Table 4.
Evaluation of the source.
| Indicators | Criteria | |||
| Site owners/sponsors (n=30) | ||||
| Site name (n=4) [32,40,63,64] | ||||
| Inappropriate or weird site names (–a) | Believability (–) | |||
| Domain type (n=5)[40,42,50,57,61] | ||||
| .com (–) | Objectivity (–) | |||
| .org (+b) | Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| .gov (±c) | Expertise (+), Trustworthiness (±) | |||
| .edu (+) | Expertise (+), Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Owner identity (n=26)[18,20,30,32,32,39-42,44,46,48-55,57-59,64,65,67,68] | ||||
| Individual sponsor (–) | Objectivity (–) | |||
| Private sites (–) | Objectivity (–) | |||
| Reputable organizations (+) | Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Educational and academic institutions (+) | Expertise (+) | |||
| Medical or health institutions/experts (+) | Expertise (+) | |||
| Scientific publisher (+) | Expertise (+) | |||
| Patients’ organization (+) | Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Well-known news sites (+) | Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Government institutions (±) | Expertise (+), Trustworthiness (±), Identification (–) | |||
| Local cancer society (±) | Expertise (+), Relevance (–), Accuracy (–) | |||
| Commercial sponsor (±) | Objectivity (–), Expertise (+) | |||
| No financial gain to the owner (+) | Objectivity (+) | |||
| Pharmaceutical industry (±) | Expertise (+), Objectivity (–) | |||
| Site types (n=9) [13,46,50,53,57-59,61,63] | ||||
| Online peer support and discussion groups (+) | Identification (+), Practicality (+) | |||
| Chatrooms (+) | Identification (+), Practicality (+) | |||
| Forums (–) | Objectivity (–), Expertise (–) | |||
| Personal blogs/websites (±) | Objectivity (–), Expertise (–), Identification (+) | |||
| Listservs (±) | Objectivity (–), Expertise (–), Identification (+) | |||
| Wikipedia (±) | Objectivity (–), Expertise (–), Comprehensiveness (+) | |||
| Disclosure (n=13) [30,40-43,48,49,51,55,63,64,66,67] | ||||
| Disclosure of the site owner (+) | Transparency (+) | |||
| Age of a website (+) | Transparency (+), Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Picture of the site owner (+) | Transparency (+) | |||
| Contact information (+) | Transparency (+) | |||
| Motivation of the site (+) | Transparency (+) | |||
| Explicit disclaimer and alert (+) | Transparency (+) | |||
| Third party accreditation (n=4) [30,43,46,63] | ||||
| Quality certificates, seals, stamps, or kitemarking (+) | Accuracy (+) | |||
| Recommendations from other systems or users (n=12) [13,20,30,41,43,47,52,53,61,63,67] | ||||
| Rank in search engine results (+) | Popularity (+) | |||
| Number of site visitors or followers (+) | Popularity (+) | |||
| Titles and excerpts in search engine results (+) | Relevance (+) | |||
| Linked from a trustworthy site (+) | Trustworthiness (+) | |||
| Recommended by other people (±) | Trustworthiness (+), Relevance (–) | |||
| Website scope (n=7) [32,42,44,49,53,54,58] | ||||
| A wide range of topics in a site (+) | Comprehensiveness (+) | |||
| Multiple functions in a site (+) | Comprehensiveness (+) | |||
a– indicates a negative evaluation of quality or that a criterion is judged negatively.
b+ indicates a positive evaluation of quality or that a criterion is judged positively.
c± could indicate both positive and negative evaluations or a criterion could be judged both positively and negatively.