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Dissertation Information for Stephen Paul Gant

NAME:
- Stephen Paul Gant

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science

SCHOOL:
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA) (1998)

ADVISORS:
- Evelyn Hope Daniel

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Paul Solomon
- Robert M. Losee
- Barbara Marie Wildemuth
- John B. Smith

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: Information filtering of the Congressional Record: Explaining variation in adoption and intensity of use

Abstract: This research investigates the question, Who uses filters and why? Information filters used for current awareness are one potential way of reducing the cognitive load on an individual by presenting documents that both match a user's interest and have not been seen by the user. Previous information filter research has focused on issues of design and evaluation through measurements of precision and recall. Few user studies have been performed. The general utility of information filters used for current awareness can not be established without formal usability studies.

Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory provides a conceptual framework for explaining why an innovation is adopted and used. DOI identifies a set of factors that are consistently associated with adoption. The conceptual framework for this research tests the relative influence of six user-perceived characteristics of the innovation (relative advantage, trialability, compatibility, ease of use, visibility, and results demonstrability) in predicting intensity of use of a filter. The model also includes one characteristic of the adopter, playfulness, which has been shown to be a strong predictor of adoption as well. The model was tested on a filter developed for this study, the CRFilter, which provides a personalized Web search page for the U.S. Congressional Record Text, based on the Library of Congress's InQuery search engine. Users of the CRFilter can store queries and run them later. The CRFilter runs from within the NetScape Web browser, and presents the documents that match the user's query since the last time the query was run.

A self-selected group of thirty-seven users participated in a two-month field trial of the CRFilter, and their interactions were logged. The users filled out a Web-based questionnaire with measures of the independent variables, the second day they used the filter. Relative advantage was the only independent variable that was marginally significant. A set of demographic variables was also collected on the users, and of these, the only variable to show a significant effect was professional category, specifically academics and students used the filter significantly more than other professional categories.

MPACT Scores for Stephen Paul Gant

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-01-31 06:20:33

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