Information Quality and Online Reputation Systems: A Preliminary Investigation

As electronic commerce developed, it became clear that buyers and sellers needed a way to evaluate the reputation of potential trade partners. Online reputation systems were developed to meet this need. More recently, online reputation systems have expanded into additional domains such as the evaluation of college professors. The study proposed here examines the characteristics of two representative online reputation systems and examines user perceptions of the information quality of the systems. Results will have implications for the design of online reputation systems and for interventions aimed at helping users understand how to best use these systems.