Human Information Interaction

Background and Aim: Nowadays, Internet is known as an attractive source of health information to manage individual's health.  Given the importance of it, this study examined the role of Internet in health information seeking behavior among young people in Shiraz.
     Method: This research was a survey which target population were youth Internet users in the city of Shiraz.  A sample of 400 were randomly selected using, multi-stage cluster sampling. Data were collected by a questionnaire.
     Results: Most of respondents used the Internet to search health information. Young women were more likely to seek online health information than young men. As well as level of education, the experience and self-efficacy to search the Internet, showed a significant correlation with searching OHI, too. The main goal of respondents to search OHI was to understand their health condition or disease, better understanding of health information provided by physicians and self-medication. The results also showed that respondents have positive attitude towards health information retrieved via the Internet.

     Conclusion: There is a high demand of OHI among young people to manage personal health. Undoubtedly, foresight and planning to improve the quality of OHI, efforts to create a reliable health information database and public education to care about assessing the quality of OHI can herald the development of individual health and consequently the health of our community.

Background and purpose: Business Information is among the important sources for companies, especially for those located in Science and Technology Park which intend to launch a technological business and enter the market. To this end, different aspects of business information behavior of the companies need to be investigated. The aim of this article is to study business information behavior of companies based in Khuzestan Science & Technology Park.

Methodology: This qualitative study was conducted based on grounded theory. Companies affiliated with Khouzestan Science and Technology Park formed our research population. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 14 companies.

Finding: The results show that the aims of business information seeking include: organizational goal completion and task fulfillment, updatedness, efficiency, competitiveness and preparation for difficult situations and problem solving. Furthermore, business information need includes knowledge of market, national and international policies, laws, financial information, information about products, information about management, as well as information management. Sources of business information were mass media, science and technology park, internet, educational courses, informal communication, and library and financial consultants.  However, barriers to business information seeking included lack of information seeking and information literacy skills, problems about information, technical infrastructure, personal factors, cultural, political and ethical problems, problems in receiving information from the science & technology park and organizational problems.

Conclusion: Companies based in science and technology parks are well-aware of the importance of business information. Moreover, their business information needs are in line with other researches. By identifying the relevant sources and obstacles, this paper can help to provide appropriate information services to these companies.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of print and electronic personal information management activities and compare them between faculty of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz.
     Method: The present study, is conducted in a survey, In terms of purpose, it is an applied type and In terms of nature, it is descriptive and analytical. The research community consists of all faculty of Shahid Chamran University of Ahwaz. In order to analyze the data, were used descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.      
     Results: Results showed that the overall average print information management boards of faculty is 86/2 and electronic personal information management is 82/2. In this way, the print and electronic personal information management activities of faculty are in a relatively good level. Results indicate that There is no significant difference between the print and electronic information management activities of faculty of Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz.
     Conclusion: The results indicate that the activities of electronic information management and print information management activities of the faculty are equal and none of them overlap. New phenomena always need more time to know and prove themselves, and new electronic gadgets may be used in the future.