Emerald Group Publishing of the United Kingdom has selected Syracuse University School
of Information Studies (iSchool) Associate Professor R. David Lankes' paper,
"Credibility on
the Internet: Shifting from Authority to Reliability," as a 2009 Outstanding Paper Award
winner.
Emerald is the world's leading scholarly publisher in business and management, publishing
more than 190 journals as well as serials and books, and had more than 20 million articles
downloaded in 2008 alone. Emerald invites each of its journal's editorial teams to nominate
what they believe to be the most outstanding paper and three highly commended papers
each year.
The editorial team of the Journal of Documentation, which published Lankes' paper, selected
his article for the award, dubbing it "one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has
seen throughout 2008," according to the announcement.
Emerald bases its decision on a list of criteria, including the contribution of new knowledge,
structure and quality of the writing, rigor of analysis or argument, relevance, and timeliness
or connectedness to the latest developments in the field.
His paper addresses how Internet users determine the credibility of information on web sites
from a conceptual level and how that affects new online tools and services. He describes how
and why people are dependent on the Internet for information, and also describes the
progression of users shifting from analyzing the credibility of an online source to
determining the reliability of sources.
Lankes will be recognized at the 2009 Literati Network Awards for Excellence ceremony.
Lankesis director of the Information Institute of Syracuse and a fellow of the American
Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. Lankes' research focuses on
education information and digital reference services. He has authored, co-authored or edited
eight books, and written numerous book chapters and journal articles on the Internet and
digital reference. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in multimedia design, an M.S. in
telecommunications and network management, and a Ph.D. in information transfer from
SU.
