RECORDS AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF VIOLENT EVENTS: ARCHIVAL DOCUMENTATION, HISTORICAL PERCEPTION, AND THE NO GUN RI MASSACRE IN THE KOREAN WAR

The archival community has long shown an interest in documenting history, and it has been assumed that archival materials are one of the major sources of historical research. However, little is known about how much impact archival holdings actually have on historical research, what role they play in building public knowledge about a historical event and how they contribute to the process of recording history. The case of the No Gun Ri incident provides a good example of how archival materials play a role in historical discussions and a good opportunity to look at archival contributions. This dissertation examines how archival materials were discovered and used in the process of identifying the controversies raised in No Gun Ri research by examining the earliest to the most recent publications, their authors¡¯ patterns of conducting their research and their perceptions on using archives. In doing so, a content analysis of No Gun Ri publications was employed and interviews with No Gun Ri researchers were conducted for this study. In No Gun Ri research, archival documents were essential source materials for details about the incident and a major player in stimulating heated controversies and discussions and, consequently, provided the impetus for further publications by No Gun Ri researchers. Archival documents were especially critical for specific details of the incident as well as a good source for background and circumstantial information. General record keeping situations - such as missing documents - also provided a circumstantial context of the incident. However, No Gun Ri researchers agreed that oral history was the most valuable and influential evidence for their major ideas and used archival documents to provide hard facts about the details of oral history. There are some unique research patterns of No Gun Ri researchers identified in this study which are different from typical assumptions of archivists.Archival programs should have an accurate understanding about how their holdings are used (or not used) and why; consequently, this study regarding the use of archival materials in the evolution of the discussion of the No Gun Ri massacre will provide the fundamental information within an empirical framework

Personal Digital Archiving: Strategies, Challenges, and Affecting Factors from a Quantitative Perspective

This study examines the practices, challenges, and other technological and personal factors of personal digital archiving. Many studies regarding personal digital archiving have taken qualitative approaches to explore perceptions and behaviors. There has not been much research with quantitative methods to find the general patterns of archiving behaviors and the relationships between factors and practices. Based on the findings from existing qualitative studies, this study created an online survey to quantify personal digital archiving practices and related perceptions and challenges. The survey was employed to investigate to what extent people show a certain behavior or feel a certain challenge when archiving personal digital content, and if there were clear associations among the factors surrounding personal digital archiving practices. This study found that there were no statistically significant associations between digital archiving challenges and archiving practices. General technology efficacy and the awareness of the importance of personal records appeared to influence personal archiving practices

Personal Health Information Management by College Students: Patterns of Inaction

Introduction. College students\u27 diverse health information management activities are rarely studied within a personal health context. Our study identified an inactive group of college students and their information management activities to understand what factors determine inactivity. Methods. An online questionnaire was distributed to college students enrolled in a state-owned university in the USA between January and March 2017. A total of eighty-four questions on twelve information management activities grouped by seven types of personal health information were used to identify inactive performers within our student sample. Additionally, potential factors regarding demographics, academics, information resource types, and information workload were tested. Analysis. Our study sample includes 1,408 student responses. K-means clustering segmented the sample into two groups (inactive and active). Group differences between inactive and active personal health information managers were compared. Binary logistic regression was also performed to determine key factors predicting inactivity. Results. The inactive group (N=772, 54.80%) identified more male students, less clinic visits, and health information primarily sought through the Internet and mass media. Additionally, the awareness of personal health information management and training perceptions were found to be significant determinants of the inactivity. The inactive group proved to be lacking in most information management activities, except for discarding, and showed less interests in all types of health documents. Conclusion. Based on the inactive personal health information management group, how to collect, organize, retrieve, backup and migrate personal health documents, should be integrated into a formal college curriculum

Analysis of College Students’ Personal Health Information Activities: Online Survey

Background: With abundant personal health information at hand, individuals are faced with a critical challenge in evaluating the informational value of health care records to keep useful information and discard that which is determined useless. Young, healthy college students who were previously dependents of adult parents or caregivers are less likely to be concerned with disease management. Personal health information management (PHIM) is a special case of personal information management (PIM) that is associated with multiple interactions among varying stakeholders and systems. However, there has been limited evidence to understand informational or behavioral underpinning of the college students’ PHIM activities, which can influence their health in general throughout their lifetime. Objective: This study aimed to investigate demographic and academic profiles of college students with relevance to PHIM activities. Next, we sought to construct major PHIM-related activity components and perceptions among college students. Finally, we sought to discover major factors predicting core PHIM activities among college students we sampled. Methods: A Web survey was administered to collect responses about PHIM behaviors and perceptions among college students from the University of Kentucky from January through March 2017. A total of 1408 college students were included in the analysis. PHIM perceptions, demographics, and academic variations were used as independent variables to predict diverse PHIM activities using a principal component analysis (PCA) and hierarchical regression analyses (SPSS v.24, IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: Majority of the participants were female (956/1408, 67.90%), and the age distribution of this population included an adequate representation of college students of all ages. The most preferred health information resources were family (612/1408, 43.47%), health care professionals (366/1408, 26.00%), friends (27/1408, 1.91%), and the internet (157/1408, 11.15%). Organizational or curatorial activities such as Arranging, Labeling, Categorizing, and Discarding were rated low (average=3.21, average=3.02, average=2.52, and average=2.42, respectively). The PCA results suggested 3 components from perception factors labeled as follows: Assistance (alpha=.85), Awareness (alpha=.716), and Difficulty (alpha=.558). Overall, the Demographics and Academics variables were not significant in predicting dependent variables such as Labeling, Categorizing, Health Education Materials, and Discarding, whereas they were significant for other outcome variables such as Sharing, Collecting, Knowing, Insurance Information, Using, and Owning. Conclusions: College years are a significant time for students to learn decision-making skills for maintaining information, a key aspect of health records, as well as for educators to provide appropriate educational and decision aids in the environment of learning as independent adults. Our study will contribute to better understand knowledge about specific skills and perceptions for college students’ practice of effective PHIM throughout their lives

No Gun Ri Digital Archive / 노근리 디지털 아카이브

The No Gun Ri Digital Archive is a collection of oral histories, photographs, and American military records that documents the massacre of Korean women, men, and children by the American 7th Calvary Regiment at a bridge in the village of No Gun Ri between July 26-29, 1950. The Archive began as a research project in 2012 with the support of Faculty Research Award Program (FRAP) from the University at Albany (State University of New York). From 2015 to 2017, this project was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea. With the generous support of NRF, the current form of the digital platform was created. The No Gun Ri Digital Archive hopes to be an open platform to discuss the memory and history of the No Gun Ri Massacre so that everyone can be part of the No Gun Ri memory and the memory will be preserved in posterity. The No Gun Ri Digital Archive is a space where people can witness and engage in the social memory of the No Gun Ri Massacre based on the pieces of the stories housed in the Archive, and the Archive aims to share the empathy of the survivors and families to bring their stories to the world through the web. In the beginning of the Korean War, American troops were brought into the country to fight against the North Korean army. As the North Korean army advanced into the country, American troops in the 7th Calvary Regiment ordered the civilian residents of two villages located in YongDong County to evacuate to the south. They stopped under the No Gun Ri railroad bridge when American planes attacked the refugees, killing an estimated 250 to 300 people. The U.S. Army claimed that there were a number of North Korean infiltrators hiding among the civilians, citing the reason for the attack. ‘노근리 디지털 아카이브’는 노근리사건의 역사와 기억을 담는 플랫폼이고자 합니다. 노근리사건의 기억은 우리 모두의 것이라고, 누구도 우리의 기억을 멈출 수 없다고 믿습니다. 노근리사건이 세대와 경계를 넘어 지속되는 집단기억으로 형성되어, 새로운 맥락에서 이해되고, 인식되길 바랍니다. ‘노근리 디지털 아카이브’는 이러한 소망을 위해 노근리 기억의 조각들을 오픈 플랫폼의 형식으로 담아내고자 합니다