Purpose
– Information encountering is the serendipitous acquisition of information that requires low or no involvement and expectation of users. The purpose of this paper is to model the explicit process and the implicit factors of online information encountering, i.e. how and why it occurs.
Design/methodology/approach
– The critical incident technique was adopted to collect qualitative data from 16 interview participants. They contributed 27 true incidents of online information encountering which were used to identify the key phases of the encountering process. They also commented on the factors that they thought had an influence on the chance of the occurrence of encountering.
Findings
– The macro-process of information encountering is composed of three phases. First, browsing, searching, or social interaction provides the context for encountering; second, the encountering occurrence consists of three steps – noticing the stimuli, examining the content, and acquiring interesting or useful content; and third, the information encountered will be explored further, saved, used, or shared. The 14 influencing factors of information encountering obtained divide into three clusters. User-related factors include sensitivity, emotions, expertise, attitudes, intentionality, curiosity, activity diversity; information-related factors include type, relevance, quality, visibility, and sources; and environment-related factors include time limits and interface usability.
Originality/value
– This study engenders useful implications for designing information encountering experience. The changeable nature of some influencing factors suggests that encountering can be elicited through the purposive design of encountering support features or even encountering systems, and the macro-process depicts the natural occurring mechanisms of encountering for the design to follow.
Purpose -Digital libraries and social media are two sources of online information with different characteristics. The purpose of this paper is to integrate self-efficacy into the analysis of the relationship between information sources and decision making, and to explore the effect of self-efficacy on decision making, as well as the interacting effect of self-efficacy and information sources on decision making. Design/methodology/approach -Survey data were collected and the partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to verify the research model. Findings -The effect of digital library usage for acquiring information on perceived decision quality (PDQ) is larger than that of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ. Self-efficacy in acquiring information (SEAI) stands out as the key determinant for PDQ. The effect of social media usage for acquiring information on PDQ is positively moderated by SEAI. Practical implications -Decision making is a fundamental activity for individuals, but human decision making is often subject to biases. The findings of this study provide useful insights into decision quality improvement, highlighting the importance of SEAI in the face of information overload. Originality/value -This study integrates self-efficacy into the analysis of the relationship between information sources and decision making, presenting a new perspective for decision-making research and practice alike.
Humans are explorers by nature. Almost all searches are exploratory to a certain extent. As a result of the subdivision of the information seeking domain, exploratory search has become a new research focus arousing extensive attention. This chapter introduces the concept of exploratory search and illustrates its basic theoretical foundations, clarifying its complex meaning from the aspects of the problem context and the search process. Four different methods of classifying search results are identified based on a survey of existing exploratory search systems, including hierarchical classification, faceted classification, dynamic clustering, and social classification. Their inherent characteristics and practical applications are reviewed in detail, and the visualization support for presenting the classified search results is explored in addition. The development trends of the exploratory search field are predicted according to the social nature of information seeking.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.