A Review and Content Analysis of the Quality of Knowledge Sharing Mobile Applications

Smartphones and tablets are changing the manner in which individuals are gathering, processing and sharing information. This is a development that also applies to the professional environment. Mobile applications are increasingly becoming popular and organizations are starting to use applications, either to enter data or to share information. This research study is a review as well as a content analysis of knowledge sharing applications available on Google Play Store. 364 applications were reviewed from the Google Play Store. Out of the 364 applications found, only 122 applications met the criteria. Three quality indicators were operationalized. For the privacy and security indicator, the privacy and security of the users' data was considered. To assess the effectiveness indicator, the six functionalities that constitute an efficient knowledge sharing application was used. The online reviews and star ratings indicator was operationalized by using the online reviews and star ratings in the Google Play Store. This study revealed that the privacy and security of data of the users can be substantially improved on the free applications. 62 percent of the reviewers stated that the applications were easy to use. 54 per cent of reviewers said that when they would either upload, download or send documents through the application, the application would lag. 70 per cent of users said that the applications had helped them learn new ways of doing things. 54 per cent of users claimed that the tutorials that the applications provided were ineffective. 72 per cent of users liked that they could personalise the application. The overall star rating of all 122 applications was 3.9 where 70 per cent of applications received 3.5 stars or higher and 35 per cent of the applications had 3 stars or less. Even though, the average median rating of all 122 knowledge sharing applications were above average, there is a concern about the privacy policies that these applications have in terms of the majority of free applications that do not have a privacy policy as well as the extent to which application developers are actually implementing their privacy policies.