Challenges faced by the web users while using web resources

1. Challenges in Harnessing Web-Based
Information
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

2. Challenges in Harnessing Web-Based Information
 While accessing web-based information, users, researcher, scientists face many
Issues. Following are some of the most common issues:
 Information Overload
 Website Navigation,
 Browsability issues and Reliability
 Preprints
 Financial Concerns
 Scholarly Misconduct and Misinformation
 Copyright issues
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

3. Information Overload
 When the volume of available information is more than any information retrieval system can index, more
than any library can purchase, and more than any scientist can read, it is referred to as information
overload.
 Information overload occurs when the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity and
at the same time decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity.
 Consequently, when information overload occurs, it is likely that a reduction in decision quality will
occur.”
 Information overload slow down your Information productivity, and also impacts the ability to make
timely decisions. we feel confused, stressed out, frustrated, and naturally start making mistakes.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

4. Information Overload
 The lack of central organization and indexing on the web makes the information overload even more
confusing because the precision of search engine results is often low (i.e. many irrelevant documents
are retrieved).
 Information overload is usually caused by the existence of multiple sources of information, over-
abundance of information, difficulty in managing information, irrelevance/unimportance of the
received information and scarcity of time on the part of information users to analyze and understand
it.
 At the same time, no search engine can index the entire contents of the web, so searches also have
high recall with respect to all relevant information on the web.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

5. Types of Information Overload
 Too Much Information: The simplest case is where there is too much information.
 This is a situation “when there is so much information that it is no longer possible effectively to use it.”
Examples of this kind of overload include working on data-intensive projects that incorporate binders and
binders of information, endless computer files and millions of email messages.
 In this case, even if you had all the time in the world, trying to find the information needle in the data
haystack would pose a problem.
 Not Enough Time: The second kind of information overload problem is not having enough time to process the
information.
 A prime example of this is an emergency room at a hospital. When a patient is wheeled in, the doctor needs to
figure out what to do, and quickly.
 The doctor may have a chart of vital signs and a few symptoms: not a tremendous amount of information, but
even these few facts need to be processed instantaneously.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

6.  Poor Quality of Information: The last kind of overload is a common one. This is when you have a hodge-
podge of irrelevant and redundant information — more than your brain can handle effectively.
 In this case, you probably have all the information you need and you have enough time to process it, but
the information is spread out across email, apps, web pages, documents and a host of other places.
 Because information is not organized in a uniform manner, it is cognitively taxing to piece together the
shards of information and figure out what is relevant.
 For example, each information source may use different names for projects or products.
Types of Information Overload
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

7. Web Site Navigation
 Web navigation refers to the process of navigating a network of information resources in the
World Wide Web, which is organized as hypertext or hypermedia.
 This can be very challenging because the websites are not always designed for easy navigation.
 Sometimes it is very difficult to determine what link on the crowded homepage leads to article
content.
 In order to retrieve any electronic journal articles, users must navigate a vast number of web
sites, and each publisher structures their website differently than the next.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

8. Website navigational issues
Following are some of the issues which are being faced by the users while accessing different websites
 Too many menus or menu options
 Unclear path to important information
 Unwanted Links leave actual site behind
 Too many callouts or intrusions
 Unclear words on buttons/menus
 Bad grammar
 Poor visual content
 Not mobile-friendly
 Pages load too slowly
 Too much text
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

9. Browsability issues
 During Previous times, electronic journals were not as popular as they are today, and most of the researcher
preferred print articles over electronic ones, largely because of the poor printing quality of figures in the
electronic versions
 Meanwhile, scientists’ interest in electronic journals has increased dramatically in recent years, largely
because of their convenience and the improved quality of figures that are now available.
 The challenge to scientists is the loss of browsability of today’s electronic journals.
 Compounding the problem is the fact that access to many electronic resources is rented rather than owned,
so if the institution cancels a subscription, access to backfiles is lost.
 With a print journal, on the other hand, the previous volumes of the journal would still be available after a
subscription was cancelled.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

10. Reliability Issues
 In case of print journals they do not experience any technical difficulties.
 However, when a publisher’s server goes down, access to electronic content is temporarily lost.
 Much information is available online, thus it becomes difficult for a users to decide which information is from
a reliable source.
 A reliable source is one that provides a thorough, well-reasoned theory, argument, discussion, etc. based on
strong evidence.
 Not all web resources sources are reliable, no matter how strong their arguments may appear to be.
 To evaluate the reliability of a piece of writing, you must consider several issues related to the subject and
to the person or publisher that presents it.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

11. Preprints
 Scientific research is very competitive, and researchers must keep up with the latest developments in their
field.
 Consequently, most of the articles read by scientists are less than one year old.
 In fact, researchers often want to know the results of a study before they are published.
 A preprint is a version of a scientific manuscript posted on a public server prior to formal peer review. As soon
as it's posted, preprint becomes a permanent part of the scientific record, citable with its own unique DOI.
 Preprints, copies of articles that have not yet been published, are sometimes available on the web.
 However, finding preprints on the web can be very difficult because they are poorly organized and because
most of them are in portable document format (PDF) or PostScript format and are therefore not indexed by
most search engines.
 There is absence of formal peer review in Preprints,
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

12. Financial Concerns
 Peer-reviewed articles are available on the web, but they are usually published in fee-based e-journals.
Scientists access these resources via personal online subscriptions or, more commonly, institutional online
subscriptions paid for by their libraries.
 For researchers not associated with an institution, such as retirees or independent consultants, these fees
are barriers to information access.
 Even researchers with access to a small private library may be discouraged from requesting journal
articles because of the cost involved.
 The cost of an electronic journal article is very similar to that of a print article and publishers are entitled
to charge for their services.
 Some information resources are available at no charge, but they tend to be unreliable.
 Thus, financial concerns can limit scientists’ access to scholarly information.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

13. Scholarly Misconduct and Misinformation
 Scholarly misconduct includes plagiarism, fabrication of results, and manipulation of data.
Researchers have been known to manipulate numbers and even publish lies.
 In addition, many publications include incorrect bibliographic citations and other errors.
 It was already difficult for editors of print journals to detect scholarly misconduct and other errors,
and the chance for misinformation to slip past
 Online journals may actually attract dishonest scholars who want to plug their resumes with quick,
fabricated publications.
 In addition, scholars can publish results and papers on their personal web sites without peer review.
 Online discussion groups often contain biased information or information taken out of context.
 Thus, the potential for misinformation on the web is a real concern for research scientists.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

14. Copyright issues
 Copyright is one of several categories of intellectual property (IP) protection, designed to safeguard the
creator's, owner's, or holder's exclusive right to claim an original work as their own—when the work is fixed in
a tangible medium.
 As soon as a work is written on paper, recorded digitally, or typed electronically—or anything that can be
heard, seen, read, or touched—the work is granted copyright protection, normally for a limited period of
time.
 If researchers do not abide by the terms of subscription agreements and database licenses, they risk being
sued and losing the privilege to use those resources in the future.
 Scientists should also be reminded that violations are much easier to detect in the electronic environment
because the publisher’s web log records every transaction.
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon

15.  Scientists in academia share their discoveries and knowledge with colleagues by publishing journal articles for
which they receive no royalties. In fact, the author often must pay the publisher to offset the cost of printing the
article.
 Sometimes, researchers feel justified in sharing passwords to electronic journal subscriptions with colleagues, even
though this is a violation of the terms of the subscription and of copyright law.
 Following are some examples of activities that would constitute copyright infringement if you carry them out
without first obtaining permission from the owner, creator, or holder of the copyrighted material:
 Recording a film in a movie theater
 Posting a video on your company's website which features copyrighted words or songs
 Using copyrighted images on your company's website
 Using a musical group's copyrighted songs on your company's website
 Modifying an image and then displaying it on your company's website
 Creating merchandise for sale which features copyrighted words or images
 Downloading music or films without paying for their use
 Copying any literary or artistic work without a license or written agreement
Dr. Irfan Ul Haq Akhoon