This article describes a model for online consumer health information consisting of five quality criteria constructs. These constructs are grounded in empirical data from the perspectives of the three main sources in the communication process: health information providers, consumers, and intermediaries, such as Web directory creators and librarians, who assist consumers in finding healthcare information. The article also defines five constructs of Web page structural markers that could be used in information quality evaluation and maps these markers to the quality criteria. Findings from correlation analysis and multinomial logistic tests indicate that use of the structural markers depended significantly on the type of Web page and type of information provider. The findings suggest the need to define genre-specific templates for quality evaluation and the need to develop models for an automatic genre-based classification of health information Web pages. In addition, the study showed that consumers may lack the motivation or literacy skills to evaluate the information quality of health Web pages, which suggests the need to develop accessible automatic information quality evaluation tools and ontologies.

The present study aims to investigate the effects of smartphone use by college students on their perceived academic performance. Using five hypotheses derived from the literature related to smartphone use, the initial model was set up for path analysis to reveal the relationships among variables regarding college students' smartphone use in the academic setting. Moreover, multiple group analyses were additionally conducted to verify whether students exhibited different relationships in the hypothesized model depending on their majors. The results from path analyses showed that all path coefficients were positive and statistically significant, which indicated that all five hypothesized paths were supported. Above all, the results from multiple group analysis showed that one path (from Behavioural Intention to Use Smartphone to Academic Performance) differed significantly across groups. The findings from the current study provide educational policymakers and educators with information on how smartphone utilization in learning activities influences students' academic performance.

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The purpose of the current study is to investigate perceptions regarding the quality of online health answers in social Q&A. The current study differs from previous studies by focusing on the topic of health, comparing the evaluations of users against experts. Three groups of participants – librarians, nurses, and users of Yahoo! Answers – were invited to assess the quality of health answers posted in Yahoo! Answers. Forty participants from each group reviewed a total of 400 health answers, rating them with a 5‐points Likert scale according to 10 evaluation criteria: accuracy, completeness, relevance, objectivity, source credibility, readability, politeness, confidence, knowledge, and efforts. Findings indicated that there was no significant difference of the quality ratings between librarians and nurses. There was, however, significant difference between those two expert groups (librarians and nurses) and users. Librarians and nurses rated the quality of answers lower on most of the evaluation criteria than users. This research will help librarians and nurses better understand how laypeople, such as their patrons and patients, evaluate online health information in social contexts, leading to the offering of better health information services to these audiences.