Soohyung Joo

Measuring the usability of academic digital libraries: Instrument development and validation

Purpose – This study aims to develop a measurement instrument, which involves four usability dimensions of efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction, and learnability, as a way of assessing the usability of academic digital libraries.Design/methodology/approach – To generate measurement items, previous research related to usability frameworks, usability guidelines, and empirical usability tests was reviewed. The measurement instrument was then verified in terms of reliability and validity, empirically using data from 230 actual users of an academic digital library. To ensure the reliability of the instrument, internal consistency of measurements, measurement item reliability, and construct reliability were examined. Construct validity, which consists of convergent validity and discriminant validity, was also examined on the basis of confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling.Findings – The usability evaluation instrument suggested in this study comprises four dimensions: efficiency, eff...

Factors affecting undergraduates’ selection of online library resources in academic tasks: Usefulness, ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore multiple factors affecting online library resource selection by undergraduate students. Three dimensions of factors are investigated including usefulness and ease-of-use, resource quality, and individual differences. Design/methodology/approach – An instrument was developed to measure various aspect factors and online library resource use intention. A survey was administered to 332 undergraduate students. Quantitative analysis, including structural equation modeling, ANOVA, and t-tests, was used to statistically examine the effects of the identified 11 factors on the use intention of online library resources. Findings – The findings indicated that both usefulness and ease-of-use positively influenced the undergraduates’ use intention of online library resources. Also, five resource quality constructs – accessibility, credibility, coverage, currency, and format – were the determinants of online library resources use intention. Interestingly, the effect of a...

Tales from the Field: Search Strategies Applied in Web Searching

In their web search processes users apply multiple types of search strategies, which consist of different search tactics. This paper identifies eight types of information search strategies with associated cases based on sequences of search tactics during the information search process. Thirty-one participants representing the general public were recruited for this study. Search logs and verbal protocols offered rich data for the identification of different types of search strategies. Based on the findings, the authors further discuss how to enhance web-based information retrieval (IR) systems to support each type of search strategy.

Understanding users’ continuance intention to use online library resources based on an extended expectation-confirmation model

Purpose This study aims to investigate the factors affecting students’ continuance intention to use online library resources (OLRs) in the context of academic libraries. Based on an extended expectation confirmation theory (ECT), the effects of usefulness, confirmation and resource quality on continuance intention to use OLRs were examined. Design/methodology/approach To empirically test the model, a survey study was conducted. Data were collected from 606 student library users at a large state university in the USA. The collected data were analysed quantitatively to answer seven hypotheses using partial least squares method. Findings The findings revealed that both usefulness and confirmation had a positive direct and indirect influence on continuance intention. Also, the effect of resource quality on continuance intention was found to be significant. Satisfaction had a mediating effect on the relationship between usefulness, confirmation and resource quality, and continuance intention. Originality/value This study is one of the first attempts that adopted the ECT to understand students’ continuance intention to use OLRs. In addition, the effect of the multiple dimensions of resource quality – accessibility, credibility, coverage, and format – on users’ continuance intention to use OLRs was investigated.

How are usability elements - efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction - correlated with each other in the context of digital libraries?

This study examines the relationships amongst three major usability elements -- efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Based on an experiment involving twelve subjects, this pilot study measured the efficiency, effectiveness, and subjective satisfaction of an academic digital library system. The preliminary results showed all three usability elements are highly correlated with each other. In particular, the correlation between effectiveness and satisfaction is much higher than the other pairs of correlations.

Exploring Search Tactic Patterns in Searching Digital Libraries

This study explored users’ application of search tactics within a single search session while using the U.S. Library of Congress Digital Collections. Thirty-eight sessions of exploratory tasks were analyzed focusing on tactic application patterns. We investigated the amount of time users spent on each type of search tactics and how tactic occurrence probability changed over time during the session. Preliminary results revealed that on average users spent the most time in evaluating individual items or search results. Query creation and exploration tactics were the two main strategies to start a search session, and evaluation tactics showed high occurrence probability throughout the session.

Application of structural equation modelling in exploring tag patterns: a pilot study

This pilot study examines the semantic structure of tag space in Library and Information Science (LIS) using confirmatory factor analysis of social tags from Delicious.com. This study is one of the few studies to employ structural equation modelling (SEM) in investigating dimensions of Web spaces based on social tagging data. This study examines the post data collected from 34 LIS related websites bookmarked on delicious.com. Collected data was analysed using three statistical techniques: correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), to confirm the structure of the social tagging space. Preliminary analysis shows that the semantic structure of the tagging data shows similar connections to those present in the real world. These methodologies can be used to identify the strength of connections between related tagged websites.

Blind Users Searching Digital Libraries: Types of Help-seeking Situations at the Cognitive Level

Universal access is the objective of digital library development. However, it is a challenge for blind users to search information effectively in digital libraries because of their dynamic design and multimedia collections. Serving as the preliminary study of a large scale project, this study focuses on the identification of types of help-seeking situations unique to blind users at the cognitive level. Based on the analysis of 15 blind users’ pre-questionnaires, pre-interviews, think-aloud protocols, transaction logs and post-interviews, the authors identified blind users’ typical help-seeking situations in relation to cognitive overload, comprehension and reasoning. Implications for how to design better help features for blind users to overcome these situations are also discussed.

User involvement and system support in applying search tactics

Both user involvement and system support play important roles in applying search tactics. To apply search tactics in the information retrieval (IR) processes, users make decisions and take actions in the search process, while IR systems assist them by providing different system features. After analyzing 61 participants’ information searching diaries and questionnaires we identified various types of user involvement and system support in applying different types of search tactics. Based on quantitative analysis, search tactics were classified into 3 groups: user‐dominated, system‐dominated, and balanced tactics. We further explored types of user involvement and types of system support in applying search tactics from the 3 groups. The findings show that users and systems play major roles in applying user‐dominated and system‐dominated tactics, respectively. When applying balanced tactics, users and systems must collaborate closely with each other. In this article, we propose a model that illustrates user involvement and system support as they occur in user‐dominated tactics, system‐dominated tactics, and balanced tactics. Most important, IR system design implications are discussed to facilitate effective and efficient applications of the 3 groups of search tactics.

Measuring happiness of US cities by mining user-generated text in Flickr.com: a pilot analysis

This poster describes a methodology to numerically represent the happiness of a city by mining user generated terms in Flickr.com. As a pilot analysis, we collected 15,000 text records consisting of titles, tags, descriptions, and comments for the thirty most populous cities in the United States. Parsed text was utilized to calculate happiness scores (H-Score) by matching text extracted from Flickr.com with a happiness index dictionary. In addition, we examined the relationships between the calculated H-scores and real world phenomena including population, crime rate, and climate. Based on this pilot analysis, a future study is planed that involves a large dataset with prediction analysis.