MANAGING INFORMATION OVERLOAD; EXAMINING THE ROLE OF THE HUMAN FILTER

With the increasing processing power and plummeting costs of multimedia technologies, our ability to ubiquitously access and disseminate information continues to become indefinitely easier. However, emerging research shows that we are struggling to process information as fast as it arrives. The problem of information overload is a significant one for contemporary organisations as it can adversely affect productivity, decision-making, and employee morale. To combat this problem, organisations often resort to investing in technical solutions such as business intelligence software or semantic technologies. While such technical approaches can certainly aid in making sense of information overload, less attention has been directed at understanding how social behaviours within inter-personal networks – the primary conduit of information – have evolved to deal with the surge of digital information. Using social network analysis and interview evidence from two information intensive firms, this study finds a small number of information specialists who emerge to filter useful information into and around the intra-organizational network. The article concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings

Information Overload: An Overview

For almost as long as there has been recorded information, there has been a perception that humanity has been overloaded by it. Concerns about 'too much to read' have been expressed for many centuries, and made more urgent since the arrival of ubiquitous digital information in the late twentieth century. The historical perspective is a necessary corrective to the often, and wrongly, held view that it is associated solely with the modern digital information environment, and with social media in particular. However, as society fully experiences Floridi's Fourth Revolution, and moves into hyper-history (with society dependent on, and defined by, information and communication technologies) and the infosphere (a information environment distinguished by a seamless blend of online and offline information actvity), individuals and societies are dependent on, and formed by, information in an unprecedented way, information overload needs to be taken more seriously than ever. Overload has been claimed to be both the major issue of our time, and a complete non-issue. It has been cited as an important factor in, inter alia, science, medicine, education, politics, governance, business and marketing, planning for smart cities, access to news, personal data tracking, home life, use of social media, and online shopping, and has even influenced literature The information overload phenomenon has been known by many different names, including: information overabundance, infobesity, infoglut, data smog, information pollution, information fatigue, social media fatigue, social media overload, information anxiety, library anxiety, infostress, infoxication, reading overload, communication overload, cognitive overload, information violence, and information assault. There is no single generally accepted definition, but it can best be understood as that situation which arises when there is so much relevant and potentially useful information available that it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. Its essential nature has not changed with changing technology, though its causes and proposed solutions have changed much. The best ways of avoiding overload, individually and socially, appear to lie in a variety of coping strategies, such as filtering, withdrawing, queuing, and 'satisficing'. Better design of information systems, effective personal information management, and the promotion of digital and media literacies, also have a part to play. Overload may perhaps best be overcome by seeking a mindful balance in consuming information, and in finding understanding

On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction

While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface

Social and interactional practices for disseminating current awareness information in an organisational setting.

Current awareness services are designed to keep users informed about recent developments based around user need profiles. In organisational settings, they may operate through both electronic and social interactions aimed at delivering information that is relevant, pertinent and current. Understanding these interactions can reveal the tensions in current awareness dissemination and help inform ways of making services more effective and efficient. We report an in-depth, observational study of electronic current awareness use within a large London law firm. The study found that selection, re-aggregation and forwarding of information by multiple actors gives rise to a complex sociotechnical distribution network. Knowledge management staff act as a layer of “intelligent filters” sensitive to complex, local information needs; their distribution decisions address multiple situational relevance factors in a situation fraught with information overload and restrictive time-pressures. Their decisions aim to optimise conflicting constraints of recall, precision and information quantity. Critical to this is the use of dynamic profile updates which propagate back through the network through formal and informal social interactions. This supports changes to situational relevance judgements and so allows the network to ‘self-tune’. These findings lead to design requirements, including that systems should support rapid assessment of information items against an individual’s interests; that it should be possible to organise information for different subsequent uses; and that there should be back-propagation from information consumers to providers, to tune the understanding of their information needs

Towards developing an instrument in measuring the need for InfoVis

The increasing trend of data volume and its superabundance have been endangering institutional data and specifically, higher education institutions (HEI) students’ data.The most challenging is the need for HEI to make sense from their large datasets, through gaining insights and understanding the pattern and trends of events therein. Deductions from extant literatures strongly indicate the presence of information overload as the factor constraining HEI decision makers from making wealthy use of the institutional datasets.However, no study has empirically investigated the presence of information overload in HEI students’ data management.To attend to this, this study aims at developing an instrument to be used in measuring the presence of information overload, and justifiably, the need for Information Visualization (InfoVis) –being an argued better tool for institutional data management. This study employs quantitative research method withadministration of 9-item survey questionnaire. Thirty-two (32) respondents are purposively drawn among HEI decision makers.Descriptive statistics is used as the statistical technique to find the mean valueof the computed variable based on the normal Likert 5-point scale.The result of the instrument reliability testgives a value of 0.712 as the Cronbach’s Alpha value which suggests that the items designed are internally consistent, and a weighted mean value of 4.03 strongly supportsthe hypothesis that HEI experiences information overload

The relationship between different email management strategies and the perceived control of time

Time management research, and the psychological construct of perceived control of time, are drawn on to investigate populist claims of the virtues of regularly filing and organising ones electronic mail. Using a process model of time management, it would seem that filing of email may increase ones time control perceptions and thus their job satisfaction and wellbeing. One hundred and sixty five participants were involved in a questionnaire-based field study. Analyses of variance revealed that for some e-mail users, not having a filing system may result in a high perceived control of time. Furthermore, challenging assumptions regarding optimal e-mail organisation, those that tried to frequently file their incoming messages, but did so somewhat unsuccessfully, had significantly less perceived control of time. These results highlight individual differences in control of time perceptions, and recommendations are made regarding organisational e-mail behaviour and training

Social media: a guide for researchers

This guide has been produced by the International Centre for Guidance Studies, and aims to provide the information needed to make an informed decision about using social media and select from the vast range of tools that are available. One of the most important things that researchers do is to find, use and disseminate information, and social media offers a range of tools which can facilitate this. The guide discusses the use of social media for research and academic purposes and will not be examining the many other uses that social media is put to across society. Social media can change the way in which you undertake research, and can also open up new forms of communication and dissemination. It has the power to enable researchers to engage in a wide range of dissemination in a highly efficient way.Research Information Networ

INFORMATION OVERLOAD AT THE U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE: REFRAMING THE DuTY OF DISCLOSURE IN PATENT LAW AS A SEARCH AND FILTER PROBLEM

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) receives more prior art submissions by patent applicants than its patent examiners have the capacity to process. Although applicant prior art submissions are highly likely to contain references material to prosecution, evidence suggests that overburdened examiners often fail to utilize references submitted by applicants in their examination of patent applications. The information overload suffered by patent examiners has deleterious effects on patent quality, since examiners fail to identify and apply the references most relevant to the examination ofpatent applications. The vision of patent examiners as perfect filters of patentability and of information as always benefiting the public good is both idealistic and unrealistic. Despite their expertise, patent examiners are human and fallible, vulnerable to the effects of information processing overload and the cognitive biases attendant to decision-making by a boundedly rational actor. Failing to address these problems will likely result in frustrated applicants, overburdened patent examiners, and reduced patent quality. This Article proposes to solve both the plague of inequitable conduct allegations in litigation and the administrative burdens of complying with the duty of disclosure by reframing disclosure obligations for the information age. Reframing the duty of disclosure in this fashion would require no modifications to statutory provisions, few alterations to administrative rules and regulations, and only modest changes to existing case law. Thus, the approach suggested in this Article is both legally conservative and administratively feasible