TY - JOUR TI - The influence of network structures and information seeking uncertainty on information seeking behavior DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-yhp8-0h07 PY - 2018 AB - People utilize their social networks to get to resources, tangible or otherwise, that aid them in their everyday lives. Information scientists have shown that network characteristics of information structures can indeed influence human information searching and browsing behavior. However, we do not have enough detail on what particular network characteristics may influence information seeking behavior. There is an incomplete picture of the how network structures influence people’s information seeking interactions over time. In this dissertation, I will look at some quantifiable behavioral dynamics of individuals who are seeking information using different social network structures over time. This research can shed light on our understanding of the interplay between human behavior and the environmental structures that people find themselves both being influenced by and influencing. This study utilizes a custom-built Web-based tool that simulates an information-seeking scenario via various network structures and has participants utilize it to achieve a stated goal of collecting answers to questions from others in their network. The tool allows a finite amount of interactions, thus limiting the participants’ engagements to a defined set of allowable actions. As all participants go through the simulation, the system logs their actions over time and measurements are taken in timed intervals of certain information seeking behaviors of the participants and changes that they create in their network topologies. The participants run through two types of networks: one with a scale-free topology one node has a disproportionate high number of connections compared to the other nodes and another with two sub-networks connected to one another via two structural holes. Both networks differ significantly in structure, but are very similar in network density and in average node degree centrality. This dissertation aims to contribute to the theories of information seeking in social network environments, as well as to social network theory as it pertains to human information behavior. From a practical standpoint, this dissertation aims at giving scholars another way to study human behavior through the lens of social networks by providing them with a sophisticated computer-mediated platform to collect log-based data of human behavior in simulated networked environments. KW - Communication, Information and Library Studies KW - Information behavior KW - Online social networks LA - eng ER -