Poe in Cyberspace: The “Mobile-Friendly” Sites

Googling for Health Information

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have gained great popularity among adult learners, as many professionals use them to advance their careers. However, many MOOCs providers offer a large number of courses across many subjects, making the search and selection of the appropriate course cumbersome for the learner through a regular Web search. Hence, there is a crucial need for a unified search engine that acts as a one-stop-shop for all MOOCs. This paper presents the design and implementation of a unified MOOCs search model for retrieving and recommending courses from multiple MOOCs. The evaluation showed that the proposed model is reliable and convenient. Initial results showed that the system could present courses from multiple MOOCs that suit users’ needs. Moreover, the recommendation functionality is applied for a better user-centric orientation.

With increasing storage capacities on current PCs, searching the World Wide Web has ironically become more efficient than searching one's own personal computer. The recently introduced desktop search engines are a first step towards coping with this problem, but not yet a satisfying solution. The reason for that is that desktop search is actually quite different from its web counterpart. Documents on the desktop are not linked to each other in a way comparable to the web, which means that result ranking is poor or even inexistent, because algorithms like PageRank cannot be used for desktop search. On the other hand, desktop search could potentially profit from a lot of implicit and explicit semantic information available in emails, folder hierarchies, browser cache contexts and others. This paper investigates how to extract and store these activity based context information explicitly as RDF metadata and how to use them, as well as additional background information and ontologies, to enhance desktop search.

Existing desktop search applications, trying to keep up with the rapidly increasing storage capacities of our hard disks, offer an incomplete solution for information retrieval. In this paper we describe our Beagle++ desktop search prototype, which enhances conventional full-text search with semantics and ranking modules. This prototype extracts and stores activity-based metadata explicitly as RDF annotations. Our main contributions are extensions we integrate into the Beagle desktop search infrastructure to exploit this additional contextual information for searching and ranking the resources on the desktop. Contextual information plus ranking brings desktop search much closer to the performance of web search engines. Initially disconnected sets of resources on the desktop are connected by our contextual metadata, PageRank derived algorithms allow us to rank these resources appropriately. First experiments investigating precision and recall quality of our search prototype show encouraging improvements over standard search.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are marketed as opportunities for participants to improve their labor market outcomes, and tens of thousands of students have paid for career-focused MOOC certificate programs. However, there is limited and conflicting research on MOOCs and labor market outcomes. Using two randomized control trials, we test Amazon’s Mechanical Turk respondents’ preferences for hiring hypothetical freelance web developers. In the first experiment, we examine preferences for profiles with MOOCs as compared to profiles with traditional degrees (bachelor’s, associates, and community college certificates). Respondents preferred all traditional degrees over a MOOC; MOOCs do not serve as substitutes for traditional postsecondary credentials. In the second experiment, we examine preferences for MOOCs as compared to no listed credential. Results demonstrate a 61–percentage point preference for MOOC credentials compared to no MOOC credential; the preference does not vary across levels of professional experience.

Rationale: Each year, about 1.6 million people in the US discover a new pulmonary nodule, often turning to search engines or artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT, OpenEvidence AI, and Google Gemini for information. This study evaluates and compares the accuracy, consistency, and readability of their responses to nonexpert questions about pulmonary nodules. Methods: Three authors presented 30 nonexpert questions regarding pulmonary nodules to ChatGPT 4, OpenEvidence AI, Google Gemini, Google search, and Bing. Each answer was judged to be correct, partially correct, incorrect, or unanswered. Consistency was judged based on whether all three answers aligned, regardless of accuracy. Logistic regression analysis assessed the association between response accuracy and consistency with each AI tool, using Google Gemini as the standard of comparison. Readability was measured using the Flesch Reading Ease Score and Gunning Fog Index. Results: Of the 90 answers given by OpenEvidence AI, 69 (76.7%) were correct, 12 (13.3%) partially correct, and 9 (10.0%) incorrect. ChatGPT answers were rated 67 (74.4%) correct, 17 (18.9%) partially correct, and 6 (6.7%) incorrect. Google Gemini answers were assessed as 42 (46.7%) correct, 30 (33.3%) partially correct, and 18 (20.0%) incorrect. The Google search engine answered 64 (71.1%) correct, 18 (20.0%) partially correct, and 8 (8.9%) incorrect. Bing's search engine answered 25 (29.4%) correct, 34 (40.0%) partially correct, 26 (30.6%) incorrect, and 5 unanswered. ChatGPT and Google's search engine were over 5 times (OR = 5.714, P=.0044) more likely to provide correct answers compared to Google Gemini. Likewise, OpenEvidence was 4.6 times (OR=4.571, P=.0094) more likely to provide correct answers than Google Gemini. Logistic regression with response consistency indicated ChatGPT and OpenEvidence both have higher odds of consistent responses compared to Google Gemini, but this association was not statistically significant. The average Flesch-Reading Ease Scores were 40.78 (±3.76) for Google, 38.67 (±2.29) for Google Gemini, 38.32 (±5.05) for Bing, 33.83 (±1.82) for ChatGPT, and 19.89 (±2.04) for OpenEvidence. The Gunning Fog Indexes were 13.39 (±0.31) for ChatGPT, 13.72 (±0.41) for Google Gemini, 14.22 (±1.20) for Google, 15.01 (±1.60) for Bing, and 19.66 (±0.56) for OpenEvidence. Conclusion: OpenEvidence and ChatGPT were more accurate than Google Gemini. They also had higher, but not significant, odds of consistency. None of the tools answered at the recommended sixth to eighth grade level for patient health information. OpenEvidence's answers were the most complex at a college graduate level while the lowest complexity was ChatGPT at a college level.

Users increasingly access the internet through their smartphones creating the need for a different web design approach in order to meet the requirements of new user behaviour. Responsive Web design (RWD) is an approach to develop websites dynamically and adjust their layout and content to the screen size of a user’s device. This study investigates the impact of RWD on perceived usability, perceived attractiveness and intuitiveness through a user experience experiment of two touristic information websites (desktop and mobile versions) with varying levels of compliance to those guidelines. Results indicate that there are significant differences in perceived usability and user experience between desktop computers and smartphones in general. Additionally, mobile information services following a stricter approach to RWD are perceived as easier and more intuitive to use, yet they fail to create emotion and consequently are less recommended by users.

The use of smart phones among postgraduates in Malaysia has become indispensable in recent times. This study aims to identify the intended use of smart phones among students in terms of educational and social communication purposes. This study is quantitative in nature with exploratory study as the research design. Data was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 2.1. The study established that students were positive towards the use of smart phones for learning purpose, with no significance difference between male and female. In regard to age, for students age less than 45, they are inclined to use smart phones as a medium to gain information, to surf the internet as well as to access the e-learning portal provided by the university. However, for students age more than 45, they prefer to use laptop or desktop computers for aforementioned activities as the result from the screen limitation. The study also established that students were positive towards the use of smart phones for social communication purpose, with no significance difference between male and female. In regard to age, for students age less than 45, they are inclined to use smart phones as a medium of communication, through SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat rather than making phone calls. However, for students age more than 45, they prefer over the phone conversations rather than using social communication applications. As the conclusion, this study provide significant findings that could point out the future direction of smart phones usage among postgraduate students in Malaysia for learning and social communication purposes.

Traditional desktop search engines such as Google Desktop Search usually return a document ranking which still takes time to filter the desired documents. To improve the document ranking, this work adopts the query-specific clustering approach and proposes a two stage clustering scheme. Based on the returned snippets, the first stage divides the snippets into two groups. The first group contains all keywords in the query and the second group contains partial or no query keywords. The ranking of the first group will be ahead of the second group. In the second stage, the first group is further applied the Group-Average Agglomerative Clustering (GACC) to form hierarchical clusters that all have a combination similarity above a given threshold. Based on the GAAC result, non-singleton clusters are ordered from high to low by their last combination similarity. Within each cluster, the two last combining subclusters are also ordered from high to low by their last combination similarity. Having a combination similarity of 0, singleton clusters will be located behind following their initial snippet order. As test dataset, a standard Chinese news dataset CIRB030 is used which consists of 49210 documents and 42 enquiry topics. An original document ranking is obtained from Google Desktop Search. Then the snippets are tokenized and filtered to extract the representative keywords and form the snippet vectors. The snippets then go through the two stage clustering scheme to adjust their ranking. The result shows that the two stage clustering scheme can significantly improve the document ranking and the processing time is short.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have taken the world of higher education by storm. Ubiquitous use of tablets and smartphones, rapid increase of broadband penetration, and the coming-of-college-age of the ‘digital native’ generation have led many top universities to offer some of their courses to a wider audience online, free of charge. Millions of students are actively engaging. We present lessons learned after two years of experience with these new educational platforms and explore the opportunities and challenges of delivering MOOCs to students in Africa (and other developing regions) through a North-South partnership involving universities and teaching staff.

Introduction and ObjectiveWith the advent of social media and widespread use of the internet, the learning routine of students has significantly changed over the last two decades. The use of smartphones and on‐line educational applications has exponentially risen. Among medical students, readily accessible on‐line tools in medical education have become a major way to learn the basic sciences and clinical concepts. Smartphones have shifted the traditional learning routine into “learning on the go”. Medical students are able to interact with peers, meet‐up electronically and collaborate both for social reasons and educational purposes. Among the Caribbean medical schools, only one study on smartphone utilization among medical students and teachers has been published so far. The objective of this study is to get an insight on how smartphones are utilized among educators and medical students for teaching and learning, respectively, in a Caribbean medical college.MethodAfter getting an ethical clearance from the Institutional Review Board (IRB/Ana/002/2021), the study was done by conducting a survey using a questionnaire among the faculty, premeds, and preclinical medical students at Bridgetown International University in Barbados. The questions were discussed and validated by all the authors. The participation was voluntary. The participants had to answer a set of questions including the proprietorship of smartphones, medical applications used, the search engine commonly used for learning medicine and also an assessment of their insight on the usefulness of smart phones in Medical Education. The results of the survey were tallied and statistical analysis was done.ResultsThe study population (n=44) included faculty, premeds and preclinical students at Bridgetown International University in Barbados.The results showed that 97% of the respondents owned a smartphone for over 2 years. 79.9% of the respondents used Android smartphone and about 39% of those used the Samsung mobile phones.The smart phone was generally not received for use in medical school. It was mainly factored into the decision to get a smartphone and also for communication and social purposes. After acquiring 93% of the respondents started using it for medical education.The reference source used most to search unfamiliar terms or concepts is Google search engine (95%).84% of the respondents used medical apps. These apps are used several times during a week. The apps used include Osmosis (13%) and 3D Anatomy (11%).62% of the respondents agreed that smartphones gave them a better learning experience and felt that smartphones have a future in medical education in the future.ConclusionThe survey revealed that most of the medical students used smartphones for better learning. It is found to be a useful tool for “learning on the go”. In future curriculum should be designed incorporating the usage of smartphones for academic purpose as it is the future of medical education.

Although web search on mobile devices is common, little is known about how users read search result lists on a small screen. We used eye tracking to compare users' scanning behaviour of web search engine result pages on a small screen (hand-held devices) and a large screen (desktops or laptops). The objective was to determine whether search result pages should be designed differently for mobile devices. To compare scanning behaviour, we considered only the fixation time and scanning strategy using our new method called 'Trackback'. The results showed that on a small screen, users spend relatively more time to conduct a search than they do on a large screen, despite tending to look less far ahead beyond the link that they eventually select. They also show a stronger tendency to seek information within the top three results on a small screen than on a large screen. The reason for this tendency may be difficulties in reading and the relative location of page folds. The results clearly indicated that scanning behaviour during web search on a small screen is different from that on a large screen. Thus, research efforts should be invested in improving the presentation of search engine result pages on small screens, taking scanning behaviour into account. This will help provide a better search experience in terms of search time, accuracy of finding correct links, and user satisfaction.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse if citizens’ searches on the internet coincide with the services that municipal websites offer. In addition, the authors examine municipal webpage rankings in search engines and the factors explaining them.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical study, conducted through a sample of Spanish city councils, contrasted if the information that can be found on a municipal website fits with citizens’ demands. This has been done by comparing the most-searched keywords with the contents of municipal websites.FindingsA positive relationship between the supply and demand of municipal information on the internet has been found, but much can still be improved. Analysed administrations rank the basic data of the organisation, as well as some of the fundamental competences thereof, at the top in search engines, but the results are not entirely effective with some keywords still highly demanded by citizens, such as those related to employment or tourism. Factors explaining internet ranking include the number of pages of the municipal website, its presence in social networks and an indicator designed to measure the difficulty of ranking the municipal place-name.Originality/valueThe results obtained from this study provide valuable information for municipal managers. Municipal websites should not only include information in which citizens are interested, but achieve accessibility standards, have a responsive web design, and follow the rules of web usability. Additionally, they should be findable, which also requires improvement in terms of the design of the municipal website thinking in search engines, particularly in terms of certain technical characteristics that improve findability. A municipal website that wants to have a good positioning should increase its contents and attain the maximum degree possible of visibility in social networks.

This study develops several Google search‐based measures to test the relation between earnings‐week online search results and the speed of price discovery. These measures are based on searches using only a firm's ticker symbol in the search string. I collect the total number of search results (across all search result pages) as well as the type and content of search results on the first three pages of search results. I find that the quantity, quality, and content of search results have varying effects on the speed at which earnings news is impounded into stock price. I also find that effects are only observed for search results presented on the first page of a Google search. Overall, my results suggest that (1) increases in online information are associated with slower price discovery, and (2) the likely mechanism by which this association operates is through useful search results being crowded off the first page of results by more complex or irrelevant search results.

BackgroundThe balance of the benefits and risks of long term use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have been a matter of debate for decades. In Europe, HRT requires medical prescription and its advertising is only permitted when aimed at health professionals (direct to consumer advertising is allowed in some non European countries). The objective of this study is to analyse the appropriateness and quality of Internet advertising about HRT in Spain.MethodsA search was carried out on the Internet (January 2009) using the eight best-selling HRT drugs in Spain. The brand name of each drug was entered into Google's search engine. The web sites appearing on the first page of results and the corresponding companies were analysed using the European Code of Good Practice as the reference point.ResultsFive corporate web pages: none of them included bibliographic references or measures to ensure that the advertising was only accessible by health professionals. Regarding non-corporate web pages (n = 27): 41% did not include the company name or address, 44% made no distinction between patient and health professional information, 7% contained bibliographic references, 26% provided unspecific information for the use of HRT for osteoporosis and 19% included menstrual cycle regulation or boosting feminity as an indication. Two online pharmacies sold HRT drugs which could be bought online in Spain, did not include the name or contact details of the registered company, nor did they stipulate the need for a medical prescription or differentiate between patient and health professional information.ConclusionsEven though pharmaceutical companies have committed themselves to compliance with codes of good practice, deficiencies were observed regarding the identification, information and promotion of HRT medications on their web pages. Unaffected by legislation, non-corporate web pages are an ideal place for indirect HRT advertising, but they often contain misleading information. HRT can be bought online from Spain, without a medical consultation or prescription constituting a serious issue for public health. In our information society, it is the right and obligation of public health bodies to ensure that such information is not misleading.