Management information and the organization: Homily from the experience of the data rich but information poor

Calvin Mooers's Law has long been one of my favorites. I often use it as an excuse for irrational behavior in library management. Over twenty years ago, Calvin Mooers commented: "An information retrieval system will tend not to be used whenever it is more painful and troublesome for a customer to have information than for him not to have it." Mooers was involved with information storage and retrieval systems in science, but his words are just as appropriate for management information systems (MIS). The problem with having information in Mooer's view is that you can't just let it sit there if it indicates that something must be done. If that something is hard to do or involves difficult social consequences (such as disrupting the faculty's habits of library use, or the student's timing of meeting his date), it will only cause ulcers, sleepless nights or unemployment if you don't make the adjustment. Of course there is one way to avoid all of the trouble, and that is not to have the information in the first place.published or submitted for publicatio

Developing an 'experience framework' for an evidence-based information literacy educational intervention

Purpose This paper describes how an ‘Experience Framework’ for an evidence-based Information Literacy educational intervention can be formulated. Design/methodology/approach The Experience Framework is developed by applying the qualitative methodology Phenomenography to the analysis of the variation in the experience of a phenomenon by a target group, making specific use of one of its data analysis methods, that pioneered by Gerlese Akerlind. A phenomenographic study’s descriptions of the limited but related experiences of the phenomenon, and the detail of context and complexity in experience achieved through the Akerlind’s data analysis technique, are essential to a Framework’s structure and educationally valuable richness of detail. Findings The ‘Experience Framework’, an example of which is set out in this paper, is formed from a detailed range of contexts, forms and levels of complexity of experience of a phenomenon, such as Information Literacy, in a group or profession. Groupings of aspects of that experience are used to formulate, through the application of Variation Theory, an education theory developed from previous phenomenographic research, learning contexts and aims which can form the focus of educational activities. Originality/value The framework can be used to form the basis of an evidence-based educational intervention to enrich the experience of any concept within LIS that Information professionals work to develop in their users

Understanding Cathedral visitors: psychological type and individual differences in experience and appreciation

This article examines the experience and appreciation of 381 visitors to St Davids Cathedral in West Wales through the lens of Jungian psychological type theory. The data demonstrate that St Davids Cathedral attracts more introverts than extraverts, more sensers than intuitives, and more judgers than perceivers, but equal proportions of thinkers and feelers. The data also demonstrate that different aspects of the visitor experience appeals to different psychological types. Sensers are more attracted than intuitives by the facts, information, and data they encounter on their visit. Feelers are more attracted than thinkers by the atmosphere and wider ambience generated by the cathedral during their visit. The implications of these findings are discussed for understanding and developing the way in which cathedrals may develop the visitor experience

Managers and Students as Newsvendors - How Out-of-Task Experience Matters

We compare how freshmen business students, graduate business students and experienced procurement managers perform on a simple inventory ordering task. We find that, qualitatively, managers exhibit ordering behavior similar to students, including biased ordering towards average demand. Experience, however, affects subjects’ utilization of information. The managers’ work experience seems most valuable when there is only historical demand data to guide decision making, while students better utilize analytical information and task training. As a result, when information necessary to solve the problem to optimality is added to historical information, students catch up to the managers, and students with classroom experience in operations management outperform managers.

Measuring information security breach impact and uncertainties under various information sharing scenarios

This study draws on information theory and aims to provide simulated evidence using real historical and statistical data to demonstrate how various levels of integration moderate the impact and uncertainties of information security breach on supply chain performance. We find that the supply chain behaves differently under various levels of integration when a security breach occurs. The entropy analysis revealed that the wholesaler experience the most uncertainty under system failure and data corruption. This sort of impact-uncertainty information will aid in designing and managing a resilient supply chain poised for minimal breach impact

That's 'é' not 'þ' '?' or '☐': a user-driven context-aware approach to erroneous metadata in digital libraries

In this paper we present a novel system for user-driven integration of name variants when interacting with web-based information systems. The growth and diversity of online information means that many users experience disambiguation and collocation errors in their information searching. We approach these issues via a client-side JavaScript browser extension that can reorganise web content and also integrate remote data sources. The system is illustrated through three worked examples using existing digital libraries

Visual representation of concepts : exploring users’ and designers’ concepts of everyday products

To address the question on how to enhance the design of user-artefact interaction at the initial stages of the design process, this study focuses on exploring the differences between designers and users in regard to their concepts of an artefact usage. It also considers that human experience determines people’s knowledge and concepts of the artefacts they interact with, and broadens or limits their concept of context of use. In this exploratory study visual representation of concepts is used to elicit information from designers and users, and to explore how these concepts are influenced by their individual experience. Observation, concurrent verbal and retrospective protocols and thematic interviews are employed to access more in depth information about users’ and designers’ concepts. The experiment was conducted with designers and users who were asked about their concepts of an everyday product. Three types of data were produced in each session: sketches, transcriptions from retrospectives verbal reports and observations. Through an iterative process, references about context, use and experience were identified in the data collected; this led to the definition of a coding system of categories that was applied for the interpretation of visuals and texts. The methodology was tested through preliminary studies. Their initial outcomes indicate that the main differences between designers’ and users’ concepts come from their knowledge domain, while main similarities are related to human experience as source that drives concept formulation. Cultural background has been found to influence concepts about product usability and its context of use. The use of visual representation of concepts with retrospective reports and interviews allowed access to insightful information on how human experience influence people’s knowledge about product usability and its context of use. It is expected that this knowledge contributes to the enhancement of the design of product usability

A high-performance data structure for mobile information systems

Mobile information systems can now be provided on small form-factor computers. Dictionary-based data compression extends the capabilities of systems with limited processing and memory to enable data intensive applications to be supported in such environments. The nature of judicial sentencing decisions requires that a support system provides accurate and up-to-date data and is compatible with the professional working experience of a judge. The difficulties caused by mobility and the data dependence of the decision-making process are addressed by an Internet-based architecture for collecting and distributing system data.We describe an approach to dictionary-based data compression and the structure of an information system that makes use of this technology

Young people and ICT- findings from a survey conducted autumn 2001: ICT in Schools research and evaluation series No. 5

The report provides an analysis of the data gathered in a 2001 survey of the attitudes and experience of young people aged 5-18 years, and their parents, with regard to the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) at home and at school

MSUO Information Technology and Geographical Information Systems: Common Protocols & Procedures. Report to the Marine Safety Umbrella Operation

The Marine Safety Umbrella Operation (MSUO) facilitates the cooperation between Interreg funded Marine Safety Projects and maritime stakeholders. The main aim of MSUO is to permit efficient operation of new projects through Project Cooperation Initiatives, these include the review of the common protocols and procedures for Information Technology (IT) and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This study carried out by CSA Group and the National Centre for Geocomputation (NCG) reviews current spatial information standards in Europe and the data management methodologies associated with different marine safety projects. International best practice was reviewed based on the combined experience of spatial data research at NCG and initiatives in the US, Canada and the UK relating to marine security service information and acquisition and integration of large marine datasets for ocean management purposes. This report identifies the most appropriate international data management practices that could be adopted for future MSUO projects