'll end up wanting to get rid of all your goals besides sleeping. The question is, though, what makes it so hard to process two things at once?


Two theories try to explain this phenomenon: "passive queuing" and "active monitoring." The former says that information has to line up for a chance at being processed at some focal point of the brain, while the latter suggests that the brain can process two things at once - it just needs to use a complicated mechanism to keep the two processes separate. Recent research from MIT points to the former as an explanation.
This structural change fosters the production and access of high quality information in numerous ways:


Yuhong Jiang, Rebecca Saxe and Nancy Kanwisher, in a study (...) examined the brain activity involved in multitasking. They gave people two simple tasks. Task one was identifying shapes, and for some subjects, task two was identifying letters, for others it was identifying colors. The subjects were forced to switch from one task to the other in either one and a half seconds or one tenth of a second. When they had to switch faster, subjects would take as much as twice as long to respond than when switching more slowly.
* Amount of high quality information: As more people engage in creating information, digital natives can access more information and have a choice among different types and qualities of information.
* Diversity of information: The integration of many people from around the world in the information production process allows digital natives to get insights into different viewpoints, reflect on sensitive issues from various perspectives and autonomously develop balanced opinions.
* Scope of information: In the age of digital natives, information is no longer produced to meet solely main-stream demands (e.g. best-seller movies). The access to a broader audience via internet also fosters the production of less-mainstream information (the long tail). The publication of information is no longer pre-filtered through professional intermediaries, such as professional editors.


Using MRI technology, Jiang, Saxe and Kanwisher examined subjects' brain activity while performing these tasks. They observed no increase in the sort of activity that would be involved in keeping two thought processes separate when subjects had to switch faster. This suggests that there are no complicated mechanisms that allow people to perform two tasks at once. Instead, we have to perform the next task only after the last one is finished."


= What Are the Dangers? =


'''Digital amnesia:''' somewhat counter-intuitively, huge amounts of information are simply forgotten or cannot be read anymore after some time; Stewart Brand: “Information lasts forever. Digital information lasts forever or for five years, whichever comes first.”; "digital dark age"
Does our conception of “the more, the better” that is derived from an offline world still apply to the digitally connected world? This conception is based on the idea that people can take better decisions based on a set of diverse information sources among which they have a choice. However, in these days the lack of diverse information is not a threat anymore to most western societies. Information is no longer solely provided through a small number of hieratically and centralized structured media companies. Today, everybody has a voice in the internet and can contribute his thoughts to the online world. Thus, the problems in these days have shifted:


'''Reliability of new navigators:''' how to dissect relevant from irrelevant information? (see wikipedia cases)
* How can users filter and organize the huge amounts of digital information in a meaningful way? How can they prevent to experience information overload?


'''"Digital me":''' fragmentation of audiences, implications for DNs' understanding of democracy (cp. Sunstein's Republic.com)
* How can we prevent information asymmetries that hinder users to take fully informed decisions? How can we enable users to distinguish between high and low quality information?


'''Related concepts:''' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Shock information overload], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload information pollution], [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d0f71fb6-3243-11db-ab06-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=4e612cca-6707-11da-a650-0000779e2340,print=yes.html interruption overload]
* How can we enable users to find, re-find and understand information that suits to their particular interests, and contexts? [add French example]


'''Alternative ways of framing the problem:'''
* How do we deal with the fact that experts that pre-select information have widely disappeared (e.g. editors of a journals, music producers? How do we deal with new and unregulated intermediaries (e.g. search engines)?


'''Attention as a scarce resource:''' problem can be framed as ''attention shortage'', rather than ''information overload''; how to allocate one's attention efficiently? (Franck, Goldhaber)


'''Adaptation to a new signaling environment:''' It seems that it is not necessarily the sheer increase in the amount of information and the diversity of sources that are the problem. For example, if someone put me in a helicopter and dropped me off in the middle of the Amazonian jungle, I would most likely suffer from severe information overload, too. Thus, another way of looking at the phenonemon could be through the lense of signaling theory. The adaptive challenge would be less in the tidal wave of information, but rather our ability to adequately interpret signals in online environments and differentiate reliable from deceptive signals. [http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/judith/ Judith Donath] of MIT's Media Lab is writing a book on that approach.
= What Are Possible Solutions? =


= Solutions =
We have come historically close to an important policy goal of our democratized information society. Thanks to the internet we have reached a state where information is created and accessed through multiple and diverse information sources. At the same time, this achievement raises new concerns in terms of quality issues. How can we ensure that users do not only have potential access to high quality information but can really harness and process such information? Addressing such concerns means taking measures on several layers. We are convinced that regulating information in its totality or setting uniform top-down quality standards are not appropriate ways to deal with information quality issues as it would endanger the openness and sustainability of the net. Information quality is complex. It requires consideration of different contexts, dimensions, and individual informational needs. Therefore, possible solutions should be reflected from various perspectives, including market, code, norm, and law perspectives.
 
(from Urs' essay draft)


== Markets ==
== Markets ==
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- Right to correct wrong information
- Right to correct wrong information
== Behavior/Learning (training the dot in the middle) ==
- Accelerated learning techniques to improve speed and comprehension, e.g. speed reading, see [http://search.ft.com/nonFtArticle?id=040322001233 Fifield, FT: Cut through acres of type to the fast lane (2004)]
== Miscellaneous ideas ==
Can increased collaboration aka Web 2.0 be interpreted as a response to information overload? If passive consumption becomes increasingly difficult and partly even unfeasible in view of an ever more diverse and abundant information environment, then web 2.0 strategies like tagging, remixing, mash-ups, and shared bookmarks can be regarded as essential tools to autonomously structure one's information environment. This reveals an interesting paradoxon of today's Internet: the very technologies we see at the heart of the information overload problem simultaneously provide us with the tools to combat it.


= Relevant Research =
= Relevant Research =
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[http://www.iqconference.org/ International Conference on Information Quality, MIT.]
[http://www.iqconference.org/ International Conference on Information Quality, MIT.]
[http://www.irmuk.co.uk/dm2006/ Data Management and Information Quality Conference]


[http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-InfoQuality.html Information Quality: WWW Virtual Library.]
[http://www.ciolek.com/WWWVL-InfoQuality.html Information Quality: WWW Virtual Library.]
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[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/uploads/508/05-GlobalNetworkedReadinessForEducation.pdf Berkman Center, Global Networked Readiness for Education, 2005.]
[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/uploads/508/05-GlobalNetworkedReadinessForEducation.pdf Berkman Center, Global Networked Readiness for Education, 2005.]
[http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/index.html The Virtual Case: Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/31/data_protection_letter_google/ Data Protection Watchdogs' Letter to Google Goes Public, in: The Register, 05.31.2007.]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/16/mcnealy_opensource_curriki/ Vance, A.: How to fix your Kid's Education for $200m, in: The Register, 05.16.2007.]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/22/report_raises_child_index_alarm/ Report raises child index alarm, Protection Measures Could Put Children More at Risk, in: The Register 11.22.2006.]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/29/william_davies_ask_vs_google/page2.html Davies, W.: Ask.com's Bogus Information Revolution, in: The Register 05.29.2007 (article about Intermediaries).]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=4a46025acc65c275&ex=1184212800 Hansell, S.: Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine, in: The New York Times 07.01.2007 (article about Google's search-quality team).]
[http://www.dgiq.de/home/index.php?PHPSESSID=721891e650837b93787dbe5e34b6b53d Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informations- und Datenqualität]
[http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2953 Peer Reviewed Journals]
[http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/71/presentation_display.asp Pew Internet: Digital Natives, Libraries, 2006.]
[http://www.leonline.com/yalsa/positive_uses.pdf YALSA: Social Networking and DOPA, 2006.]
[http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Schools_Report.pdf Pew Internet: The Internet and Education, 2001.]
[http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Filters_Report.pdf Pew Internet: Protecting Teens Online, 2005.]
[http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:mAG3IA6IaGUJ:www.well.com/inkwell/topics/300/David-Weinberger-Everything-is-M-page01.html+weinberger+everything+is+miscellaneous&hl=de&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=ch Weinberger, D.: Blog, Everything is miscellaneous, 2007.]
[http://www.quick.org.uk/menu.htm The Quality Information Check (education).]
[http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144 Timbl: Net Neutrality, this is serious (regulation).]
[http://www2.sims.berkeley.edu/courses/is218/f06/classes.html UC Berkeley School of Information, Quality of Information.]
[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_35/b3797001.htm The Underground Web, in: Business Week, 2002.]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_wants_to_be_free Wikipedia: Information wants to be free.]
[http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.2142779/k.A635/Credibility.htm MacArthur: Credibility Project, 2007.]
[http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-5992261/Children-of-the-net-an.html Eastin/Yang/Nathanson: Children on the net: An empirical exploration into the evaluation of internet content, 2006.]
[http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2006/id20060822_170430.htm?chan=search Sauer, A.: Gawker's Snarky Success, in: Business Week, 2006.]
[http://www.jorisvanhoboken.nl/?p=61 VanHoboken Blog: Search Engine Quality, 2007.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/30/business/media/30facebook.html?pagewanted=print Stone, B.: New Scrtiny for Facebook over Pedrators, in: NYT 07.30.2007.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_2100-1028_3-6200733.html?pagewanted=print Broache, A.: Democrats to push new Net sex-predator laws, 08.03.2007.][http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/15/technology/15myspace.html?ei=5070&en=0fcb15ef91a53696&ex=1186632000&pagewanted=print Stone, B.: States Fault MySpace on predator issues, 05.15.2007.]
[http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2006/12/2007_digital_id.html?chan=search Baker, S.: Digital Identities and the Internet's summer of love, in BW 12.30.2006. [Solutions]]
[http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting/archives/2007/04/the_internet_ac.html?chan=search Green, H.: The Internet, Activism, and the Environment, in: Businessweek, 04.15.2007. [promoter, sea of people]]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/technology/17wiki.html?ei=5070&en=5530014420723a93&ex=1186545600&pagewanted=print Hafner, K.: Growing Wikipedia redefines policiy, in NYT, 17.06.07, Dangers.]
== Wikipedia ==
[http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Wikipedia07.pdf Pew Internet: Wikipedia Users, 2007.]
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/18/wikipedia_quality_problem/print.html Orlowski, A.: Wikipedia founder admits to serous quality problems, in: The Register, 05.18.2005.]
[http://www.henryjenkins.org/2007/06/what_wikipedia_can_teach_us_ab.html Jenkins, H.: What Wikipedia can teach us about the new media literacy, 06.27.2007.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/technology/12wiki.html?ex=1184212800&en=fdb0f70a38acb8de&ei=5070 Cohen, N.: After False Claim, Wikipedia to Check Degrees, in: The New York Times 03.12.2007.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=9d808323c440dbc3&ex=1184212800 Dee, J.: All the News That's Fit for Print, in: The New York Times 07.01.2007.]
[http://news.com.com/Dancing+with+Jimmy+Wales+in+Second+Life/2008-1025_3-6183541.html?tag=st.num Trediman, D.: Dancing with Jimmy Wales, in: News.com, 05.14.2007 (Article about Wikipedia, Wikia, Wikipedia's new open-source search machine).]
[http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2316 Wizards of Open Source.]
[http://www.tecchannel.de/news/international/445051/ Tech Chanel: Wikipedia to highlight quality issues, 2006.]
[http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Universities_ban_Wikipedia_as_primary_source Wikinews, Several US Universities ban Wikipedia as primary source, 03.22.07.]
[http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf Britannica's Reaction on Nature Magazine's Comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica, 2006.]
[http://netzpolitik.org/2006/kommende-wizards-of-os4-wikipedia-mitgruender-stellt-neues-projekt-vor/ Netzpolitik: Vorschau Wizards.]
[http://lwn.net/Articles/199894/ LWN.net: Summary of Contributions at the Wizard Conference, 2006.]
[http://h20325.www2.hp.com/blogs/kintz/archive/2007/03/19/2781.html Kintz, E.: Wikipedia's Rising Power, Auccarcy and Relevancy for Marketing]
[http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/pfps/temp/web/www2007.org/papers/paper692.pdf Adler, L./Alfaro, B.: A Content Driven Reputation System for the Wikipedia.]
[http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bstvilia/papers/qualWiki.pdf Stvilia/Twidale/Gasser/LcSmith: Information Quality Discussions in Wikipedia, 2005.]
[http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2005/tc20051214_441708.htm Helm B.: "Wikipedia, a work in progress", in: BusinessWeek, 2005.]
[http://mailer.fsu.edu/~bstvilia/papers/stvilia_wikipedia_infoWork_p.pdf Stvilia/Twidale/Gasser/LcSmith: Information Quality Work Organization in Wikipedia.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04seelye.html?ei=5090&en=6a97402d6595c6f1&ex=1291352400&pagewanted=print Seelye, K.: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar, The New York Times, 12.04.2005.]
[http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22102720-421,00.html Bosch, E./Buckley-Carr, A.: Refugee tribunal hit for relying on Wikipedia, in: News.com, 07.20.2007.]
[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1081FFA38550C718DDDAA0894DE404482 Stross, R.: Anonymous Source is not the same as open source, NYT 2006.]


== Narratives ==
== Narratives ==
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[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/fashion/24Cyber.html?ex=1337659200&en=f6ba7e4bef4e7fd0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever. NYT, 24.05.2007]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/fashion/24Cyber.html?ex=1337659200&en=f6ba7e4bef4e7fd0&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever. NYT, 24.05.2007]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/technology/05online.html?ex=1186027200&en=0378ca619c21924f&ei=5070 Sang-Hu, C.: South Korreans Connect through Search Engine. NYT 07.05.2007. [Naver]]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html?ex=1186027200&en=b0bae63065421028&ei=5070 Hu, W.: Seeing no Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops. NYT 05.04.2007.]
[http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2003/tc20030819_4285_tc126.htm?chan=search Stone, A.: The Digital Divide that wasn't, in: Businessweek 08.2003.]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/education/21wikipedia.html?ei=5070&en=80f734795b6a6eb3&ex=1186545600&pagewanted=print Cohen, N: A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia, in NYT, 02.21.2007.]


== Documents ==
== Documents ==

Latest revision as of 11:06, 27 November 2007

Portal:Digital Information Quality

Narratives

The rise of digital natives and their relationship to the internet raises questions with regard to digital information quality that are considerably distinct from quality conflicts in offline situations. Consider the following narratives for an illustration of such issues:


TVNewser

When people in the television news business want to catch up with the newest gossip in the industry, they turn to a blog called TVNewser. TVNewser was created three years ago by Brian Stelter, then an 18-year old digital native studying at Towson University. Brian initially concealed his identity so that his growing audience would take him seriously. People thought that he was a bald disgruntled 40-something executive and obsessively checked his blog to keep up with the latest news.

Today, Brian’s identity is revealed but the whole industry still pays attention to his blog. In the meanwhile, Brian is a senior majoring in mass communication and the editor of the student newspaper. By 9 am, he is awake and blogs about the newest gossip and events in the news media industry from his apartment as well as in class, the student union, and his desk in a corner of the newspaper office. Brian has earned the grudging trust of many of his readers, who e-mail him hundreds of Tipps a day that often translate into scoops. The biggest TV executives, such as Jonathan Klein, president of CNN’s national news division, look at this kid’s Web site all the time. Despite his youth and inexperience, Brian is generally thought of as a reliable reporter in the industry.

Source: Bosman, J.: The Kid With All the News About the TV News, in: The New York Times, 11/20/2006.


Dr. Google

My children have in recent weeks decided that they have leprosy, irritable bowel syndrome and Lyme disease.

“I’m contagious,” my 9-year-old said, looking up from the laptop on which she had just typed her symptoms one morning last week. “I shouldn’t go to school with strip throat.” “It’s strep throat,” I said, not looking up from my breakfast. “And you don’t have it. So go get dressed.”

In the old days, children dreaded a visit to the pediatrician, where getting a shot was always a possibility. But now that Dr. Google makes house calls, mine spend hours online typing queries into search boxes to investigate symptoms — “Mom, does this image of ringworm look like the thing on my leg?” — before printing out proof that they should not be required to walk the dog in the cold. Nobody is really sick at my house; the suspected ringworm turned out to be nothing more than an elastic mark from a sock. But my children definitely are exhibiting the symptoms of a new syndrome. By taking their symptoms online without the benefit of stethoscopes, much less medical degrees, they are following in the footsteps of plenty of grown-ups. As a host of recent studies show, a growing number of people — as many as 40 percent of the 39,000 adults surveyed for a 2006 Consumer Reports study — are researching their medical conditions online.

But those people are getting mixed results. According to the same survey, 41 percent of primary-care physicians reported that patients arrived in their office armed with bad information they found on the Internet. The American Medical Association, which warns that Web sites with inaccurate information may confuse people or even endanger their health, cautions patients not to consult Dr. Google instead of a real M.D.

Literally citation from: Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever, in: The New York Times, 05/24/2007.


Rewriting History

Mr. Seigenthaler Sr., a U.S. journalist and former political aide, has read an entry about his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia where everybody can contribute. He was shocked to hear that he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, who Seigenthaler had worked for as an assistant. The false information had been on the site for several months and an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.

What is the value of Wikipedia and the nature of online information in general? To what extent is online information reliable? And who is accountable for bad quality information on the internet?

After his defamation, Mr. Seigenthaler found that his biographer was anonymous. He came to know that the writer was a customer of BellSouth Internet, but that federal privacy laws do not reveal the identity of Internet customers, even if they disseminate defamatory material.

Sources: Tech Chanel: Wikipedia to highlight quality issues, 2006. Seelye, K.: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar, 12.06.2005.


Divided Opinions on Wikipedia

„I was at a college graduation ceremony yesterday, and when one of the student speakers mentioned Wikipedia the graduates broke into applause. "Now we can finally admit that we use Wikipedia for research," the speaker continued. That brought another round of cheers from the kids as well as some futile boos and hisses from parents and faculty." (Nicolas Carr)

Depending on your lights, Wikipedia is either one of the noblest experiments of the Internet age or a nightmare embodiment of relativism and the withering of intellectual standards.


Questions Raised From these Narratives

  • Is the internet a reliable source of information?
  • Can non-professionals really create high quality information? Why should they?
  • Does the creation of low quality content by a vast number of amateurs dilute high quality online information?
  • What role do offline credentials play in online situations?
  • Can the abuse of offline brands harm the overall credibility of the internet?
  • Can young, vulnerable information receivers be appropriately protected from low quality information?
  • Who are the overall winners? Who are the loosers?

What Is Information Quality?

  • Information quality refers to information that is fit for its intended use. E.g. correct, complete, unbiased, and coherent information would be considered as high quality information.
  • A general definition of the term „information quality“ is not suitable as the quality of information depends on the respective circumstances and the affected individuals.
  • A number of normative and descriptive criteria can constitute a general framework to evaluate the quality of information in particular contexts. Sample:
Infoquality.jpg

Source: Eppler, M., Helfert, M., Gasser, U.: Information Quality: Organizational, technological, and legal perspectives, 2004.


How Does the Internet Foster High Quality Information?

The internet has fundamentally changed the way how digital natives create, distribute, access and use information.

  • Creation: Everybody with a computer and internet access can be a publisher on the internet. Information is no longer created by a small group of hierarchal organized professionals but by integrating the a large number of digital natives. Digital information on the internet is mostly not reviewed by institutional reviewers such as newspaper editors.
  • Distribution: Information can be distributed in real-time. No time verlust through printing
  • Accessibility: With almost no cost, you can access information. You only need a computer and internet. Digital information is accessible. It is more fluent.
  • Use: Digital natives are not only passive receivers of information, rather they actively engage with actual topics and deal with it by transforming, derivative, creative, artful way.

Consider our “digital creators” chapter for deeper insights into these issues.


This structural change fosters the production and access of high quality information in numerous ways:

  • Amount of high quality information: As more people engage in creating information, digital natives can access more information and have a choice among different types and qualities of information.
  • Diversity of information: The integration of many people from around the world in the information production process allows digital natives to get insights into different viewpoints, reflect on sensitive issues from various perspectives and autonomously develop balanced opinions.
  • Scope of information: In the age of digital natives, information is no longer produced to meet solely main-stream demands (e.g. best-seller movies). The access to a broader audience via internet also fosters the production of less-mainstream information (the long tail). The publication of information is no longer pre-filtered through professional intermediaries, such as professional editors.


What Are the Dangers?

Does our conception of “the more, the better” that is derived from an offline world still apply to the digitally connected world? This conception is based on the idea that people can take better decisions based on a set of diverse information sources among which they have a choice. However, in these days the lack of diverse information is not a threat anymore to most western societies. Information is no longer solely provided through a small number of hieratically and centralized structured media companies. Today, everybody has a voice in the internet and can contribute his thoughts to the online world. Thus, the problems in these days have shifted:

  • How can users filter and organize the huge amounts of digital information in a meaningful way? How can they prevent to experience information overload?
  • How can we prevent information asymmetries that hinder users to take fully informed decisions? How can we enable users to distinguish between high and low quality information?
  • How can we enable users to find, re-find and understand information that suits to their particular interests, and contexts? [add French example]
  • How do we deal with the fact that experts that pre-select information have widely disappeared (e.g. editors of a journals, music producers? How do we deal with new and unregulated intermediaries (e.g. search engines)?


What Are Possible Solutions?

We have come historically close to an important policy goal of our democratized information society. Thanks to the internet we have reached a state where information is created and accessed through multiple and diverse information sources. At the same time, this achievement raises new concerns in terms of quality issues. How can we ensure that users do not only have potential access to high quality information but can really harness and process such information? Addressing such concerns means taking measures on several layers. We are convinced that regulating information in its totality or setting uniform top-down quality standards are not appropriate ways to deal with information quality issues as it would endanger the openness and sustainability of the net. Information quality is complex. It requires consideration of different contexts, dimensions, and individual informational needs. Therefore, possible solutions should be reflected from various perspectives, including market, code, norm, and law perspectives.

Markets

- Reputation systems

- Quality labels, trustmarks

Social Norms

- Codes of conduct for bloggers, transparency

- Policies and guidelines at Wikipedia, Netiquette

Code

- Rating, filtering (ICRA, content advisor)

- Meta-data: tagging as a collaborative way to organize information according to folksonomies, (i.e. emergent grassroots taxonomies), see, e.g., Weinberger: Why Tagging Matters

- Specialized software to find content on hard drives, see Metz, PCMag: Conquer Information Overload (2003) (example of Jim Crowe, promoter at Atlantic records)

- Syndication, content aggregators, see Bradbury, FT: Might RSS Help To Solve Your Web Mess?

Law

- Disclosure standards in health regulation (quality standards, procedural requirements, etc.)

- Truth-in-advertising regulation

- Right to correct wrong information

Relevant Research

General

Eppler, M., Helfert, M., Gasser, U.: Information Quality: Organizational, technological, and legal perspectives, 2004.

International Conference on Information Quality, MIT.

Data Management and Information Quality Conference

Information Quality: WWW Virtual Library.

Kovacs, M.: Search Engines: Their Necessity and Potential Danger.

MIT Dissertations on Information Quality.

Pew Internet: Youth Presentation Singapore, 2003.

Pew Internet: Health Care, 2002.

Wikipedia: Information Quality.

Wikipedia: Data Quality.

Saffo, P.: It's the Context, Stupid, in: Wired Magazine, 1994.

White, A.: The WSIS in Geneva on Pluralism, Media Quality and Work in the Information Society: The Journalists’ Perspective, 2005.

Gasser, Urs: Information Quality and the Law, or, How to Catch a Difficult Horse (2003).

Studies in Communication Science on Information Quality, 2004.

Loreto, A.: Towards a physiological communication in the information society, the world summit in reflection, 2003.

Berkman Center, Global Networked Readiness for Education, 2005.

The Virtual Case: Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet

Data Protection Watchdogs' Letter to Google Goes Public, in: The Register, 05.31.2007.

Vance, A.: How to fix your Kid's Education for $200m, in: The Register, 05.16.2007.

Report raises child index alarm, Protection Measures Could Put Children More at Risk, in: The Register 11.22.2006.

Davies, W.: Ask.com's Bogus Information Revolution, in: The Register 05.29.2007 (article about Intermediaries).

Hansell, S.: Google Keeps Tweaking its Search Engine, in: The New York Times 07.01.2007 (article about Google's search-quality team).

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informations- und Datenqualität

Peer Reviewed Journals

Pew Internet: Digital Natives, Libraries, 2006.

YALSA: Social Networking and DOPA, 2006.

Pew Internet: The Internet and Education, 2001.

Pew Internet: Protecting Teens Online, 2005.

Weinberger, D.: Blog, Everything is miscellaneous, 2007.

The Quality Information Check (education).

Timbl: Net Neutrality, this is serious (regulation).

UC Berkeley School of Information, Quality of Information.

The Underground Web, in: Business Week, 2002.

Wikipedia: Information wants to be free.

MacArthur: Credibility Project, 2007.

Eastin/Yang/Nathanson: Children on the net: An empirical exploration into the evaluation of internet content, 2006.

Sauer, A.: Gawker's Snarky Success, in: Business Week, 2006.

VanHoboken Blog: Search Engine Quality, 2007.

Stone, B.: New Scrtiny for Facebook over Pedrators, in: NYT 07.30.2007.

Broache, A.: Democrats to push new Net sex-predator laws, 08.03.2007.Stone, B.: States Fault MySpace on predator issues, 05.15.2007.

Baker, S.: Digital Identities and the Internet's summer of love, in BW 12.30.2006. [Solutions]

Green, H.: The Internet, Activism, and the Environment, in: Businessweek, 04.15.2007. [promoter, sea of people]

Hafner, K.: Growing Wikipedia redefines policiy, in NYT, 17.06.07, Dangers.

Wikipedia

Pew Internet: Wikipedia Users, 2007.

Orlowski, A.: Wikipedia founder admits to serous quality problems, in: The Register, 05.18.2005.

Jenkins, H.: What Wikipedia can teach us about the new media literacy, 06.27.2007.

Cohen, N.: After False Claim, Wikipedia to Check Degrees, in: The New York Times 03.12.2007.

Dee, J.: All the News That's Fit for Print, in: The New York Times 07.01.2007.

Trediman, D.: Dancing with Jimmy Wales, in: News.com, 05.14.2007 (Article about Wikipedia, Wikia, Wikipedia's new open-source search machine).

Wizards of Open Source.

Tech Chanel: Wikipedia to highlight quality issues, 2006.

Wikinews, Several US Universities ban Wikipedia as primary source, 03.22.07.

Britannica's Reaction on Nature Magazine's Comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica, 2006.

Netzpolitik: Vorschau Wizards.

LWN.net: Summary of Contributions at the Wizard Conference, 2006.

Kintz, E.: Wikipedia's Rising Power, Auccarcy and Relevancy for Marketing

Adler, L./Alfaro, B.: A Content Driven Reputation System for the Wikipedia.

Stvilia/Twidale/Gasser/LcSmith: Information Quality Discussions in Wikipedia, 2005.

Helm B.: "Wikipedia, a work in progress", in: BusinessWeek, 2005.

Stvilia/Twidale/Gasser/LcSmith: Information Quality Work Organization in Wikipedia.

Seelye, K.: Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar, The New York Times, 12.04.2005.

Bosch, E./Buckley-Carr, A.: Refugee tribunal hit for relying on Wikipedia, in: News.com, 07.20.2007.

Stross, R.: Anonymous Source is not the same as open source, NYT 2006.

Narratives

Bosman, J.: The kid with all the news about TV news. NYT, 28.12.2006

Amilias, C.: Visits to doctors who are not in, ever. NYT, 24.05.2007

Sang-Hu, C.: South Korreans Connect through Search Engine. NYT 07.05.2007. [Naver]

Hu, W.: Seeing no Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops. NYT 05.04.2007.

Stone, A.: The Digital Divide that wasn't, in: Businessweek 08.2003.

Cohen, N: A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia, in NYT, 02.21.2007.

Documents

Brenner, et al.: Qualität im Internet: Technische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungsperspektiven, St. Gallen 2007.

Burkert, H.: Law and Information Quality - Some Skeptical Observations, 2004.

Gasser, U.: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An Essay on Information Quality Governance on the Internet (Draft 2006).

Gasser, U.: Information Quality and the Internet, presentation at Harvard Law School, April 2004.

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