Juggling Privacy Dynamics: Information Needs, Disclosure, and Control while Navigating Scholarly Resources

This study examines scholars’ privacy behaviours when seeking scholarly information online, focusing on four dimensions: prioritisation of information needs over privacy disclosure (PIN), comfort with sharing personal information (CPI), use of privacy control tools (CTT), and manual control techniques (CTQ). Data were collected from 337 scholars at North-Eastern Hill University through a semi-structured questionnaire. Exploratory Factor Analysis identified 25 items across four factors, explaining 64.60% of the total variance, with eigenvalues greater than 1. Factor loadings ranged from 0.597 to 0.885 and communalities from 0.514 to 0.750, confirming satisfactory construct validity. The factors demonstrated high internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of >0.80. Correlation analysis revealed a strong positive association between privacy control tools and manual control techniques (? = 0.594, p < 0.001), indicating their complementary use in protecting personal information. A weak but significant association was also observed between prioritisation of information needs and manual control techniques (? = 0.123, p = 0.024). Gender-based analysis showed that female scholars placed greater priority on information needs over disclosure (p = 0.018), whereas male scholars reported greater comfort with sharing personal information (p = 0.001). No significant gender differences were observed in the use of privacy control tools or manual control techniques. The findings underscore the need for academic information platforms to strengthen user trust through transparent privacy policies, data minimisation, and improved privacy controls. Institutions should also promote privacy literacy and encourage the effective use of both technological and manual privacy-protection mechanisms. The study contributes to understanding scholars’ online privacy behaviours and offers practical implications for developing secure, trustworthy, and user-centred scholarly information environments.