Development Studies: a guide to finding information

Using the library to find resources relating to development studies (development and emergency practice

Developing a Research Culture and Scholarship Plan in Information Studies

Information research may take many forms. When the researchers are situated within an information technology faculty, there is a natural orientation towards the technology and the systems that make possible the use of the technology. Despite this, a focus on information itself and its effective utilisation can be achieved in an environment that may otherwise be more concerned with the technology than the information that the technology carries. This focus can contribute to research that has a systems orientation, as well as both foster and be fostered by interdisciplinary work in areas such as education, management and psychology. Here we explain the development of a research program in ‘information use’ within the Socio-technical systems theme of the School of Information Systems at QUT. Our emphasis is on the processes – research supervision, industry linkage, consultancy, grant development, conference contribution and publication - that have advanced the development of the research group. We also provide a summary of research projects in the form of models that are being developed to help illuminate the research frameworks

Opportunities for information sharing: case studies

Personal information provided to government and non-government service providers is highly sensitive. Appropriate collection, management and storage of personal information are critical elements to citizen trust in the public sector. However, misconceptions about the frameworks governing sharing personal information can impact on the coordination of services, case management and policy development.   The NSW Department of Premier & Cabinet engaged the Social Policy Research Centre to develop three case studies that identified the challenges to sharing information appropriately, and the opportunities for better personal information sharing between government agencies and non-government organisations. Improved sharing of personal information in these areas can support more effective policy development, leading to improved service delivery performance and coordination.   The Social Policy Research Centre identified the legislative and policy framework for each case study, conducted qualitative research on the interpretation of this framework, and developed three case study reports

Combining absolute and relative information in studies on food quality

A common problem in food science concerns the assessment of the quality of food samples. Typically, a group of panellists is trained exhaustively on how to identify different quality indicators in order to provide absolute information, in the form of scores, for each given food sample. Unfortunately, this training is expensive and time-consuming. For this very reason, it is quite common to search for additional information provided by untrained panellists. However, untrained panellists usually provide relative information, in the form of rankings, for the food samples. In this paper, we discuss how both scores and rankings can be combined in order to improve the quality of the assessment

Applied Epistemology and Understanding in Information Studies

Introduction. Applied epistemology allows information studies to benefit from developments in philosophy. In information studies, epistemic concepts are rarely considered in detail. This paper offers a review of several epistemic concepts, focusing on understanding, as a call for further work in applied epistemology in information studies. Method. A hermeneutic literature review was conducted on epistemic concepts in information studies and philosophy. Relevant research was retrieved and reviewed iteratively as the research area was refined. Analysis. A conceptual analysis was conducted to determine the nature and relationships of the concepts surveyed, with an eye toward synthesizing conceptualizations of understanding and opening future research directions. Results. The epistemic aim of understanding is emerging as a key research frontier for information studies. Two modes of understanding (hermeneutic and epistemological) were brought into a common framework. Conclusions. Research on understanding in information studies will further naturalistic information research and provide coherence to several strands of philosophic thought

Introduction: Legal Form and Cultural Symbol – Music, Copyright and Information Studies

Writers in information and communication studies often assume the stability of objects under investigation: network nodes, databases, information. Legal writers in the intellectual property tradition often assume that cultural artefacts exist as objects prior to being governed by copyright law. Both assumptions are fallacious. This introduction conceptualises the relationship of legal form and cultural symbol. Starting from an understanding of copyright law as part of systems of production (in the sense of Peterson 1976), it is argued that copyright law constructs the artefacts it seeks to regulate as objects that can be bought and sold. In doing so, the legal and aesthetic logic of cultural symbols may clash, as in the case of digital music (the central focus of this special issue)

Incorporating prior information into association studies.

UnlabelledRecent technological developments in measuring genetic variation have ushered in an era of genome-wide association studies which have discovered many genes involved in human disease. Current methods to perform association studies collect genetic information and compare the frequency of variants in individuals with and without the disease. Standard approaches do not take into account any information on whether or not a given variant is likely to have an effect on the disease. We propose a novel method for computing an association statistic which takes into account prior information. Our method improves both power and resolution by 8% and 27%, respectively, over traditional methods for performing association studies when applied to simulations using the HapMap data. Advantages of our method are that it is as simple to apply to association studies as standard methods, the results of the method are interpretable as the method reports p-values, and the method is optimal in its use of prior information in regards to statistical power.AvailabilityThe method presented herein is available at http://masa.cs.ucla.edu

Digital labour shortage: a new divide in library and information studies education?

This paper offers a preliminary reflection on the degree to which the concept of 'digital labour' appears in current library and information studies (LIS) education language, including in course titles, course descriptions, and course content. A basis for this paper was established from September 2010 to April 2011 through examination of a global range of online publicly accessible LIS program information. First stage analysis indicates that LIS education language appears to treat digital labour reductively; it fails to account for the labour conditions that frame the work. A tightening of the search examined evidence of critical teaching and learning of digital labour that allow for determinations of how the digital work environment relates to library labour rights and movements. This resulted in a scan of English language and translated information for a total of 121 individual LIS programs. Several trends emerged, which suggest that digital labour is generally, and most often out of necessity, inherently connected to other issues studied in LIS programs. A potential, yet unborn, paradigm in LIS education negates the basic notion of digital labour movement. Recommendations include research into the potential value of teaching and learning about the theory and practice of digital labour, a more sufficient and sophisticated approach to digital labour within LIS education in foundations courses, and a proposed set of possible advanced topics for teaching and learning in LIS education. Limitations of this topical exploration include what might be explained by the unknown factor of what is actually unseen from publicly accessible documents. To test the meaning of our first-stage work, future inquiry might involve interviews with teachers and looking into classroom communication of learners to see how the idea of digital labour is being addressed by them even if it is only in the most subtle manner

Using computer simulation in operating room management: impacts of information quality on process performance

High quality information has a significant impact on improving operation performance and patient satisfaction, as well as resolving patient disputes. Based on the analysis of the perioperative process, information quality is considered as an important contributory factor in improving patient throughput. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to use computer simulations in modeling information flow of hospital process for operating room management (ORM). Additionally, we conduct simulation studies in different levels of the information quality for ORM. The results of our studies provide evidence that information quality can drive process performance in several phases of the ORM