Lankes receives 2009 Emerald Outstanding Paper Award

Lankes receives 2009 Emerald Outstanding Paper AwardMarch 16, 2009Margaret Costello Spillettmcostell@syr.edu

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.