INTERNET LEGAL RESEARCH WEEKLY
March 17, 2002
Tom Mighell

Welcome to Issue #63 of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, a newsletter that delivers relevant and timely legal research information, and other fun stuff, to your inbox every Sunday. If you like what you read, please forward this newsletter to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to do the same! To subscribe, all you have to do is send an e-mail to ilrw-subscribe@topica.com. It’s free!

And away we go…..

Notable News

Even MORE From Google
Not a week goes by that Google doesn’t have some new feature to try. This week, two for you:

Google News Search – a few weeks ago, I mentioned that Google had news headlines; now the site has unveiled its News Search, still in beta testing. It only currently searches 100 news sources, but with Google, you know that will change.

Microsoft Search – if you’re looking for information from Microsoft but don’t know where to start, maybe this engine will help.

Sign on the Digital Dotted Line
A Massachusetts court rules that an e-mailed agreement to purchase a house was a binding contract, despite the lack of formal signature.

Finding Health Information on the Internet

Okay, I admit it – I’m in a rut. Whenever I see a new survey or study about how people use the Internet, I’m obsessed with the results. Last week, it was use of the Internet in general; this week, it’s health information on the Internet. The British Medical Journal released two studies last week on finding quality healthcare information. The first article deals with websites purporting to “award” healthcare sites for their accuracy and quality. The second focuses on consumers and how they search for healthcare resources. This week’s article will briefly review both reports.

The first article is entitled “Examination of Instruments Used to Rate Quality of Health Information on the Internet: Chronicle of a Voyage with an Unclear Destination,”. It’s an update of a 1997 article, which undertook to assess the reliability and validity of websites that give “awards” to healthcare sites. One of the conclusions of the study was that these websites were incompletely developed to give appropriate information on healthcare sites.

Of the 47 websites originally reviewed in 1997, only fourteen were still eligible for review (a site was eligible for review if it provided a description of its rating criteria); of those, only 6 were still in operation. The 2001 study identified 51 new rating sites, but of these only 5 were eligible for consideration. The obvious conclusion is that many of these “Best of the Web” sites either have no proven rating criteria or disappear soon after they debut on the Internet. The fact that many consumers (and inexperienced legal researchers, as well) rely on sites like these to guide them to supposedly accurate healthcare information is scary.

As many of you know, the AMA and other organizations developed quality standards for healthcare websites, but it is still possible to find inaccurate and misleading medical information on the Internet – these “Best Of” sites definitely increase the likelihood. However, the study identified several sources where Internet users can learn how to evaluate the quality of healthcare websites themselves. Here are a few of them: Healthfinder; Health Insite – an Australian site; NHS Direct Online – a site in the United Kingdom; Health Summit – provides 21 criteria researchers can use to evaluate healthcare information; and the Internet Healthcare Coalition.

The second article, titled “How do Consumers Search for and Appraise Health Information on the World Wide Web?”, demonstrates a principle about searching the Internet of which I am firmly convinced – that many Internet users who believe they are “experienced” at searching the Web are in fact woefully lacking in patience and search skills.

The study interviewed 21 Internet users, of ages ranging from 19 to 71. The average Internet experience of each user was 3.5 years. The researchers gave these participants several healthcare related questions and watched as they searched the Internet to find the answers (one of the questions was, “If you want to travel to Australia, do you need malaria prophylaxis?”). Each searcher was given 20 minutes per question to find the answer. Interestingly, none of the participants used a medical portal or library as a starting point – all started at a search engine such as Google, Alta Vista, or Yahoo! In all, there were 280 search queries conducted by the participants. Of the 280 searches, only 65% consisted of searches using only one word – hardly a successful search technique. Only 3.5% of the queries were phrase searches.

Once the participants entered their query, few strayed from the first page of search results or even the first few links. 97.2% of the users chose a link in the first 10 results, and 71.3% chose a link in the first 5. Only 9 of the 21 ever checked the second page of search results, and only 5 of those clicked on a link on that page (apparently, no one went to the third page of results). One elderly participant thought that the first ten results were all that existed for each search. Despite the less than desired search strategies employed above, the participants were able to find answers to their questions in an average of 5 minutes, 42 seconds; incorrect answers were due more to misunderstanding on the part of the participant than of the quality of information found at the web site.

During these searches, none of the participants made any attempt to determine whether the website offering the answers to their questions provided quality information. The users stated that when assessing the quality of a site they look for the source, whether the design of the website is “professional,” and a few other criteria. None of the users check the “About Us” section of a website, to find out who sponsors the website or to get disclaimer information. Perhaps most telling was that users were only able to correctly remember 20.9% of the 86 sites that contained the correct answers to the questions. The study concludes the participants did not remember the sites because they did not pay attention to the origin of the information they were seeking. I think this explains a lot about how people search and the quality of the information they find.

Any thoughts on these two studies? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net!

Help Desk

To improve your computer terminology, a word of the week:

GIF: Images in Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) account for many of the color images and backgrounds on the Web. This compact file format is ideal for images that use only a few colors, and was once the most popular format for online color photos. However, GIF has lost ground to the JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) format when it comes to photos. GIF images are limited to 256 colors, but JPEGs can contain up to 16 million colors.

Do you have a question about searching the Internet or your computer in general? Drop me a line at tmighell@swbell.net– I’ll post your question (don’t worry, I won’t use your real name) and try to get an answer for you!

Legally Relevant – Sites on the Internet

Corporate Affiliations ($$)
The online version of the 30-year-old Directory of Corporate Affiliations, this resource provides insight into more than 174,000 parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, and divisions – apparently
all the way down to the seventh level of reporting relationships. Lexis-Nexis runs this site, and will charge you $1,795.00 for access to the database. Once you’re in, though, the resources look quite
impressive. In addition to providing corporate linkage information, you can also find sales, earnings, net income, asset and liability, key personnel, board of director, outside legal firm, auditor, and other data about each corporation or business. A great resource for those doing marketing or business development research, conflicts checks or credit checks.

ElectionLine
Interested in election reform? ElectionLine is the place to go. This site is produced by the Election Reform Information Project, the goal of which is simple – to provide up to the minute news and analysis on election reform. There’s a LOT of news on elections to be found here, and it’s updated regularly. You can also find a reference guide with election laws and administration information, and an area with research and commentary on the subject.

Global Real Estate Project
While GREP doesn’t really grab me as an acronym, the Global Real Estate Project website will certainly grab your attention with its wealth of information. The site is provided by the Burns School of Real Estate and Construction Management at the University of Denver, and is by all accounts an impressive reference for international real estate information. Select a country by region or alphabetical order – the site gives information on each country’s geography, history, people, government, economy, transportation, communications, cultural issues, and more. In terms of real estate information, you can find information on real property issues and real estate trends. You can
also compare real estate issues and trends of up to 5 countries each.

Judge Advocate General’s School
The new war on terrorism has sparked an interest in the military, and many lawyers are looking for ways to serve their country in the law. The Judge Advocate General’s School is one way to do just that. If you or someone you know is interesting in joining the legal branch of the military, check out this site.

Mold, Mildew & Fungus
What with mold being the newest thing to arrive on the toxic tort scene, you just can’t have too many sites devoted to the topic. This site is sponsored by the Rhode Island Department of Health, and it’s really nothing special – just a list of links with general information on mold, mildew and fungus. Get fact sheets from the U.S. government or other states, general tips on how to get rid of mold, and resources on dealing with water/flood damage. Worth a look.

Finally, have a bit o’ craic (fun) this St. Paddy’s Day:

Download festive shamrock and leprechaun screensavers.

Learn more about St. Patrick and the holiday.

And don’t forget to visit the Leprechaun Hall of Shame!

Well, that’s it for Issue #63– I hope you liked it! If you did, pass this along to anyone you think might be interested, and encourage him or her to subscribe. Also, feel free to drop me an e-mail any time if you have questions, or if you have websites or other topics you want included in a future issue.

Tom Mighell

Subscription Information: If you want to keep on receiving issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly, send an email to tom@inter-alia.net, or visit Inter Alia sign up there! If you no longer want to receive the newsletter, just send me an e-mail at tom@inter-alia.net and I'll remove you from the list.

Archives: Miss an issue? You can read previous issues of the Internet Legal Research Weekly in the Archives.

Questions? New websites? Just want to talk? Send me an e-mail at tmighell@swbell.net.