Improving information quality of Wikipedia articles with cooperative principle

Published date09 October 2017
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/OIR-01-2016-0003
Date09 October 2017
Pages797-811
AuthorMiloš Fidler,Dejan Lavbič
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Bibliometrics,Databases,Information & knowledge management,Information & communications technology,Internet,Records management & preservation,Document management
Improving information quality
of Wikipedia articles with
cooperative principle
MilošFidler and Dejan Lavbič
Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana,
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of cooperative principle on the information
quality (IQ) by making objects more relevant for consumer needs, in particular case Wikipedia articles for students.
Design/methodology/approach The authors performed a quantitative study with participants being
invited to complete an online survey. Each rater evaluated three selected and re-written articles from
Wikipedia by four IQ dimensions (accuracy, completeness, objectivity, and representation). Grices maxims
and submaxims were used to re-write articles and make them more relevant for student cognitive needs. The
results were analyzed with statistical methods of mean, standard deviation, Cronbachsα, and ICC (two-way
random model of single measure).
Findings The study demonstrates that Wikipedia articles can be made more relevant for student needs by
using cooperative principle with increase in IQ and also achieving higher consistency of studentsscores as
recent research. In particular, students in the research perceived the abstract, constructed with cooperative
principle, more objective and complete as reported in recent research.
Practical implications The work can benefit encyclopedia editors to improve IQ of existing articles as
well as consumers that would obtain more relevant information in less reading time.
Originality/value This is one of the first attempts to empirically investigate the application of cooperate
principle to make objects more relevant for consumer needs and impact of this on IQ. IQ improvement
evidence is provided and impacts on IQ dimensions such as objectivity, completeness, accuracy, and
representation for research community to validate and compare results.
Keywords Conversation maxims, Cooperative principle, Improving information quality,
Information quality assessment and analysis, Interrater reliability, Presenting information in relevant way
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The international Data Corporation reported that the total amount of global data surpassed
1.8 zettabyte in 2011 and it is predicted to reach 35 zettabyte by 2020 (Kambatla et al., 2014).
Economies, companies, and our daily activities are becoming more and more data driven
(Zhang et al., 2005; Fidler and Lavbič, 2015). As a result, demand for high-quality
information is increasing; however, we are still struggling to understand how quality of
information can be improved. Consumers are not interested in just any information; they
request the best information available for their purpose (Mai, 2013). This elusive trait of
information, how well it serves consumersneeds or how fit it is for use, was investigated
further by Wang and Strong (1996) into definition of information quality (IQ) as a multi-
dimensional concept with dimensions such as accuracy, consistency, completeness,
timeliness, and representation.
The majority of the previous IQ research was conducted by employing students to
measure quality of online objects, mostly Wikipedia articles (Kogut and Zander, 1996;
Stenmark, 2000). Authors investigated how students perceived IQ dimensions, but did not
advance their research with recommendations regarding IQ improvement (Metzger, 2007).
A step forward was made by Mai (2013), who theoretically discussed the possibility of using
the Grices maxims to construct objects from which consumers could retrieve more relevant
information for specific purpose or context of use. Grices maxims are recommendations
used within the cooperative principle for effective communication between two conversing
Online Information Review
Vol. 41 No. 6, 2017
pp. 797-811
© Emerald PublishingLimited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-01-2016-0003
Received 5 January 2016
Revised 24 April 2017
Accepted 15 June 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
797
Wikipedia
articles with
cooperative
principle

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