GIS for Livable Communities: Examination of community Perceptions of Assets, Liabilities and Transportation Improvements, MTI Report 01-09

Urban dwellers navigate everyday journeys through a variety of transportation connections. Transportation planning can play an instrumental part in shaping livable community goals, as it is part of the built environment that citizens’ encounter on a daily basis. This report examines the role that the built environment plays in the shaping of an individual’s sense of community. Geographical Information Systems (GIS), can generate spatial maps of a citizens’s interaction with the transportation environment. Combined with survey data, these maps offer information to community members and leaders that can help guide decision making about livable community goals. Riverside, California serves as a case study for this analysis. Based on a questionnaire and map survey, the following recommendations are made: encourage walking along and within the Magnolia Corridor; explore multimodal transportation options; examine traffic patterns in neighborhoods; develop small scale commercial activity; foster existing asset areas; consider high density residential design that unites the neighborhood; study housing stock redevelopment options; utilize GIS to involve all stakeholders. This case study illustrates how GIS can be used to illustrate and analyze citizens’s interactions with the built environment

Introducing e-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues

The e-Gov field (also called Electronic Government, Digital Government, Electronic Governance, and similar names) emerged in the late 1990´s. Since then it spurred several scientific conferences and journals. Because the field grew considerably in size, both its contents and position with respect to other research fields and disciplines need to be explained and discussed. What is e-Gov? What is e-Gov research? What does it mean for the field of Information Systems? This paper briefly sketches the short e-Gov history and current status, and discusses the content of the field as it appears in current research. We conclude with a discussion of e-Gov as a research field of interest both as a new application area for IS theories and methods and as a source of new insight

The Virtual Organization: Evidence of Academic Structuration in Business Programs and Implications for Information Science

Virtual forms of organization, including outsourcing, are expected to bring broad, structural transformations to American business. Yet, little is known about the formal response of U.S. Business Schools to the boundary-spanning challenges that virtual organization presents. In this study, key elements of Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) are utilized as a means to investigate the effects of virtual organization on academic disciplines. Results of a survey of 471 Business School faculty members, including 63 Information Systems faculty, on the role of virtual organization in academic curricula are analyzed in the terms defined by the AST framework. Results indicate significant variation by discipline, concept area, and appropriation of the concepts related to virtual organization. Implications for Information Science include the need for establishing academic leadership as well as attending to perceived limitations in virtual organization tools and technologies. In addition, the results have implications for the ongoing dialogue on the role of Information Science and related academic disciplines

The Dynamics of Information Collaboration: A Case Study of Blended IT Value Propositions for Health Information Exchange in Disability Determination

Recent developments in health information technology (health IT) for health information exchange suggest that successful public-private collaborations should devote more attention to understanding the dynamics of collaboration. In the context of health information sharing for disability determination, this case study examines early instances of public-private interorganizational sharing of health information. The theoretical focus of the paper is on the construction of blended value propositions and their role in collaboration for health information exchange. For this purpose, we performed a case analysis of a prototype health IT application to be shared between the United States Social Security Administration and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The case analysis found that business, socio-organizational, and technical dynamics were operative during the planning and execution of the prototype. From a theoretical perspective, the case study provides insight into blended value propositions in terms of understanding and potentially predicting the success of newly established Health Information Exchanges (HIEs). The findings have implications for further development of collaboration value propositions and their evolution over the course of IT deployments for health information exchange

Bridging Care Communication and Health Management Within Diverse and Underserved Populations

As the US healthcare system becomes further impacted by factors such as the oncoming flood of aging baby boomers, increases in the amount of people uninsured or underinsured, higher occurrences of chronic illnesses (diabetes, hypertension, etc.), and a potentially insufficient pool of incoming healthcare workers, the burden of managing one\u27s own health, therapy, and medical transactions will increasingly fall on the patient, their family and care managers. A multitude of new systems for personal health management are being developed and it will be critical that these systems are responsive to the unique and specific needs of all people and perhaps more importantly those who are the most at-risk. As an initial step toward identifying core system requirements, interviews with care managers and administrators of a personal health information system (PHIS) for use with migrant farm workers was conducted providing preliminary recommendations toward the development of a framework for effective use of PHIS within diverse and underserved populations

Public Use of an Online Advanced Traveler Guidance Information System: Trust in the e-Service and the Agency

Public transit system web sites have become a tool of choice for many citizens to obtain transit route information and to assist with trip planning. For many of these citizens, the web interface has become the only method of communication with the public service agency and the primary method of obtaining information about transit services. This model-based, multi-method study analyzes data from more than 450 survey respondents and twenty-four focus group participants, seeks to understand the end user citizen trust experience in their interaction with e-government transit web sites. Results of this e-service study provide useful insights into how citizen perceptions of the transit service and transit agencies are affected through web site e-service use

Information Systems and Health Care XIV: Continuing Use of Medical Information Systems by Medical Professionals: Empirical Evaluation of a Work System Model

Physicians face an increasing variety of options for using information systems in the course of delivering and managing medical care. Although the technical capabilities of medical information systems are expanding rapidly, such systems cannot be expected to be truly effective unless they mesh with the broader work system that includes the physician\u27s work place and work routines. This research focuses on physicians\u27 intent for continued use of an online medical evaluation system as an indicator of the mesh between an information technology and medical work environments, and it draws contextual elements from technology acceptance and compatibility models to help explain the intent for continued use. Ninety-seven physicians throughout the U.S. participated in an extensive survey that provided a basis for analysis, and results showed general support for the acceptance model used in the study. The theoretical and managerial implications of the study center on the importance of understanding continued use of medical information systems with the help of work practice compatibility and acceptance models as they apply to the demanding environment of medical practice

Dimensions of Work Practice Compatibilitty and Influences on Actual System Use: Examining Physician Use of Online Disability Evaluation System

This research investigated the effects of work practice compatibility (WPC) on user acceptance and continued use of an online disability evaluation system. The objectives were to examine the work practice compatibility and its effects on actual system use, to assess the patterns of use among the users, and to explore the implications for future system developments. An online web-based survey was distributed to a population of medical professionals, and 97 responses were obtained. Results of bivariate analysis suggested that WPC is an important indicator of actual and continual use. Further analysis revealed associations that give clear indications of the influence of WPC, training, and software features on the relationships between direct and sustained use of the system

Information Systems and Health Care X: A User-Driven Approach to Personal Health Records

User acceptance issues and user-centered design have long been an important theme in information systems research. In the field of health care information systems, much attention has been devoted to user issues in the health care provider domain, e.g. physicians, nurses, medical records. Recent developments toward promoting more consumer-oriented healthcare information systems have opened new questions about how individuals can and should relate to their personal health information in the form of Personal Health Records (PHR) systems. This paper adopts a user-driven perspective toward these new and challenging questions. Drawing upon ideas and discussions from a cross-section of information systems researchers, health care providers, private industry, and government, we examine several of the major issues that will need to be addressed in order to meet a national challenge to adopt PHR for all Americans by 2014

Full-duplex optical communication system

A method of full-duplex electromagnetic communication wherein a pair of data modulation formats are selected for the forward and return data links respectively such that the forward data electro-magnetic beam serves as a carrier for the return data. A method of encoding optical information is used wherein right-hand and left-hand circular polarizations are assigned to optical information to represent binary states. An application for an earth to low earth orbit optical communications system is presented which implements the full-duplex communication and circular polarization keying modulation format