Quality of information in academic e-mailing lists

The article analyzes how researchers evaluate the quality of information in Internet e-mailing lists and whether the embeddedness of academic e-mailing lists in offline networks of a scientific community is related to it. The idea is that embeddedness gives researchers more opportunities to build up a reputation through contributing high-quality information to the group. Survey and archive data are used to test hypotheses about the effects of offline networks in 47 academic e-mailing lists used by a random sample of university researchers. Results indicate that the information in embedded online groups is regarded as more valuable than in purely virtual groups.