Development of Criteria to Assess the Quality of Food and Nutrition Information on Internet

인터넷 식생활 정보 사이트의 질적 평가기준 개발 연구

With the development of information technology, more and more internet sites are available to consumers. Increasing on the interests of diet and health in modem society, there are numerous internet sites dealing with food, nutrition and health. Considering the importance and expected roles of internet sites in information dissemination in the future world, it is important to put more efforts to encourage internet sites with more accurate an useful information. Up to present, not much work has been done on quality analysis and evaluation of the internet information. This study aimed to develop a model to evaluate and rank the internet information according to its quality so that consumers can be guided toward correct information source. Three models were adapted from the literature for pilot study to develop a model suitable for evaluation of contents of sites related to food and nutrition information. From the pilot study, a evaluation model was developed with criteria more relevant to Korean internet site by expert panel. Evaluation criteria of the model is authority, accuracy, objectivity, coverage, and user-friendliness. For the objective and systematic evaluation, scores were assigned totaling maximum 100 point to each evaluation criteria factors. The model developed in this study could be used as one for other internet sites in area other than food and nutrition.