Online Information Review

Lu Xiao; Nicole Askin

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-04-2013-0062

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine academics’ awareness of and attitudes towards Wikipedia and Open Access journals for academic publishing to better understand the perceived benefits and challenges of these models. Design/methodology/approach – Bases for analysis include comparison of the models, enumeration of their advantages and disadvantages, and investigation of Wikipedia's web structure in terms of potential for academic publishing. A web survey was administered via department‐based invitations and listservs. Findings – The survey results show that: Wikipedia has perceived advantages and challenges in comparison to the Open Access model; the academic researchers’ increased familiarity is associated with increased comfort with these models; and the academic researchers’ attitudes towards these models are associated with their familiarity, academic environment, and professional status. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the study is sample size. The result of a power analysis with GPower shows that authors could only detect big effects in this study at statistical power 0.95. The authors call for larger sample studies that look further into this topic. Originality/value – This study contributes to the increasing interest in adjusting methods of creating and disseminating academic knowledge by providing empirical evidence of the academics’ experiences and attitudes towards the Open Access and Wikipedia publishing models. This paper provides a resource for researchers interested in scholarly communication and academic publishing, for research librarians, and for the academic community in general.

Lee A. Pedersen; Julie Arendt

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-07-2013-0159

Purpose – Informally computer scientists reported they could access free copies of research papers they needed via tools such as Google Scholar. To ascertain whether this perception came from widespread free access or from unnoticed employer‐paid access, the purpose of this paper was to locate computer science papers and determine what proportion was freely available using Google Scholar. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 1,967 conference papers and periodical papers from 2003 to 2010, indexed in the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, was searched for manually in Google Scholar, using the paper or article title and the first author's surname and supplementary searches as needed. Findings – Free full‐text versions were found for 52 per cent of the conference papers and 55 per cent of the periodical papers. Documents with older publication dates were more likely to be freely accessible than newer documents, with free versions found for 71 per cent of items published in 2003 and 43 per cent of items published in 2010. Research limitations/implications – Results were limited to the retrieval of known computer science publications via Google Scholar. Future research could examine whether the decline found in this study is specific to Google Scholar or reflects a decrease in the free sharing of research by computer scientists. Originality/value – Previous research for computer science found lower levels of free access than this research determined, but the decline found in this study runs contrary to increases that have been found. This research confirms many computer science papers are available for free but also that subscription holdings are necessary for complete coverage of papers in the field.

Carla Ruiz‐Mafe; Jose Martí‐Parreño; Silvia Sanz‐Blas

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-05-2013-0101

Purpose – With the rapid expansion of social networking sites, researchers and practitioners are challenged to understand drivers of customer loyalty in fan pages. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main drivers of Facebook fan page loyalty in order to promote the creation of affective links and long‐term relationships with users. Design/methodology/approach – The impact of trust, fan page content dependency, attitude and consumer beliefs on loyalty to fan pages was tested through structural equation modelling techniques. The sample consisted of 691 Spanish Facebook users. Findings – Data analysis shows that attitude appears as a key variable in increasing loyalty to fan pages. The empirical study also found a significant positive influence of perceived usefulness, attitude, trust and dependency on loyalty in fan pages, and an indirect influence of perceived ease of use mediated by perceived usefulness and attitude. Practical implications – This research enables managers to know what aspects to highlight in their communication strategies to increase fan page use and positive word‐of‐mouth. Research findings show managers that Facebook fan page content should provide valuable information, be fun and foster user interactions in order to improve user attitude and loyalty. Practical recommendations to reinforce consumer trust on Facebook fan pages are also provided. Originality/value – There are still too few studies that analyse the effects of trust and fan page dependency on fan page users’ loyalty. This work aims to combine the influence of dependency on fan pages, trust, attitude and Technology Acceptance Model beliefs in order to construct an improved model for fan page loyalty formation.

Terry Hui‐Ye Chiu; Chien‐Chou Chen; Yuh‐Jzer Joung; Shymin Chen

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-01-2013-0022

Purpose – Most studies on tie strength have focused on its definition, calculation and applications, but have not paid much attention to how tie strength can help analyse online social networks. Because ties play different roles in a network depending on their strength, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between tie strength and network behaviours. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a simple metric for tie strength measurement and then apply it to an online social network extracted from a blog network. These networks are massive in size and have technology for efficient data collection, thereby presenting the possibility of measuring tie strength objectively. From the results several key social network properties are studied to see how tie strength may be used as a metric to explain certain characteristics in social networks. Findings – The online networks exhibit all the structural properties of an actual social network, not only in following the power law but also with regard to the distribution of tie strength. The authors noted a strong association between tie strength and reciprocity, and tie strength and transitivity in online social networks. Originality/value – This paper highlights the importance of analysing online social networks from a tie strength perspective. The results have important implications for the development of efficient search mechanisms and appropriate group leaders in virtual communities.

Hsiu‐Hua Cheng

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-06-2013-0144

Purpose – Blogs provide opportunities for bloggers to create. This creativity can attract audiences and generate commercial success for blog service providers (BSPs). Thus to obtain competitive advantage, such providers should stimulate their bloggers to produce creative content. The purpose of this paper is to adopt social embeddedness and creativity theory to explore factors influencing blogger creativity. Design/methodology/approach – An online questionnaire and an online embeddedness system are used to collect data from 353 bloggers, including data on their motivation, integration ability, structural and relational embeddedness and creativity. Hierarchical regression is applied for statistical analysis. Findings – Analytical results show that structural embeddedness and relational embeddedness affect blogger creativity. Additionally motivation negatively moderates the relationship between structural embeddedness and creativity, and integration ability negatively moderates the relationship between relational embeddedness and creativity. Research limitations/implications – This study applies social embeddedness to elucidate the relationships among quantity and quality of professional knowledge and creativity. This study also discusses the moderating effect of motivation and integration ability on the relationship between social embeddedness and creativity. Practical implications – Creative articles by bloggers can popularise a blog platform, as they can retain bloggers and attract new bloggers. Therefore, for BSPs enhancing the creative performance of bloggers is one way to obtain competitive advantage. Originality/value – The study contributes to knowledge of social embeddedness and creativity on blog web sites, and importantly, this study develops a model that explains how antecedents influence blogger creativity.

Maayan Zhitomirsky‐Geffet; Yigal Maman

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-07-2013-0176

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the quality and reliability of websites’ content can be assessed through the lens of “wisdom of the crowds”. In particular as a case study the authors examine the information supplied over time on several prominent Israeli real estate websites. Design/methodology/approach – The Israeli real estate market was selected for the study, since there are many large, popular and dynamic real estate websites that feature hundreds of thousands of ads, representing most of the supply of real estate properties in the country. The authors built an automatic, ontology‐based system that downloaded advertisements from three selected websites every two weeks for a number of months and checked for changes in these advertisements over time. The authors conjecture that wisdom of the crowds is mostly reflected by the information changes on the websites, since they indicate the anticipated market trends. Hence the authors developed a number of statistical measures to comparatively analyse trends of information changes on these websites, and assess their reliability compared to the actual market data and tendencies. Findings – The primary results suggest similar information change trends amongst all the websites. Surprisingly, although some properties did not sell over time, sellers generally did not lower their asking price and were willing to wait. Sellers even raised their asking price, apparently in anticipation of future price increases. Comparison of recurring trends among the websites with the trends of the real market during the same time period and a few months after reveals that wisdom of the crowds is only partially effective as an indicator and predictor of website content quality: it correctly reflects the fluctuation in demand, but not in the prices. Research limitations/implications – This study was conducted over a limited time period of five months, and only in several cities in Israel. Additionally, since buyers are not explicitly represented in these sites, their information behaviour was not analysed, although it undoubtedly influences information changes performed by the sellers. Practical implications – The practical contribution of this study is the ontology of the real estate world. Its assimilation by real estate websites would promote the development of their sites and user services. It would also enable ad sharing amongst the various websites and enable efficient searches by search engines. In addition the tools and measures that the authors developed will allow continued monitoring and analysis of user information change patterns. Originality/value – To the best of the knowledge this is the first study to examine and compare real estate websites’ quality and evaluate their information reliability as wisdom of the crowds.

Gregor Petrič; Andraž Petrovčič

2014 Online Information Review

doi: 10.1108/OIR-04-2013-0083

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how decisions of managers and administrators of online communities on norms and rules affect the sense of virtual community (SOVC), which is an important factor of the quality of online information. Design/methodology/approach – The study followed a two‐level research design based on 970 online community members, nested within 36 online communities. Data collection consisted of two stages: first a web survey of a sample of online community members was conducted, followed by a web survey of administrators of the same online communities. A two‐level hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings – The empirical results suggest that prominence of rules under the condition of members’ participation in their creation, presence of reputation mechanisms, and content moderation contribute significantly to the SOVC , while presence of lighter sanctions and interactive moderation do not. Research limitations/implications – Since this study is based on web forums, the validity of the proposed hypotheses for other types of online communities cannot be firmly established. Additional elements of online community management could be considered for a stronger system‐level explanation of the SOVC. Practical implications – The study demonstrates that online community administrators need to be considerate in creating and enforcing norms, as their decisions have an impact on the SOVC and consequently on the quality of online information. Originality/value – The literature considers many factors of the SOVC but none of the previous studies have considered how community management is associated with this phenomenon.