Trust is a vital factor in the succesful functioning of social machines. It is possible to have a perfectly operational system that the system designers are satisfied with and trust, yet which is not deemed trustworthy by its users. Hence, in terms of trust in social machines, understanding the nature of the user community is as important as understanding the technical specification of the system.
In this project, we explore various challenges related to trust and social machines, including how high levels of trust can avoid dysfunction in human/computer hybrid systems, and how human-related trust theories can be developed and successfully applied in social machine research. We have also looked into the problem of assessing the quality and trustworthiness of web pages, and developed credibility criteria and novel tools to help users assess the reliability of online information.
