Subjective aspects of personalisation - the impact of trust on information

Information understood as knowledge in action is a fundamental prerequisite for every part of modern societies. This also comes true in the field of healthc are and public health. Medical informedness brings benefits for the whole society as well as for the individual. Epidemiological studies show the positive impact of information on health. The emerging field of health-literacy focuses on this. For the individual, being well informed results in a good and secure feeling. People need to know what is happening with them, what their illness means, what the implications are. The internet has long been seen as a solution for problems related to information, as it gives access to mostly free information regardless of location. But negative effects such as information flood and bad quality of online information has led to a critical discussion. Without intelligent concepts that enable a user-oriented information supply of high-quality-information the internet will not succeed. Much efforts concentrate on technological and objective quality issues. Subjective aspects such as user-views and softfacts, e.g. trust, are often forgotten. In order to provide the right information one has to understand what right - from the users point of view - means. Therefore, concepts of personalization have to integrate both objective and subjective aspects. Furthermore, the interdependence between right information, personalization and trust has to be discussed. The task is to develop a framework of trust that serves as a basis for an extensive strategy for improving trust. It defines a trust level and includes a list of requirements to intelligent information and communication systems.