Turkish Websites Research Articles

Assessment of the readability of online texts related to specific learning disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the readability and content of texts on specific learning disorder published on Turkish websites. In the study, the first three hundred websites which were accessed by writing three main word groups (dyslexia, learning disability, specific learning disorder) to the search engine in July 2019 were evaluated. Of these, chat and forum sites, commercial sales sites, the sites that contained advertising, video and pictures only and less than 10 sentences of information, and news sites that do not contain information about the disorder were excluded. One hundred and two websites remained after the exclusion criteria were applied. Websites are classified according to their makers. The readability values of the texts were calculated using the Ateþman and Bezirci-Yýlmaz formulas. The contents of the text were compared according to the subject headings. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of readability values. The readability values of the groups were found to be at the level of undergraduate education. As a result, in our study, it was observed that the readability of websites prepared for specific learning disorder was low. It was thought that this result may adversely affect the awareness about the disorder and may reduce the possibility of early diagnosis and treatment in children.

Kolorektal Kanser Hakkında Bilgi İçeren İnternet Sitelerinin Okunabilirliği

Amaç: Kolorektal kanser (KRK), dünya çapında görülen üçüncü en yaygın kanserdir. Biz bu çalışmamızda, KRK konusunda çevrimiçi sitelerin okunabilirlik değerlerini Türkçe için dizayn edilmiş Ateşman ve Bezirci-Yılmaz okunabilirlik formüllerine göre incelemeyi ve bu sitelerin içeriklerini değerlendirmeyi amaçladık.Materyal ve Metod: Bu araştırma tanımlayıcı tipte bir araştırma olup, araştırmanın verilerine ülkemizde en sık kullanılan arama motoru olan Google (www.google.com.tr) aracılığı ile ulaşılmıştır. Haziran 2019 tarihinde “kolon kanseri”, “rektum kanseri” ve “kalın bağırsak kanseri” anahtar kelimeleri arama motorunda tek tek yazılarak arama yapılmış ve karşımıza çıkan toplam 1250 internet sitesi incelenmiştir. Bu sitelerden reklam, sadece video ve resim içeren, 10 cümleden daha az bilgi içeren siteler, sohbet ve forum siteleri, ticari satış siteleri ile hastalık hakkında bilgi içermeyen haber siteleri araştırma dışı bırakılmıştır. Çalışmaya alınan sitelerdeki bilgiler kopyalanarak bilgisayar programına aktarılmıştır. Bu program ile Ateşman ile Bezirci-Yılmaz okunabilirlik değerleri, cümle sayısı, kelime sayısı, dört ve üzeri heceli kelime sayısı, bir cümledeki ortalama 4 hece ve üstü kelime sayısı ve kelimelerin ortalama hece sayısı hesaplanmıştır. Çalışmaya alınan internet siteleri hazırlayan kişilere göre 4 gruba ayrılmıştır. Hastane ve sağlık profesyonellerinin hazırladıkları siteler birinci grup, haber siteleri ikinci grup, Sağlık Bakanlığı ve derneklerin hazırladıkları siteler üçüncü grup ve bu üç gruba girmeyen siteler dördüncü grup olarak sınıflandırılmıştır.Bulgular: Çalışmaya 59 (%38,1)’u 1. grup, 63(%40,6)’ü 2. grup, 15 (%9,7)’i 3. grup ve 18 (%11,6)’i ise 4. grupta olmak üzere toplam 155 tane internet sitesi alınmıştır. Çalışmaya alınan tüm sitelerin Ateşman okunabilirlik değerlerinin medyan değeri 50,81 [46,65-55,75] idi. Çalışmaya alınan grupların Ateşman okunabilirlik değerleri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı fark saptanmadı (p=0,082). Çalışmaya alınan tüm sitelerin Bezirci-Yılmaz okunabilirlik değerlerinin medyan değeri 12,32 [10,83-14,29] idi. Çalışmaya alınan grupların Bezirci-Yılmaz okunabilirlik değerleri arasında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı fark saptanmadı (p=0,166). Sitelerin Ateşman’a göre aldıkları okunabilirlik puanları yine Ateşman’a göre okunabilirlik aralıklarına göre ayrıldı. Çalışma gruplarının Ateşman’a göre okunabilirlik aralıklarında istatistiksel olarak anlamlı fark olduğu tespit edildi (p=0,035). Sonuç: KRK hakkında hazırlanmış Türkçe internet sitelerindeki metinlerin okunabilirlik seviyeleri, ülkemiz sağlık okuryazarlığı ve önerilen akademik seviyenin üzerindedir. Bu sonuç bize KRK hakkında hazırlanmış Türkçe internet sitelerindeki metinlerin anlaşılmasının güç olduğunu göstermektedir.

Yeni Medyada Çeviri Aracılığıyla Popülerleştirme: Düşünbil Örneği

This study aims to explore the opportunities the new media present for the popularization of scientific knowledge through translation, based on the case study of a Turkish website called Düşünbil (www.dusunbil.com). The article will touch upon debates on science popularization, new media, and the translation of social sciences texts, highlighting the role of online translation projects in circulating new and hybrid genres. The contribution combines two under-researched topics in translation studies: popularization, and the translation of social sciences and humanities texts. On the other hand, TS research on popularization has so far mainly focused on natural sciences whereas this study concerns social sciences and humanities texts. Düşünbil Portal relies on non-professional volunteer translators for the translation of popular texts. In this respect, the translational action undertaken may be considered a case of “community translation.” These texts, translated almost exclusively from English, represent a mix of social sciences and journalism, some leaning towards self-help in terms of content and style. It is the convergent aspect of digital media that make them particularly amenable for popularization: the functions of information and entertainment converge on the internet. The translation of social sciences and humanities texts, hitherto largely confined to conventional print media, helps extend knowledge in these fields thanks to projects like Düşünbil. After a conceptual discussion, the paper will elaborate on strategies of knowledge mediation through examples drawn from translated texts, their source texts as well as texts written originally in Turkish and published on Düşünbil. Proximity, regarded to be the distinctive feature of popular science texts, will be addressed not only as a textual-linguistic feature but also in terms of the wider strategies of presenting information. Aspects such as interactivity and conceptual clarification will also be illustrated, followed by an examination of translation strategies employed on texts originally written in Turkish.

Evaluating the websites of academic departments through SEO criteria: a hesitant fuzzy linguistic MCDM approach

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of managing web content in a manner that elevates page rankings in search engines. Among other sectors, academic world is one of the number-one categories for search based on the percentage of web traffic generated through search engine referrals. However, SEO includes a number of factors grouped into two as ‘on page’ and ‘off page.’ To obtain maximum benefit from SEO, relevant factors/criteria should be considered using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. The focus of this paper is to consider SEO criteria evaluation as a MCDM problem in which the criteria are in different priority levels and the criteria values take the form of hesitant fuzzy linguistic term sets to facilitate the elicitation of information in hesitate situations. A three-step solution approach is developed: (i) determination of 21 SEO criteria, such as page loading time, page size and meta-keyword (ii) prioritizing the criteria using hesitant fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, and (iii) ranking 70 Turkish websites of the industrial engineering departments using Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution. The results show that trust flow and XML sitemap are the determinant criteria among others. Using the proposed method, web designers can approach SEO from weighted criteria perspective.

The Accuracy of Information about Orthodontics Available on the Internet.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the content of the informative websites related to orthodontic terms in Turkish and in English. Five different orthodontic terms ("orthodontic appliances (ortodontik aygıtlar)," "orthodontic braces (ortodontik braketler)," "orthodontic elastics (ortodontik elastikler)," "orthognathic surgery (ortognatik cerrahi)," and "orthodontic treatment (ortodontik tedavi)") both in Turkish and in English were searched using Google. There were 25 websites evaluated for each term. A total of 137 different websites were evaluated with three measurement tools: DISCERN (questionnaire, University of Oxford, 1999) (quality of information), LIDA (v1.2 Minervation, 2007) (accessibility, usability, and reliability), and AChecker (v0.1 ATutor, 2011) (accessibility). The mean overall score of the quality of information was "good" for terms in Turkish and in English. The LIDA score was classified as "moderate" for terms in Turkish and in English. More accessibility errors were found on the Turkish websites than on the English counterparts. Most of the statistical evaluations between Turkish and English terms were insignificant. However, intragroup evaluation of the terms mostly showed significant differences. Accessibility, usability, and reliability; quality of information; and scores of access errors showed variations among Turkish and English sites. The collaboration of website designers and clinicians to increase the quality level of the websites is recommended.

Information Quality on Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip on Turkish Websites

Information Quality on Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip on Turkish Websites

The Internet versus pediatricians as a source of infant teething information for parents in Turkey

OBJECTIVES:Parents are increasingly searching the Internet to gather information about their children’s health care. This study compared infant teething information obtained from publically employed pediatricians in Istanbul with that obtained from different Turkish websites (parenting, health, professional, news and commercial).METHODS:This study had two parts. The first part used a descriptive design, with two checklists to assess the quality and comprehensiveness of the teething-specific content on 62 parenting or health websites. The second part was a cross-sectional study of 75 pediatricians at public hospitals who completed a structured self-administered questionnaire.RESULTS:In total, 54 websites (87.1%) described infant teething as a normal developmental process. The lists that were found on the websites identified the most frequent signs of infant teething as fever and drooling/perioral rash. The most frequent management strategies were chewing non-chilled and chilled objects. For teething problems, some pediatricians recommended teething rings and oral benzocaine, while 23 pediatricians recommended nothing.CONCLUSIONS:Parents should be informed by health professionals, especially regarding specific treatment strategies.

Corporate Governance Practices: Dissemination on Turkish Web Sites

As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) evolve, we have started to feel their significant impact on our professional lives. Recent corporate scandals in developed economies have also underscored the importance of adopting appropriate corporate governance practices. This study aims to explore web site design and content features of Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) listed firms. While our analysis has revealed that the utilization of design features and the type and extent of the corporate information content do not differ much among the studied industries, we found some statistical differences based on Corporate Governance Ratings (CGRs). Turkish firms seem to be in their early stages of using ICTs in corporate governance practices.

How reliable is the Internet for caregivers on their decision to vaccinate their child against influenza? Results from googling in two languages

We have chosen Google, which is the most widely used search engine, to simulate a parent's experience in trying to find an answer on whether to have her/his child vaccinated against influenza. In doing this, we aimed to find out the chances that a parent with usual Internet searching tendencies may encounter right, wrong, and irrelevant answers in her/his search in the world wide web. We searched the Internet for an answer to the question "Should I make my child vaccinated against influenza?" by using the keywords "influenza", "vaccine", and "children" in two languages (English and Turkish). The "correct" answer was at least one clear statement meaning that annual influenza vaccination is recommended for all children (aged 6 months-18 years). Thirty-two of the 112 websites and 45 of the 103 websites had the correct answer, whereas 24 and 46 websites contained incorrect information in English and Turkish searches, respectively. Only non-relevant information was found in 56 English and 12 Turkish websites. When the first page of search results were taken into account, correctness and incorrectness were observed in six and four English and four and six in Turkish websites, respectively. Our findings call for the urgent need to check public-oriented healthcare information on the Internet for accuracy, completeness, and consistency. We have arrived at a conclusion that the information on the Internet cannot and should not be a substitute for routine care by primary care physicians.

Online weight loss supplement market and public health: An analysis of Turkish websites marketing weight loss supplements

Online weight loss supplement market and public health: An analysis of Turkish websites marketing weight loss supplements

Cultural Variability in Web Content: A Comparative Analysis of American and Turkish Websites

The objective of this article is to investigate the extent of differentiation of web communication on cultural grounds. For this purpose, US based Fortune 500 companies’ domestic websites and their Turkish counterparts were culturally examined. Through a content analysis, the reflections of Hofstede’s (1980) and Hall’s (1976) cultural dimensions on the website content of the selected 88 websites were investigated. In general, significant differences were found in the depiction of cultural values on the websites examined. The results of this study provide implications for global companies in their attempts to culturally adapt their websites to local markets, in particular to Turkey.

Comparison of similarity measures for clustering Turkish documents

Text clustering has become an important part of the web data organization with the rapid growth of the World Wide Web (www). Clustering simplifies web search engine work by grouping large amount of documents, retrieved according to a given query. Similarity measures used in clustering affect the output of the grouping directly. Most of the document clustering techniques rely on single term analysis of text, such as vector space model. In order to improve grouping of Turkish documents, we investigate several similarity measures based on the semantic similarity of terms. Moreover, some techniques for calculating documents similarity are studied. The aim of this paper is to study the effects of semantic and single term similarity measures to the clustering results of Turkish documents. All experiments are carried out on Turkish web sites, taking into account the relationships of terms based on the ontology for the Turkish language.

Confession, revelation and storytelling: patterns of use on a popular Turkish website

This article reports a survey of 4531 users of Itiraf.com (‘Confession.com’), a confessional website based in Istanbul, Turkey, where people make personal confessions, tell stories and establish online and offline relationships with other users. Adopting a uses and gratifications approach to the web-based survey, to determine why the contributors to this website return so regularly and what uses they make of the site, the study adds to the limited information available on Turkish internet users. The major finding of the study is that diversion drives most reading on the site, but social interaction provides the largest gratification to those who participate through writing confessions, commenting on others’ confessions and meeting people offline. Some differences in use patterns were found among Turkish respondents who lived in other countries. A rapidly changing social environment in the country provides a partial explanation of website activity.