Activities to date had been focused on:
- conducting a research survey about credibility perception on the Web by people primarily using audio modality to interact with the Web; and
- identifying people interested in participating in the design and development of an “Accessible Framework for Determining Credibility and Trustworthiness on the Web”.
A survey was conducted (April to July 2008) to gather data from residents of Ontario who had been accessing the Web auditorily using a screen reader since at least one year due to blindness or vision impairment. Descriptive as well as categorical inputs were sought about the technologies they used to access the Internet, their online information practices and their online information assessment experiences.
Information about the research survey was distributed through email listservs. Announcements were also made about the survey on Voiceprint (Canada’s Broadcast Reading Service) several times each day between June 12 and July 31, 2008. An interview by Voiceprint with Sambhavi Chandrashekar to disseminate information about the study to potential participants was broadcast on June 24, 2008.
As of June 30, 2008 survey responses were received from 42 participants. A preliminary analysis shows that while the participants are of diverse age, education and expertise, they exhibit uniformity in the following aspects:
- Platform used (95% use Windows)
- Browser used (95% use Internet Explorer)
- Assistive technology used (95% use JAWS)
- Information seeking method (100% use Google search)
- Accessing the Web (90% do this every single day)
Confirmation of source, Consultation with friends and Corroboration of facts with other sources are coming out as dominant practices for credibility assessment. These findings support the proposed framework of online community support for credibility assessment. Further analysis of data is being done and summary results will be put up on the project website when available.
There is overwhelming support from the community to participate in the survey as well as in the proposed online community framework. As a result of the survey and related dissemination activities, the “interest group” for participatory development of an “Accessible Framework for Assessment of Credibility and Trustworthiness on the Web” is growing. Over 60 people living in Ontario have expressed interest to participate in the design and development of the online community framework that is scheduled to commence after completion of analysis of the survey responses.