Research Paper
Semantic Web and Ontology
Leila Arabgari; Masoumeh Karbalee Agha Kamran; Zoya Abam; Atefeh Sharif
Abstract
IntroductionThe present research attempts to identify standard metadata elements for organizing learning objects in the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities based on the learning object metadata standard. The present research aims to design an ontology model of electronic ...
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IntroductionThe present research attempts to identify standard metadata elements for organizing learning objects in the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities based on the learning object metadata standard. The present research aims to design an ontology model of electronic learning objects in the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities in order to better display the identification metadata elements. From the semantic point of view, showing semantic relationships between learning objects and better retrieval of learning objects in order to take an effective step towards managing and making information resources available for e-learning. Literature ReviewThe Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Learning Technology Standards Committee defines a learning object as a digital entity that can be used, reused, or referenced during learning (reusability). One of the electronic learning resources is online learning object repositories. Repositories of learning objects are basically the storage of research data and educational materials. To efficiently retrieve educational materials according to the needs of e-learners, educational materials are tagged with a set of metadata that describe educational works such as document topic, document type, etc. Metadata is an important component of learning object description resources. Metadata is also important for interoperability operations. This is because schema metadata is transferable in interoperability standards. The ontology of learning objects for the field of e-learning provides semantic connections between learning objects and provides high-level information and the development of e-learning. Therefore, the ontology of e-learning objects for organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities provides accurate and meaningful learning objects for the e-learning community. The proposed ontology in this research is based on the metadata standard of the learning object and the characteristics of the learning objects to help the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities in organizing their information, quickly and accurately retrieving educational materials, facilitating the reuse of content and improving the quality of the electronic learning process and it even provides the use of objects to create a general context of learning environments using a concept map of e-learning. In fact, the ontology design of electronic learning objects for the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities based on the learning object metadata standard helps to describe the learning objects in a structured way, and this importantly improves the retrieval of learning content and better access to electronic learning content in the repositories. Methodology The purpose of the research is applied research. In the current research, the observation and survey method was used and the matching of the standard metadata elements of the learning object with the metadata elements of the learning objects in the organizational repositories of the research community was discussed. Then, the researcher-made questionnaire was provided to the experts to perform the Delphi technique in order to modify and validate the identified elements. In the next step, a verified set of elements and entities for e-learning objects was obtained in the organizational repositories of Iranian universities of medical sciences. Finally, based on the identified entities, the ontological model of electronic learning objects was designed based on the learning object metadata standard in the organizational repositories of Iranian medical sciences universities.The data collection tool is a researcher-made questionnaire and a standard metadata framework of the learning object. Version 5.6.1 of Protege software was used. During the ontology construction process, the software outputs were evaluated by experts in the field. After confirming the concepts and relationships, a conceptual structure was presented based on the findings. Results The findings showed that the designed ontological model consisting of 162 classes with a total of 189 types of relationships and 2220 samples located in the classes was illustrated. Conclusion The results of the research showed that the learning object metadata standard is comprehensive as a combined standard that includes all types of metadata. Based on the identified entities based on the learning object metadata standard, the ontological model of electronic learning objects was designed in the organizational repositories of Iranian universities of medical sciences. The designed ontology has the overall accuracy as well as the accuracy of different components. The result of this ontology is to present a conceptual structure consisting of concepts in an explicit form in a formal format. By applying ontology based on the learning object metadata standard in the structure of organizational repositories of medical sciences universities of Iran, it is possible to fix possible errors in the semantic level of data, including improving retrieval, better access, and designing intelligent systems.
Research Paper
Information Storage and Retrieval
Hamidreza Radfar
Abstract
IntroductionIdentifying access points to digital information resources and determining their importance from the point of view of specialists in each field plays an important role in retrieving the required resources. Knowing what retrieval points are used by researchers and experts to access digital ...
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IntroductionIdentifying access points to digital information resources and determining their importance from the point of view of specialists in each field plays an important role in retrieving the required resources. Knowing what retrieval points are used by researchers and experts to access digital information resources can have a positive effect on the redesign of information systems. The purpose of this research is to study and identify the importance of access points to digital information resources from the perspective of humanities researchers. Literature reviewArastopour (1999) in a research aimed at investigating the problems related to access points in computer catalogs, states that changing the approach in computer catalogs can lead to the opening of new horizons in the discussion of the structure and display of records. Bevilacqua (2005) conducted a study at the University of Parma with the aim of investigating the organization of electronic journal titles from the perspective of humanities users, and stated that users provide multiple access points (such as inserting an alphabetical list of titles and a list of topics on the website) to electronic journals for more relevant retrieval. Abazari and Babaei (2013) found in their research that web page designers give more importance to metadata than specific metadata schemes such as Dublin. According to the research results of Rathi Tehrani & et al. (2013), from the point of view of experts, more than 70% of the elements of the standards were considered important and required for cataloging museum objects. Eichler & et al. (2021) compared existing metadata schemes and conducted studies on the production of metadata elements in a data management infrastructure. They concluded that an evaluation of existing metadata models shows that none are sufficiently general so far, as their design basis is not appropriate. Burke & et al. (2022) studied the available metadata and presented a model for organizing and creating a digital language archive based on people's characteristics. By studying 12 open-source metadata management tools, Singh and Madalli (2023) found gaps in metadata management programs and proposed a conceptual framework for research data management. Chapepa, Ngwira and Mapulanga (2023) investigated the methods of creating metadata in an academic data repository in the subject area of agriculture and natural resources using the experts' point of view and found that the only metadata used was Dublin Core. MethodologyThe present research is practical. The method of conducting this research is survey-descriptive and has a case study approach. The research community in this work is the academic staff members of the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies. To receive the opinions and views of the academic staff regarding the access points, a researcher-made questionnaire with a reliability of 0.894 was used to collect the required data. The data collected through the questionnaires were entered into separate tables and analyzed through the Excel program. ResultsIn terms of the importance of access points and retrieval fields of e-books, the subject, title, and main author are the most important fields of interest to researchers. In the field of lithographic books, the title, author and subject are the most important things, followed by the date of publication, calligraphy, and notes. The most important fields of attention of academic staff members in the field of searching manuscript books are title, author and subject, and the type of calligraphy and the main category are in the next ranks. The most important fields in the digital content of publications were title, call number, language and main topic. In the case of theses, the title, the author's field of study and the language of the work are recognized as the most important fields. The important fields for retrieving research projects from the point of view of academic staff members were the title, topic and employer of the project. The most important fields identified for retrieving digital documents are the subject, language and official title of the document. In terms of the importance of access points and retrieving fields of software and multimedia, the creator and subject are of the highest importance, followed by language, content duration, and file formats. DiscussionFrom the point of view of academic faculty members, the most important access points for widely used types of digital content, such as e-books, lithographs and manuscripts, are the title, subject, and creator of the content. Regarding digital content in the form of publications, dissertations, theses, and documents, language and history are also important. Regarding different types, there are also significant cases that may show some kind of difference of opinion among the people of human sciences. For example, in the case of electronic books, whether there is a photo, picture, diagram, or table in a book is not very important for humanities experts, but the textual content is more valuable for them. Also, the year of publication of the e-book is not very important for the humanities experts, because most of the content produced in the humanities does not become worthless over time, or the translator of the works is of great importance for the people of the humanities. In the case of lithographic or manuscript books, calligraphy and calligraphers are noteworthy. The notes, which were not very important for humanities specialists in the normal book, are among the valuable items in these works because valuable information about the copies is included in the notes. Regarding the specific fields of digital resources, the file format of digital resources and their size are important items. ConclusionThis research states that it is necessary to make changes in the design of user interfaces, the way of tagging and organizing digital content, as well as the arrangement and display of search results pages, according to the view of humanities experts. It is hoped that the results of this research will be useful for social catalogers in choosing appropriate access points and creating effective labels and tags for all types of digital content; for catalogers of digital resources in order to be aware of access points and important retrieval fields, to focus on it and save time and increase user satisfaction; for designers of information systems in order to define the file structure, organize pages for data entering, describe and organize digital resources, design pages and search facilities, develop search results customized facilities, design search results display pages; and for the managers of scientific-research websites in order to use access points and metadata elements in order to improve the accessibility of their digital content and facilitate the dissemination of digital information and improve the ranking of their websites.
Research Paper
Information and Knowledge Management
Davood Ghasemzadeh; Mohamadbagher Alizadehaghdam
Abstract
IntroductionThe main purpose of the present research is to study the relationship between the cultural collectivism dimension and knowledge sharing among graduate students of Tabriz University. The necessity of the current research stems from the fact that the relationship between cultural collectivism ...
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IntroductionThe main purpose of the present research is to study the relationship between the cultural collectivism dimension and knowledge sharing among graduate students of Tabriz University. The necessity of the current research stems from the fact that the relationship between cultural collectivism and knowledge sharing has not been discussed in domestic research, and in a sense, a kind of research gap is felt in this field, and this deficiency can be seen even in foreign studies. Research Question(s)1. What is the level of knowledge sharing among graduate students?2. What is the relationship between the acquisition of knowledge and cultural collectivism?Literature ReviewMany thinkers such as Bahagat et al. (2002) use the cultural individualism-collectivism dimension as a main feature in identifying how different societies analyze social behaviors and information processes. Bhagat argues that cultural individualism and collectivism apply to what information people prefer and provide for processing (Liu, 2010:162). Triandis (1988) introduced the dimensions of person-centeredness-type-centeredness along with individualism and collectivism. Triandis (1988) introduced the dimensions of person-centeredness-type-centeredness along with individualism and collectivism. In this regard, Triandis (1995) summarized four key features in this spectrum: self-concept, goal relationships, relative importance of attitudes and norms, and emphasis on relationships. Bahagat et al. (2002) grouped the horizontal and vertical characteristics in the sense of understanding how different national cultures are processed through the representation of individualism and collectivity. They examined the role of horizontal and vertical individualism and horizontal and vertical collectivism in the transfer of organizational knowledge. They argued that while people in individualistic societies consider information and knowledge independent of its context, collectivist cultures emphasize the context in which information and knowledge exist. According to the term knowledge in action, collectivists are sensitive to context-based information, while individualists focus on knowledge as it relates to individual characteristics. In addition, according to the opinion of Bahagat et al. (2002), collectivist culture emphasizes the importance of tacit knowledge and information, and on the contrary, individualist culture prefers rational analyses based on coded written information. Finally, vertical cultures tend to process information and knowledge based on a hierarchical system in organizations, and horizontal cultures do not focus on hierarchies in processing and organizing knowledge and communication flows (Michilova and Hutchings, 2004).MethodologyThe current research method is a survey and the statistical population includes all graduate students of Tabriz University in the academic year of 2016-2017, whose number is 5589 using Cochran's formula and proportional stratified sampling method (according to faculties), 650 people were selected as the sample size. The unit of analysis in this research is the individual. In this research, to accurately determine the components of Cochran's formula, a preliminary test was used to obtain the variance of the dependent variable (knowledge sharing) as one of the components of Cochran's formula. In order to measure the independent and dependent variables in order to obtain validity, the final modification of the items was done by conducting a pre-test using face validity and Cronbach's alpha. Based on the final evaluation results of the experts, the items have sufficient validity and also the results of the reliability analysis were estimated using Cronbach's alpha to separate the variables. The reliability coefficients for cultural collectivism (0.776), horizontal collectivism (0.765), vertical collectivism (0.768), horizontal individualism (0.780), vertical individualism (0.746) and research dependent variable is 0.812. This indicates that the selected items were suitable for measuring the research variables.ResultsCorrelation test results show a positive and significant relationship between cultural collectivism and student's knowledge sharing. There is also a positive and significant relationship between cultural collectivism components with knowledge sharing. The results of the correlation test indicate that vertical individualism has a negative and significant relationship with knowledge sharing. T-test results show that knowledge sharing does not have a significant difference based on the gender of students. The results of the regression show that the horizontal collectivism and horizontal individualism components of cultural collectivism explain 24% of knowledge-sharing variance.ConclusionThe purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between cultural collectivism and knowledge sharing among graduate students. For some reasons, this research can be beneficial to related studies in this field, firstly, few foreign researches have been conducted regarding cultural collectivism and knowledge sharing, and domestic researches have not investigated the relationship between these two variables. Second, theoretically, this research provides many insights for researchers regarding the study of the relationship between cultural collectivism and knowledge sharing. The results of the correlation test show that cultural collectivism has a positive and significant relationship with knowledge sharing at a high level and in a direct direction. The results also indicate that the dimensions of cultural collectivism, i.e. the horizontal and vertical dimensions, have a positive and significant correlation with the five dimensions of knowledge sharing. It means that the more the graduate students belong to the collectivist culture, the more the amount of knowledge sharing among them increases. It should be noted that horizontal collectivism plays a prominent role in explaining knowledge sharing. This type of collectivism emphasizes equality in relationships and participation. In fact, it can be concluded that there are necessary grounds and conditions for the implementation of a knowledge-sharing culture among graduate students of Tabriz University. This finding is in agreement with the research results of Arpasi and Baloglu (2016), who in their study found a positive and significant role of cultural collectivism on mental attitudes and norms, taking into account the sharing of knowledge, and also aligned with the results of the studies of Michilova and Hutchings (2004) and Sandhu and Ching (2014), Ardicioli et al. (2006). Therefore, universities and higher education centers in order to achieve success in the sharing of knowledge among graduate students in their policies and plans should pay special attention to strengthening the students' group and team working skills.AcknowledgmentsConsidering the current research method and the need to complete the questionnaire, all the students participating in the research are appreciated and thanked.
Research Paper
Semantic Web and Ontology
Farahnaz Afzali Ghadi; Fariborz Khosravi
Abstract
IntroductionOntologies offer a structured framework for information sharing across various systems and fields. This framework facilitates data integration from diverse sources, enabling accurate searches based on semantic relationships between concepts. Additionally, ontologies allow for analysis and ...
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IntroductionOntologies offer a structured framework for information sharing across various systems and fields. This framework facilitates data integration from diverse sources, enabling accurate searches based on semantic relationships between concepts. Additionally, ontologies allow for analysis and logical inference from datasets, improving information retrieval speed and accuracy in various scientific disciplines, including the humanities and Islamic studies. This research explores the creation of an ontology for weak narrators in the field of Hadith studies, specifically focusing on the book "Ma'refah al-Hadith" by Mohammad Bagher Behboodi, which examines the conditions of 150 weak narrators. By structuring and analyzing the information on these narrators, the ontology aims to facilitate faster and more efficient analysis of the "Causes of narrators' weakness." Literature ReviewSeveral research efforts have explored the design and application of ontologies in various disciplines. These studies include:The necessity of creating an ontology of jurisprudence to manage jurisprudential information in the digital space (Hasanzadeh, 2018)2. Basmaleh Ontology, a Window for Creating an Ontology of Qur'anic Studies (Hasanzadeh, 2021)A network approach in the interpretation of the Qur'an as an infrastructure to achieve the ontology of the Qur'an (Vaseti, 2023)Semantic Hadith: An ontology-driven knowledge graph for the hadith corpus(Binte Kamran. 2023)Creation of Arabic Ontology for Hadith Science(Abdelkader, 2021)Quran Intelligent Ontology Construction Approach Using Association Rules Mining(Harrag, 2013)Arabic Ontology for Hadith texts - A survey(Muhammed. 2024)Building Hadith Ontology to Support the Authenticity of Isnad (Baraka.2014)These studies demonstrate the benefits of ontologies in facilitating faster and more intelligent information retrieval across various fields. MethodologyThe research method is content analysis using Protege software version 5.5.0. The steps of forming OWL ontologies according to the features of the Protégé software are as follows:Identify concepts, extract them, and document them to create terms.Place these terms in the form of main and sub-classes as well as examples or members in the respective views in the software.Create relationships (attributes) between classes and examples and between these terms and values.Evaluate the quality and effectiveness of the ontology and its ability to support knowledge representation.
ResultsThe initial data collection involved identifying two main classes in the Protégé software: "Hadith Narrators" and "Invalidation words". Under the "Hadith Narrators" class, the names of the 150 weak narrators were included. The "Invalidation words" class encompasses terms used by Hadith scholars and various expressions indicating the weakness of narrators. Sample sentences from Hadith scholars were placed as examples under each subclass. Object properties were then employed to establish connections between these classes and the specific narrators exhibiting the identified weaknesses. These object properties linked the sayings of renowned Hadith scholars such as Sheikh Tusi, Ayyashi, Allameh Majlesi, and others, to the relevant narrators. DiscussionAnalysis of the collected data revealed diverse reasons for the weakening of Hadith narrators. Some terms point to the "weakness of the narrator and their character," including instances of deviant beliefs, affiliation with questionable sects, or the presence of negative personality traits that could potentially compromise the reliability of their narrations. Additionally, other terms may signify the "weakness of the hadith itself" narrated by a particular individual. The ontology construction process identified 107 terms representing concepts related to the weaknesses of narrators. Subsequently, 645 examples were incorporated into the Protégé software, all derived from the text of the book and the statements of Hadith scholars. ConclusionOntologies provide a valuable platform within the semantic web, enabling machines to understand and process information in a more intelligent and nuanced manner. Their role in facilitating data sharing and information retrieval across diverse systems is crucial. By creating a structured framework for integrating data from various sources, ontologies empower researchers to conduct more precise searches based on semantic relationships. Furthermore, they enable analysis and logical inference from datasets, ultimately enhancing knowledge sharing within a specific domain. This research contributes to the field of Hadith studies by proposing an ontology for weak narrators. The ontology explores the words of established scholars and analyzes their statements regarding the weaknesses of 150 narrators in "Ma'rifa al-Hadith" by Mohammad Bagher Behboodi. Through this analysis, as many as 107 words or concepts indicating the weakening of the narrators and the number of 645 samples were obtained and by creating an ontology through the two classes "Hadith Narrators" and "Invalidation words" in the Protégé software, a meaningful connection was established between them. This engineered knowledge base facilitates efficient access to information regarding narrator weaknesses and will lead to the collection of extensive information in the field of hadith and the investigation of the causes of the weakening of the narrators, which will provide the basis for wider and deeper research.
Research Paper
Knowledge Management Systems and Technologies
Abbas Ghaedamini Harouni; Mehrdad Sadeghi de Cheshmeh; Ghulam Reza Maleki Farsani; Elahe Musharraf Ghahfarakhi; Somayeh Shah Bandari Guchani
Abstract
IntroductionThe current research is different from these previous works in terms of volume, time period, method and analysis. First, the analysis is based on a meta-combination method, which allows rich data to be combined with fewer subjective or interpretive biases. Unlike the previous studies, concepts ...
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IntroductionThe current research is different from these previous works in terms of volume, time period, method and analysis. First, the analysis is based on a meta-combination method, which allows rich data to be combined with fewer subjective or interpretive biases. Unlike the previous studies, concepts and dimensions, antecedents, consequences and strategies are examined. At the same time, a larger volume of articles has been examined. The current research completes the previous researches and provides a more objective report of the evolution of this research topic. Most of the researches have investigated some aspects and factors affecting knowledge hiding in organizations in a scattered manner. But clearly, a complete integration of existing researches in this field has not been done. Also, an integrated model that brings cause and effect relationships in the form of a conceptual model has not been edited. Therefore, taking into account the existing vacuum of research, an attempt has been made to provide coherence to the scattered researches in this field and provide researchers and managers with a summary of the studies conducted in this field. Considering the importance of knowledge concealment in organizations, this research seeks to provide a conceptual model of knowledge concealment in organizations through the metacombination method. Therefore, with all the factors mentioned above, the current study intends to answer the following questions: 1. What are the key components of knowledge concealment in organizations? 2. What is the conceptual model of knowledge concealment in organizations?Literature ReviewKnowledge concealment is defined as "an individual's deliberate attempt to conceal knowledge requested by another". Hiding knowledge is not always deceptive (Bari et al., 2019), employees may avoid sharing knowledge due to confidentiality. Although the reasoning behind such a decision may seem logical, it still limits access to knowledge (Xiong et al., 2021, Yuan, Yang, Cheng, & Wei, 2021). However, most efforts to facilitate knowledge transfer end without success, because employees are unwilling to share their knowledge (Mahmoud & et al., 2021). Researches show that hiding knowledge weakens social relations, creativity and innovation of employees and thus reduces the performance and achievements of the organization (Cerne et al., 2017). Also, it suppresses the absorption capacity and creativity at the team level (Fong et al., 2018). It is obvious that hiding knowledge is likely to reduce the efficiency of knowledge exchange among members, prevent the generation of new ideas/thoughts, or even destroy trust (Connelly & Kelloway, 2012). Hiding knowledge increases the risk of knowledge loss and inhibits the creativity of individuals and teams in the organization (Cern et al., 2014; Bogilovich et al., 2017). The consequences of knowledge concealment are quite alarming. For example, knowledge concealment fosters negative attitudes and behaviors, creates interpersonal mistrust (Arain et al., 2020), damages relationships (Connelly and Zweig, 2015), knowledge concealment reciprocity (Cern et al., 2014), the desire to leave the job (Ofirgilt et al., 2018) and creating deviant behaviors in the workplace (Singh, 2019). Reduction of positive work attitudes and behaviors and reduction of job satisfaction (Ofirgilt et al., 2018), reduction of self-efficacy (Arain et al., 2019), reduction of organizational citizenship behavior (Arain et al., 2020), reduction of creativity and innovative work behavior (Bogilovi´ c et al., 2020), and reduced performance (Singh, 2019). In this regard, it is necessary to solve the problem of insufficient knowledge sharing by eliminating knowledge hiding and facilitating knowledge transformation in organizations.MethodologyThe current research was conducted with a qualitative approach and due to the existence of many new documents in the field of knowledge concealment in organizations and the possibility of their combined analysis, a meta-composite qualitative research method was used. Metasynthesis is the combination of interpretations of the main data of selected studies. Data analysis in the current research was done based on the metacombination method based on the seven-step model of Sandelowski and Barroso (2007). The mentioned method includes the stages of setting research questions, systematic review of texts, searching and selecting suitable texts, extracting information from texts, analyzing and combining qualitative findings, quality control and expression of findings.ResultsThe findings showed that 555 concepts, 155 subcategories and 25 main categories were extracted, which include causal conditions (organizational factors, individual factors, occupational factors, group factors and knowledge factors), background conditions (personality characteristics, work factors, technical and environmental factors), political factors and cultural factors), intervening conditions (emotional characteristics, emotional characteristics and social factors), strategies (leadership style, strengthening intelligence, strengthening interpersonal communication, strengthening organizational communication, strengthening performance, strengthening Islamic values, strengthening voluntary behaviors and implementation of knowledge management), consequences (occupational, group, organizational and individual).DiscussionThe present study showed that hiding knowledge is driven by different reasons at multiple levels. Regarding the multi-level nature of the antecedents of knowledge concealment and determining different ways to manage hidden knowledge in organizations, it enhances the understanding in the field of organizational behavior. Since the researches about knowledge concealment were strongly focused on the interdependencies of the perpetrator and the target due to mistrust and mutual behavior until now. Also, the present research showed that not only the antecedents of knowledge concealment are multifaceted, but also the consequences of this behavior. By integrating this insight into the organizational and management literature, the current research is related to the researches (Xiao and Cook (2019), de Garcia et al. (2022), Rezvan and Takahashi, 2021; Chern et al., 2014; Connelly and Clovey, 2003; Connelly and Zweig, 2015; Conley et al., 2013; Webster et al., 2008).ConclusionThe present study integrates separate pieces of literature to explain why employees engage in knowledge concealment, thereby connecting disparate pieces of the knowledge concealment puzzle to develop a broader understanding of why employees engage in knowledge concealment. The present study provides a systematic review of knowledge hiding. This was done to identify conceptual patterns about knowledge hiding in organizations between 2012 and 2020 AD and 1391 to 1401 AD. This research is not without limitations. Databases such as Iran Doc, Iran Mag, Normagz, Comprehensive Portal of Human Sciences, Joishgar Alam Net, internal magazines, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Emerald were used as databases, and some other databases may not have been reviewed in this matter. As a result, this review may not cover the full spectrum of the scientific literature on knowledge hiding. In the future, to reduce publication bias, it would be interesting to include other databases to search for interesting texts, for example, work published in journals (ESCI). Second, research on knowledge concealment is emerging, and some researchers may argue that it is not yet mature enough to examine the research field.
Research Paper
Information and Knowledge Theories
Ali Imanzadeh; Naeimeh Beirampour Basmenj; Maryam Marandi Heidarloo
Abstract
IntroductionOne of the challenges that emerged and is expanding with the emergence of social networks and the growth of rhizome spaces in modern epistemology is information anxiety (Brown & Duguid,2017). The fear and apprehension caused by the abundance of information and lack of logical order is ...
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IntroductionOne of the challenges that emerged and is expanding with the emergence of social networks and the growth of rhizome spaces in modern epistemology is information anxiety (Brown & Duguid,2017). The fear and apprehension caused by the abundance of information and lack of logical order is known as information anxiety. Information anxiety is one of the effects of information overflow (Hartog, 2017). In information anxiety, the type of information is not important and only the amount of information is important (Schick, Gordon & Haka, 1990). Information anxiety is related to attitudes about finding, selecting, processing, interpreting, managing and using information (Conhaim, 2001). With the advent of the Internet, smartphones, and other digital devices, we can quickly and easily access vast amounts of data about any topic imaginable. While this abundance of information has many benefits, it can lead to a situation called "information anxiety" (Shi, 2022). More precisely, information anxiety is a state of worry and stress caused by a large and extensive amount of information that needs to be processed. According to the mentioned cases and also the numerous researches that have been done in the field of information anxiety, the present study aims to investigate and explain the concept of information anxiety, its limits and gaps, the dimensions and components of information anxiety, the consequences of information anxiety and the difference of information anxiety with similar concepts such as anxiety. Library, Internet anxiety, etc. have been systematically reviewed.Literature ReviewThe issue of information anxiety and its destructive effects on individuals and organizations has been discussed since 1605. Sir Francis Bacon probably used this term for the first time in 1915 in his book The Progress of Learning. Later, the term information anxiety was introduced in Richard Worman's best-selling book with the same title (Girard & Allison, 2008). The concept of information anxiety has gone through different stages, including library anxiety, computer anxiety, and internet anxiety. In the meantime, based on the studies, information anxiety has differences with other types of anxiety, including library anxiety, internet anxiety, etc. (Cadier, Ding & El Khazzar, 2021). Information anxiety can have different dimensions and components. In the information anxiety model, de Oliveira et al. (2023) mention information complexity or cognitive overload, fear of losing important information, concerns about the accuracy and quality of information, and limited time as dimensions of information anxiety.MethodologyThis study is a systematic review that was conducted in 1402 and it was investigated to determine the conceptualization of the limits and gaps in the evolution of information anxiety and its dimensions and components. Databases, Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct Cinahal, SID, and Magiran were examined. Persian and English languages were used for searching. For this purpose, the keywords: information anxiety, dimensions of information anxiety, and consequences of information anxiety were used in Persian sources and the words Dimensions of information anxiety, and information anxiety, were used in English sources. MESH was also used to determine keywords. In order to determine the appropriateness of the articles with the research topic, first the title and then the abstract of the articles were examined, and after the approval of the article in terms of place of execution, year of implementation and topic, all the texts of the articles were studied by one of the researchers for further examination. Strobe checklist was used to check the quality of descriptive articles. This checklist has 22 parts, which were scored based on the importance of each part according to the present study. The final score of the checklist was 30 and the minimum acceptable score was 20. From the 170 articles found, according to the selection criteria, 24 studies were found to be eligible and included in the present study.ResultsThe findings of the research showed that the concept of information anxiety is ambiguous and its limits are not fully known. Information anxiety actually comes from the growing gap between the amount of available information and our ability to process and understand it, and this type of anxiety is fundamentally different from concepts such as library anxiety and internet anxiety. This type of anxiety has three basic dimensions of information overflow, inability to understand and process information, and inability to access and find available information. Information anxiety has many negative personal, psychological and social consequences such as feelings of disappointment and frustration, feelings of abandonment, loneliness and existential loneliness. There are many ways to overcome information anxiety. What is prominent in information anxiety are the challenges and stresses associated with the sheer volume of information available. In information anxiety, people must have the ability to control their information exposure and actively choose which information sources to interact with. This prevents people from being overwhelmed by irrelevant or unreliable information. By selectively accessing reliable sources and filtering out unnecessary information, people can reduce their information anxiety to some extent.DiscussionWith the tendency of humans to virtual space, which is characterized by information bombardment, the feeling of being abandoned and thrown in the shadow of this information increases. In fact, information anxiety in the shadow of human confusion in organizing knowledge and information and immersing a person in it can fuel the feeling of existential loneliness. Information anxiety, which has arisen in the shadow and context of the rhizomatic growth of social networks and in the context of rhizomatic epistemology, is considered as a threat to human life and can have different physical, social, psychological and even educational consequences for a person. The failure to properly face these threats and failure to control this type of anxiety can affect the quality of a person's life in all its dimensions. Although information anxiety itself is a consequence of some factors, including immersion in virtual space, it can also cause other consequences. Although overcoming anxiety cannot happen in the short term and requires fundamental changes in the epistemological system, ontology and even the individual's value system, these obstacles can be overcome by adopting certain approaches.ConclusionDeveloping information literacy, practicing self-care and setting limits on information consumption and changing epistemological attitudes about information can help reduce feelings and severe stress associated with information anxiety.
Research Paper
Evaluation of Information and Knowledge Retrieval Systems
Farnaz Taghizadeh Kourayem; Mohammadreza Kabaranzad Ghadim; Seyed Abdollah Amin Mousavi
Abstract
IntroductionThe Internet platform is a very powerful source of information that can be collected with the help of various tools and techniques and used after analysis in order to make better and more efficient decisions. According to previous researchers, when it comes to automatically extracting information ...
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IntroductionThe Internet platform is a very powerful source of information that can be collected with the help of various tools and techniques and used after analysis in order to make better and more efficient decisions. According to previous researchers, when it comes to automatically extracting information from the web, Selenium is always the best option, however, this library has many challenges. One of the challenges of using the Selenium library is its asynchronous and the other is the slowness of the Selenium library, which we are trying to investigate and improve in this article. Research Question(s): How to improve the challenge of slowness and asynchronous of the Selenium library? Literature ReviewSelenium library, which is one of the best web scripting tools, has been used in different studies and with different purposes. This library is a free, open-source automated testing framework used to verify web applications across multiple platforms and browsers. Various programming languages such as Java, C#, and Python can be used to create Selenium test scripts (Teotia et al., 2023). But despite its many advantages, selenium also has disadvantages, including: 1. Slowness, 2. Brittleness, 3. Flakiness, 4. Maintainability, 5. Asynchronous, 6. Time-consuming, 7. Cross-browser, 8. failure analysis, 9. Infrastructure, 10. Scalability, 11. Assertability, 12. Documentation and 13. Support (Leotta et al., 2023). MethodologyThe first thing we examined in the Selenium library is the lack of time management. Time management actually refers to the fact that the waiting time for downloading information from the web platform in this library is not known. To solve the problem of slowness and asynchronous of the Selenium library, we have used a solution that includes three different steps:Step 1) According to the manual checks, first we define the variable t1:t1 = 0.5where t1 is the value used in the sleep function (time required to open the main page in normal mode).Step 2) We use the while loop and try, except inside it. If the page does not open after 3 seconds, or after 6 attempts with different sleep times, the desired page and products do not appear, the error of the site not being available or the internet being slow will be printed:t1 = 0.5try:while t1 <= 3:try:driver.get("""The Study site""") # to open the page time.sleep(t1) # Waiting for the page to open…# Code related to page scrollingtime.sleep(t1) # Waiting for information to be displayed after scrolling# Information collection codesexcept:t1 += 0.5Except:print('The internet speed is very slow or the intended site is down')In this code, the program with time t1=0.5 first tries to display the page information in full and if it fails, it adds half a second to t1 and this repetition continues up to 6 times. If the page is displayed in full, we use the new value of t1 for the next pages.Step 3) If the page opens, we will enter the third step, which is related to collecting the basic information of the products and we must avoid the problem of asynchronous.At this stage, according to the existence of five different types of information (such as product name, price, amount of discount, price after discount, type of discount) of each product, we first define five different and empty lists for product information.Then, with the help of commands related to information collection, we take the information about each product and put it in the corresponding list. Then we run the following script to prevent wrong items in the list: check1 = [[product_prices], [product_off], [product _prices2], [Product_off_type] ] for j in range(0,4):if len(product_name) < check1[len[j]]: product_name.append(‘error’)elif len(product_name) > check1[len[j]]: check[j].append(‘error’) In other words, after taking the information of a product and adding them to the predefined main lists, the program calculates the number of items in the existing lists with the help of the len function and puts them in the checklist. Then, with the help of the for loop, the length of each list is compared with the rest of the lists, and if the number of items in a list is low, the word "error" is added to it. ResultsIn order to evaluate the solutions presented in this research, we have reviewed the information related to supplementary drugs on the DigiKala site, which was almost 3000 different medicines, 13 times on 13 different dates, from September 23, 2023, to March 15, 2024. In this study, the codes written in order to retrieve information from the mentioned site were executed the first time with the proposed solution and the second time without the proposed solution, and in each execution, both the time of information retrieval and the number of information related to each list or the same column was recorded and compared with each other, and the error rate and its percentage were calculated based on the difference in the time of information collection in the first and second execution and the difference in the number of information collected for each column in the first and second execution. After the implementation and use of the proposed solution, the investigations show that the accuracy and correctness of the collected information have increased compared to not using the proposed solution, and the time of information collection has also improved.Discussion and ConclusionIn this article, we studied and evaluated the challenges of being slow, time-consuming and asymmetric of the Selenium library. Our studies were conducted using the Python programming language. Studies show that it is very important to use the solution of checking the list and the same length of the list at the end of the collection of each product from the web platform, so that not using it in 12 out of 13 cases of information collection from the web platform makes us encountered an error. Also, using a constant value for the sleep function significantly increases the time to retrieve information compared to using a variable value for it. In general, the findings show that the use of the proposed solution when using the Selenium library in order to extract information from the web platform helps to increase the accuracy of the information and also improves the time of complete information retrieval from the web platform.
