Experiencing information across the phenomenon of health information literacy

Interest in the concept of information literacy in different contexts is a topic that has steadily gained increased attention in information literacy discourse and research efforts over recent years. In particular the emergence of the term ‘health information literacy’ attests to this interest and has elevated awareness about the importance and relevance of information literacy in a health context. This paper reports on research that has taken a relational perspective to explore how people experience health information literacy. Initially established by Bruce (1997) the relational perspective draws from an experiential framework that emphasizes the relationship between users and information when learning in different contexts. This approach seeks outcomes that are deeply embedded in users’ informational life worlds and complements experiential phenomenological perspectives that have been used in health research. In keeping with the relational approach this research interprets health information literacy as being the different ways in which people experience using information to learn about health. Using interpretive phenomenography, this research explored variation in the lived experience of how people use information to learn about their health, and variation in what is constituted as information when learning about their health. Participants included 23 males and females aged between 45 and 64 years. All participants were residents from the Greater Brisbane area of Queensland, Australia. The research used semi-structured interviews for data collection. The types of questions posed during interviews included ‘Can you describe a time when you used information to learn about your health?’ and ‘What kinds of information have you used to learn about your health?’. This paper will focus on presenting one element of research findings that concerns the differences in ‘what’ participants experienced as information. Analysis of interview data identified significant variation in the experienced nature of information, specifically the different qualities or elements that comprised the ‘object’ of information, or in other words, what was perceived as ‘informing’. Illustrations of this variation include information experienced as traditional information sources, facts and experiences, something exhibiting particular qualities, physical or psychological changes, other people and role models. These findings provide new insights into what people may experience as information, and build upon existing literature regarding information as a theoretical construct. In addition the potential implications of these findings with respect to the design and delivery of health information literacy education will also be discussed. These research findings contribute to the emergence of information literacy investigations in everyday life and community. Although such settings have long been identified as a significant gap for exploration, research to date in this field has predominantly focused on educational and workplace environments. In this way the knowledge gained from this research has further revealed the contextual nature of information literacy, as well as its complexity as a phenomenon and focus of study.

A model for research supervision of international students in engineering and information technology disciplines

A large proportion (over 12 per cent) of international and non-English speaking background (NESB) postgraduate research students enrol in engineering and information technology (IT) programs in Australian universities. They find themselves in an advanced research culture, and are technically and scientifically challenged early in their programs. This is in addition to cultural, social and religious isolation and linguistic barriers they have to contend with. The project team surveyed this cohort at QUT and UWA, on the hypothesis that they face challenges that are more discipline-specific. The results of the survey indicate that existing supervisory frameworks which are limited to linguistic contexts are not fully assisting these students and supervisors to achieve high quality research. The goal of this project is to extend these supervisory frameworks to a holistic model that will address the unique needs and supervisory issues these students face in engineering and IT disciplines. The model will be useable by all other Australian universities.

Would you like data with that? Library provision of financial datasets

Within the QUT Business School (QUTBS)– researchers across economics, finance and accounting depend on data driven research. They analyze historic and global financial data across a range of instruments to understand the relationships and effects between them as they respond to news and events in their region. Scholars and Higher Degree Research Students in turn seek out universities which offer these particular datasets to further their research. This involves downloading and manipulating large datasets, often with a focus on depth of detail, frequency and long tail historical data. This is stock exchange data and has potential commercial value therefore the license for access tends to be very expensive. This poster reports the following findings: •The library has a part to play in freeing up researchers from the burden of negotiating subscriptions, fundraising and managing the legal requirements around license and access. •The role of the library is to communicate the nature and potential of these complex resources across the university to disciplines as diverse as Mathematics, Health, Information Systems and Creative Industries. •Has demonstrated clear concrete support for research by QUT Library and built relationships into faculty. It has made data available to all researchers and attracted new HDRs. The aim is to reach the output threshold of research outputs to submit into FOR Code 1502 (Banking, Finance and Investment) for ERA 2015. •It is difficult to identify what subset of dataset will be obtained given somewhat vague price tiers. •The integrity of data is variable as it is limited by the way it is collected, this occasionally raises issues for researchers(Cook, Campbell, & Kelly, 2012) •Improved library understanding of the content of our products and the nature of financial based research is a necessary part of the service.

Informed for health : exploring variation in ways of experiencing health information literacy

This research was a qualitative study that explored the experience of health information literacy. It used a research approach that emphasised identifying and describing variation in experience to investigate people's experience of using information to learn about health, and what they experienced as information for learning about health. The study's findings identified seven categories that represented qualitatively different ways in which people experienced health information literacy, and provide new knowledge about people's engagement with health information for learning in everyday life. The study contributes to consumer health information research and is significant to the disciplines of health and information science.

Intra-organizational information asymmetry in offshore ISD outsourcing

Purpose - Contemporary offshore Information System Development (ISD) outsourcing is becoming even more complex. Outsourcing partner has begun ‘re-outsourcing’ components of their projects to other outsourcing companies to minimize cost and gain efficiencies. This paper aims to explore intra-organizational Information Asymmetry of re-outsourced offshore ISD outsourcing projects. Design/methodology/approach - An online survey was conducted to get an overall view of Information Asymmetry between Principal and Agents (as per the Agency theory). Findings - Statistical analysis showed that there are significant differences between the Principal and Agent on clarity of requirements, common domain knowledge and communication effectiveness constructs, implying an unbalanced relationship between the parties. Moreover, our results showed that these three are significant measurement constructs of Information Asymmetry. Research limitations/implications - In our study we have only considered three main factors as common domain knowledge, clarity of requirements and communication effectiveness as three measurement constructs of Information Asymmetry. Therefore, researches are encouraged to test the proposed constructs further to increase its precision. Practical implications - Our analysis indicates significant differences in all three measurement constructs, implying the difficulties to ensure that the Agent is performing according to the requirements of the Principal. Using the Agency theory as theoretical view, this study sheds light on the best contract governing methods which minimize Information Asymmetry between the multiple partners within ISD outsourcing organizations. Originality/value - Currently, to the best of our knowledge, no study has undertaken research on Intra-organizational Information Asymmetry in re-outsourced offshore ISD outsourcing projects.

Transparency tools in gene patenting for informing policy and practice

In the recent decision Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics1, the US Supreme Court held that naturally occurring sequences from human genomic DNA are not patentable subject matter. Only certain complementary DNAs (cDNA), modified sequences and methods to use sequences are potentially patentable. It is likely that this distinction will hold for all DNA sequences, whether animal, plant or microbial2. However, it is not clear whether this means that other naturally occurring informational molecules, such as polypeptides (proteins) or polysaccharides, will also be excluded from patents. The decision underscores a pressing need for precise analysis of patents that disclose and reference genetic sequences, especially in the claims. Similarly, data sets, standards compliance and analytical tools must be improved—in particular, data sets and analytical tools must be made openly accessible—in order to provide a basis for effective decision making and policy setting to support biological innovation. Here, we present a web-based platform that allows such data aggregation, analysis and visualization in an open, shareable facility. To demonstrate the potential for the extension of this platform to global patent jurisdictions, we discuss the results of a global survey of patent offices that shows that much progress is still needed in making these data freely available for aggregation in the first place.

Researching information experience : object and domain

Information experience has emerged as a new and dynamic field of information research in recent years. This chapter will discuss and explore information experience in two distinct ways: (a) as a research object, and; (b) as a research domain. Two recent studies will provide the context for this exploration. The first study investigated the information experiences of people using social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) during natural disasters. Data was gathered by in-depth semi-structured interviews with 25 participants, from two areas affected by natural disasters (i.e., Brisbane and Townsville). The second study investigated the qualitatively different ways in which people experienced information literacy during a natural disaster. Using phenomenography, data was collected via semi-structured interviews with 7 participants. These studies represent two related yet different investigations. Taken together the studies provide a means to critically debate and reflect upon our evolving understandings of information experience, both as a research object and as a research domain. This chapter presents our preliminary reflections and concludes that further research is needed to develop and strengthen our conceptualisation of this emerging area.

Exploring information literacy during a natural disaster: The 2011 Brisbane Flood

This chapter presents the preliminary results of a phenomenographic study aimed at exploring people’s experience of information literacy during the 2011 flood in Brisbane, Queensland. Phenomenography is a qualitative, interpretive and descriptive approach to research that explores the different ways in which people experience various phenomena and situations in the world around them. In this study, semi-structured interviews with seven adult residents of Brisbane suggested six categories that depicted different ways people experienced information literacy during this natural disaster. Access to timely, accurate and credible information during a natural disaster can save lives, safeguard property, and reduce fear and anxiety, however very little is currently known about citizens’ information literacy during times of natural disaster. Understanding how people use information to learn during times of crisis is a new terrain for community information literacy research, and one that warrants further attention by the information research community and the emergency management sector.

Pattern-based topic models for information filtering

Topic modelling, such as Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), was proposed to generate statistical models to represent multiple topics in a collection of documents, which has been widely utilized in the fields of machine learning and information retrieval, etc. But its effectiveness in information filtering is rarely known. Patterns are always thought to be more representative than single terms for representing documents. In this paper, a novel information filtering model, Pattern-based Topic Model(PBTM) , is proposed to represent the text documents not only using the topic distributions at general level but also using semantic pattern representations at detailed specific level, both of which contribute to the accurate document representation and document relevance ranking. Extensive experiments are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of PBTM by using the TREC data collection Reuters Corpus Volume 1. The results show that the proposed model achieves outstanding performance.

Designing mobile systems for social navigation in urban public places

This thesis presents social requirements and design considerations from a study evaluating interactive approaches to social navigation and user-generated information sharing in urban environments using mobile devices. It investigates innovative ways to leverage mobile information and communication technology in order to provide a social navigation platform for residents and visitors in and for public urban places. Through a design case study this work presents CityFlocks, a mobile information system that offers an easy way for information-seeking new residents or visitors to access tacit knowledge from local people about their new community. It is intended to enable visitors and new residents in a city to tap into the knowledge and experiences of local residents in order to gather information about their new environment. Its design specifically aims to lower existing barriers of access and facilitate social navigation in urban places. In various user tests it evaluates two general user interaction alternatives – direct and indirect social navigation – and analyses which interaction method works better for people using a mobile device to socially navigate urban environments. The outcomes are relevant for the user interaction design of future mobile information systems that leverage the social navigation approach.

Major issues in business process management : an expert perspective

Study Approach The results presented in this report are part of a larger global study on the major issues in BPM. Only one part of the larger study is reported here, viz. interviews with BPM experts. Interviews of BPM tool vendors together with focus group studies involving user organizations were conducted in parallel and set the groundwork for the identification of BPM issues on a global scale. Through this multi-method approach, we identify four distinct sets of outcomes. First, as is the focus of this report, we identify the BPM issues as perceived by BPM experts. Second, the research design allows us to gain insight into the opinions of organizations deploying BPM solutions. Third, an understanding of organizations’ misconceptions of BPM technologies, as confronted by BPM tool vendors, is obtained. Last, we seek to gain an understanding of BPM issues on a global scale, together with knowledge of matters of concern. This final outcome is aimed to produce an industry-driven research agenda that will inform practitioners and, in particular, the research community worldwide on issues and challenges that are prevalent or emerging in BPM and related areas...

Conceptions of ‘community’ among older adults living in high-density urban areas : an Australian case study

Aim The aim of this study was to explore the social networks of community and its connection to location for older people living in inner city high density (ICHD). Method Using a case study approach employing qualitative (diaries, in-depth interviews) and quantitative (global positioning systems and geographical information systems mapping) methods, this paper explores the everyday interaction and social networks and where they manifest spatially for a group of older ICHD Australians. Results Social networks in two community territories were found to be of particular importance to participants in terms of influencing feelings of well-being, support, social inclusion and cohesion. These two territories include the building where older people reside and the area immediately surrounding the building. Conclusion This study highlights the importance of recognising the spatial aspect to better understand the social networks of community and their effects on well-being and social cohesion for ICHD older people.

Creating and sharing : teens' information practices in digital communities

Introduction In a connected world youth are participating in digital content creating communities. This paper introduces a description of teens' information practices in digital content creating and sharing communities. Method The research design was a constructivist grounded theory methodology. Seventeen interviews with eleven teens were collected and observation of their digital communities occurred over a two-year period. Analysis The data were analysed iteratively to describe teens' interactions with information through open and then focused coding. Emergent categories were shared with participants to confirm conceptual categories. Focused coding provided connections between conceptual categories resulting in the theory, which was also shared with participants for feedback. Results The paper posits a substantive theory of teens' information practices as they create and share content. It highlights that teens engage in the information actions of accessing, evaluating, and using information. They experienced information in five ways: participation, information, collaboration, process, and artefact. The intersection of enacting information actions and experiences of information resulted in five information practices: learning community, negotiating aesthetic, negotiating control, negotiating capacity, and representing knowledge. Conclusion This study contributes to our understanding of youth information actions, experiences, and practices. Further research into these communities might indicate what information practices are foundational to digital communities.

Should I stay or should I go? The challenges and opportunities of moving between university systems

The scientific job market has evolved to a truly globalized market. This is epitomized not only by the English language being the de facto scientific language but also by the increasing share of native language journals that are being offered in multiple languages or have or will fully converted to English (such as, for example, the BISE journal in 2015). Similarly, a plethora of exchange programs exists that allow students and academic staff to visit other institutions and exchange knowledge, ideas, and learning opportunities. While student migration across scientific institutions is an established phenomenon (Gribble, 2008) with ample structures, policies, and schemes such as ERASMUS1 in place, academic staff migration between countries is still a challenge, even if exchange programs exist (Enders, 1998). One reason may be that different career paths, varying teaching loads and different evaluation schemes for what constitutes scientific excellence are notable. This also influences the decision of where to start and continue an academic career. While the university systems themselves have been examined previously (Galliers and Whitley, 2007; Lyytinen et al., 2007) and while there is knowledge about career requirements in different university systems (Dennis et al., 2006; Dean et al., 2011; Loos et al., 2013; Recker, 2013), we still do not know much about individual and contextual decisions of academics that either consider or execute a migration between university systems.

A formalization of logical imaging for information retrieval using quantum theory

In this paper we introduce a formalization of Logical Imaging applied to IR in terms of Quantum Theory through the use of an analogy between states of a quantum system and terms in text documents. Our formalization relies upon the Schrodinger Picture, creating an analogy between the dynamics of a physical system and the kinematics of probabilities generated by Logical Imaging. By using Quantum Theory, it is possible to model more precisely contextual information in a seamless and principled fashion within the Logical Imaging process. While further work is needed to empirically validate this, the foundations for doing so are provided.