The effects of ontology-based and password-protected blog access control on perceived privacy benefit and perceived ease of use

Abstract

Purpose – This work empirically evaluates the effectiveness of the novel ontology-based access-control mechanism and the common password-protected access-control mechanism for social blogs. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The ontology-based access-control scheme is designed to fit two characteristics of blog activities: social relationships and tags. A laboratory experiment is conducted to assess the perceived privacy benefit and perceived ease of use of the two mechanisms. Findings – Analytical results indicate that, with the ontology-based access-control scheme, users perceive more privacy benefit than with the password-protected access-control scheme. The perceived ease of use with the ontology-based and password-protected access-control systems did not differ significantly. Research limitations/implications – Cross-boundary collaborations need an appropriate approach to control communication access. Further study is required to evaluate the ontology-based access-control scheme applied in cross-organizational and cross-departmental collaborations. Practical implications – From a knowledge management perspective, blogs can store personal and organizational knowledge and experiences. The ontology-based access-control scheme encourages knowledge sharing for appropriate persons. Originality/value – The new ontology-based access-control mechanism can help online users keep secrets from selected people to gain more privacy benefits than the existing password-protected access-control mechanism.