Social network analysis of the mental health sub-topic on the MedlinePlus subject directory

Introduction. A subject directory plays an important role in a Web portal and it helps users effectively navigate the portal. This study examines a subject directory system related to Mental Health in the MedlinePlus portal and provides suggestions of optimisation to enhance the subject directory system. Method. A mixed research method combining social network analysis and inferential statistics was applied. Analysis. A structural and a semantic social network were built regarding the selected health topics related to mental health in the MedlinePlus portal. The two networks were compared and the outcomes were evaluated by domain experts. Results. Among the ninety-nine collected health topics related to mental health, three themes were identified through the visualisation analysis regarding grouped health topics. Patterns and characteristics of each theme group were discussed. As a result, fifty-five bidirectional and twenty-three unidirectional edges were identified and recommended to be added to the corresponding health topic pages. The recommended results indicate that the subject directory of specific mental health related topics is well constructed, while health consumer groups related topics might need more improvements. The optimised subject directory has significantly stronger semantic connection, and the results of the recommendations are consistent with the evaluation outcome of two domain experts. Conclusions. The findings of this study can provide ideas of optimising and enhancing the subject directory system to the public health portal creators and health professionals, and benefit health consumers for seeking health information online. The methodologies applied in this study may provide a novel way to investigate and enhance subject directories in general.

Visualizing a Hierarchical Taxonomy in a Children’s Web Portal: User Evaluations of Two Prototypes

Elementary students use the Web to find information, but can encounter problems with keyword searching. An alternative is to choose terms from a taxonomy (subject directory), but students may then encounter problems in locating a term within the taxonomy. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of a conventional, hierarchically displayed taxonomy with a display of the same taxonomy using information visualization techniques. The evaluations were undertaken by students from grade-six (11 to 12 years’ old) and are part of a larger study on the application of information visualization techniques to interfaces targeted at children.Les élèves du primaire utilisent le Web pour trouver de l'information, mais peuvent avoir des difficultés avec la recherche par mots-clés. Une possibilité serait de choisir des termes à partir d'une taxonomie (liste de sujets), mais dans ces circonstances, ils pourraient avoir de la difficulté à localiser le terme voulu. Cet article présente l'analyse comparative d'une taxonomie hiérarchique conventionnelle et de la même taxonomie présentée en utilisant des techniques de visualisation de l'information. Les évaluations ont été effectuées par des élèves de 6e année (11 et 12 ans) et font partie intégrante d'une étude plus vaste sur l'application de techniques de visualisation de l'information dans la conception d'interfaces ciblant les enfants.

Search Patterns on a Children’s Portal

More than two years of transaction logs on a children’s portal are analyzed to investigate search patterns, when the users are presented with four search options. The results show that the hierarchical subject directory and alphabetic search options accounted for 83 percent of all the searches, indicating users’ preference for browsing rather than keyword searching.Cette communication porte sur l'analyse de deux ans de journaux de transactions d'un portail pour enfants afin de dégager les méthodes de recherche des utilisateurs lorsqu'ils font face à quatre options de recherche. Les résultats démontrent que le répertoire thématique hiérarchique et les options de recherche alphabétiques représentent 83 pour cent de toutes les recherches, indiquant une préférence pour le furetage plutôt que la recherche par mots clés.***Full paper in the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science***

An investigation of the management and maintenance of an online subject directory with particular reference to the South African Literature Online resource

The aim of the study was to investigate management and maintenance procedures that were used by other sites and how these could be used as a basis for formulating management and maintenance procedures for the SALO subject directory.