Q-rater: A collaborative reputation system based on source credibility theory

The consumer is an important information source and the after-transaction-feedback is used as the quality indicator for trust building in e-commerce. However, the possibility of incorrect information from unreliable users and declining trust in the electronic market looms large. Hence, there is a need for a fairer and more objective reputation mechanism. Most existing reputation systems focus oil the reputation of users than items and they rely on explicit feedback information. As a solution to these problems, we propose a reputation system ("Q-rater") suitable for B2C e-commerce. We adopt the source credibility theory of consumer psychology and the basic mechanism of collaborative filtering methods for the overall process of the proposed reputation system, We also evaluate performance of the Q-rater experimentally by comparing it with the other benchmark systems and observing the performance changes with variations in the size of rater group and item rating aggregation mechanism. (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.Josang A, 2007, DECIS SUPPORT SYST, V43, P618, DOI 10.1016/j.dss.2005.05.019Marti S, 2006, COMPUT NETW, V50, P472, DOI 10.1016/j.comnet.2005.07.011ODONOVAN J, 2005, P 10 INT C INT US IN, P167Ekstrom MA, 2005, J ORG COMP ELECT COM, V15, P1Herlocker JL, 2004, ACM T INFORM SYST, V22, P5, DOI 10.1145/963770.963772MASSA P, 2004, P INT C COOP INF SYS, P492HAWKINS DI, 2004, CONSUMER BEHAV BUILDHOGG T, 2004, P 5 ACM C EL COMM EC, P236Dellarocas C, 2003, MANAGE SCI, V49, P1407McKnight DH, 2002, INFORM SYST RES, V13, P334PUJOL JM, 2002, P 1 INT JOINT C AUT, P467CHEN M, 2001, P 3 ACM C EL COMM EC, P246Resnick P, 2000, COMMUN ACM, V43, P45Zacharia G, 2000, DECIS SUPPORT SYST, V29, P371ROBERTSON TS, 1984, CONSUMER BEHAVSCHWEITZER DA, 1969, Q J SPEECH, V55, P308