Information Studies Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2780
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Item RIKA RESILIENCE: INFORMING SUSTAINABILITY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA(2019) Warrick, Elizabeth Muthoni; Preece, Jennifer; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The consensus in systems science is that environmental sustainability ensues from resilience, i.e., underlying capacity for preservation of core functions through adaptation in changed circumstances; and resilience itself is only sustainable when built from internal attributes of the system. Impalpability of internal resilience to external agents contributes to failures of global development in Africa, calling for analysis informed from within. This work proposes that African resilience is founded in Rika. Within Rika, ecological stewardship is integrated with noncompetitive elected representative governance and achieved through scaled modulation of systemic diversities. Eroded at macro level, Rika continues to drive grassroots enterprise. Causal attributes are, therefore, key to understanding sustainability and effecting structural reform of governance at all levels in Africa. Documented international usage of Rika concepts and terminologies has significance for research linking global expansion of Homo sapiens to the development of conceptual thinking in East Africa. Findings are based in research with the Mbeere of Kenya, East Africa, a community of 195,000, whose name Mbeere, means First Peoples. Data extracted regionally from 750,000 social media users informs context. From an indigenist method-as-theory stance (Indigenist Maths), we leverage qualitative and quantitative tools, bolstering capacity of research and practice to serve indigenous goals at the intersection of social media and Place. A dynamic indigenous information world (iWorld) ensues through community interactions interconnecting local knowledge with global information to foster economic enterprise and social ecological stewardship. We term this iWorld, Rikamedia. Examples of resilience attributes emerging from the data include: the Rika ideal of non-competitive governance, potentially impactful of conflicting democratic ideals centered in competitive governance; transcendence of natural hierarchies through unambiguous reciprocated interactions from micro to macro levels of society; design for participatory diversity, equality and inclusion with impacts on systemic divides of gender, age, and access, etc.; and lastly, a learning modality aligns governance with participatory process, emboldens risk tolerance; nurtures diversities and fosters innovation. An entrepreneurial micropilot Bamboo project ensues from community-researcher interactions, with recommendations for agroforestry citizen science, technology, funding, and diaspora capacitation. Findings are scalable in Africa South of the Sahara, and may have significance for resilience when projects incorporate Rika attributes in sustainability planning.Item CONTRADICTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN MOBILE CARE MANAGEMENT (“mCare”): AN OBSERVATIONAL ANALYTIC COHORT STUDY(2019) Crowley, Patrick Kenyon; St. Jean, Beth; Butler, Brian; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Chronic diseases such as diabetes are among the most widespread, expensive, and preventable of all health problems, accounting for approximately 86 percent of the United States’ $2.7 trillion annual health care expenditures. In the face of such staggering numbers, it is surprising that our current approach to chronic disease care management has remained largely unchanged for decades, where the care team evaluates the patient and related data infrequently and episodically. However, mobile care management (mCare) information system use is growing, whereby individuals with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes are taught to monitor and manage their disease through the use of a mobile application for tracking, education and feedback, along with monitoring of vital signs with “connected” medical devices, and the support of a remote health coach. These mCare systems offer promise, but many unanswered questions exist surrounding their effects on the health and healthcare of the users, and how user individual differences may influence these effects. Informed primarily by the mobile health systems and health behavior literatures, this study provided a deeper understanding of the effects of an mCare platform on health outcomes and health services utilization of chronic disease patients, principally those with diabetes mellitus, and the effects of a user’s social support on these outcomes. This study analyzed administrative claims, device readings, app usage, demographic and social determinant data of 163 diabetic mCare users from a 21-week observation period from mCare initiation, along with a well-matched control group of diabetic non-users, and a supplemental cohort of 127 non-diabetic mCare users with other chronic medical conditions. mCare had a significant positive effect on users’ adherence to physician’s office visits, suggesting greater continuity of care, chronic care management, and a possible reduction in inpatient use (1.2 fewer encounters over 5 months, on average). The findings show that mCare had a significant beneficial effect, on average, towards the cardiovascular health of the users as measured by the change in their diastolic blood pressure (- 2.8 mmHg, - 3.3%) and systolic blood pressure (- 6.7 mmHg, - 4.9%) in the five-month observational period, which is a primary therapeutic target for diabetes care and clinically important. Furthermore, linear mixed models of cardiovascular outcomes uncovered how those mCare users with a moderate degree of social support are likely to achieve greater benefit in from mCare on average relative to those with very high or very low social support in their lives. This additional impact equated to on average a 2.4 mmHg drop (2.9%) in diastolic blood pressure and a 3.9 mmHg (3.1%) drop in systolic blood pressure over the five-month observational period, which is clinically significant. These results provide evidence to support a more precisely tailored future healthcare paradigm beyond the current one-size-fits-all archetype. A primary goal of mCare is triaging emergency department use where appropriate; however, this study found that this did not happen in a significant manner in the treatment group compared to the control group. Furthermore, the study identified specific medical problems where improved mCare design is needed, including processes to prevent hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia and exacerbations of hypertension and pulmonary issues (such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and a need to assess pain more effectively to foster more appropriate healthcare utilization. Additional training for health coaches, as well as training and development of machine intelligence algorithms to better triage patient problems to appropriate sites of care, are productive directions for future research. mCare designers should seek to better gauge the severity of pain, and develop new sensor technologies to assess emergent issues, especially abdominal pain. mCare vendors should also seek to refine their processes to better manage glucose and respiratory issues to avoid exacerbations, and predict exacerbations earlier to intervene.Item Local Information Landscapes: Theory, Measures, and Evidence(2019) Lee, Myeong; Butler, Brian S; Geography/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To understand issues about information accessibility within communities, research studies have examined human, social, and technical factors by taking a socio-technical view. While this view provides a profound understanding of how people seek, use, and access information, this approach tends to overlook the impact of the larger structures of information landscapes that constantly shape people’s access to information. When it comes to local community settings where local information is embedded in diverse material entities such as urban places and technical infrastructures, the effect of information landscapes should be taken into account in addition to particular strategies for solving information-seeking issues. However, characterizing the information landscape of a local community at the community level is a non-trivial problem due to diverse contexts, users, and their interactions with each other. One way to conceptualize local information landscapes in a way that copes with the complexity of the interplay between information, contexts, and human factors is to focus on the materiality of information. By focusing on the material aspects of information, it becomes possible to understand how local information is provided to social entities and infrastructures and how it exists, forming structures at the community level. Through an extensive literature review, this paper develops a theory of local information landscapes (LIL Theory) to better conceptualize the community-level, material structure of local information. Specifically, the LIL theory adapts a concept of the virtual as an ontological view of the interplay between technical infrastructures, spaces, and people as a basis for assessing and explaining community-level structures of local information. By complementing existing theories such as information worlds and information grounds, this work provides a new perspective on how information deserts manifest as a material pre-condition of information inequality. Using this framework, an empirical study was conducted to examine the explicit effects of information deserts on other community characteristics. Specifically, the study aims to provide an initial assessment of LIL theory by examining how the fragmentation of local information, a form of information deserts, is related to important community characteristics such as socio-economic inequality, deprivation, and community engagement. Building upon previous work in sociology and political science, this study shows that the fragmentation of local information (1) is shaped by socio-economic deprivation/inequality that is confounded with ethnoracial heterogeneity, (2) the fragmentation of local information is highly correlated to people's community gatherings, (3) the fragmentation of local information moderates the effects of socio-economic inequality on cultural activity diversity, and (4) the fragmentation of local information mediates the relationship between socio-economic inequality and community engagement. By making use of three local event datasets over 20 months in 14 U.S. cities (about two million records) and over 3 months in 28 U.S. cities (about 620K records), respectively, this study develops computational frameworks to operationalize information deserts in a scalable way. This dissertation provides a theorization of community-level information inequality and computational models that support the quantitative examination of it. Further theorizations of the conceptual constructs and methodological improvements on measurements will benefit information policy-makers, local information system designers, and researchers who study local communities with conceptual models, vocabularies, and assessment frameworks.Item Enhancing Decision-making in Smart and Connected Communities with Digital Traces(2019) Hong, Lingzi; Frias-Martinez, Vanessa; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The ubiquitous use of information communication technologies (ICTs) enables generation of digital traces associated with human behaviors at unprecedented breadth, depth, and scale. Large-scale digital traces provide the potential to understand population behaviors automatically, including the characterization of how individuals interact with the physical environment. As a result, the use of digital traces generated by humans might mitigate some of the challenges associated to the use of surveys to understand human behaviors such as, high cost in collecting information, lack of quality real-time information, and hard to capture behavioral level information. In this dissertation, I study how to extract information from digital traces to characterize human behavior in the built environment; and how to use such information to enhance decision-making processes in the area of Smart and Connected Communities. Specifically, I present three case studies that aim at using data-driven methods for decision-making in Smart and Connected Communities. First, I discuss data-driven methods for socioeconomic development with a focus on inference of socioeconomic maps with cell phone data. Second, I present data-driven methods for emergency preparedness and response, with a focus on understanding user needs in different communities with geotagged social media data. Third, I describe data-driven methods for migration studies, focusing on characterizing the post-migration behaviors of internal migrants with cell phone data. In these case studies, I present data-driven frameworks that integrate innovative behavior modeling approaches to help solve decision-making questions using digital traces. The explored methods enhance our understanding of how to model and explain population behavior patterns in different physical and socioeconomic contexts. The methods also have practical significance in terms of how decision-making can become cost-effective and efficient with the help of data-driven methods.Item AN ANALYSIS OF VARIABILITY IN NEWSPAPER REPORTING OF NATIONALLY COVERED TOPICS(2019) Marciano, Fernando Santos; Butler, Brian; Master in Information Management; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study looks into variability in newspaper reporting of important national topics. Using a sample of seven hundred articles from ten newspapers, a quantitative analysis using analysis of variance (ANOVA) found that variability in the values of reported numerical facts was statistically significant. Further, a qualitative analysis was performed to identifying potential reasons for the variability. Variability is unique to each topic being covered; however, some follow predictable patterns, such as updates on developing stories.Item Designing Technology to Increase Adoption of Healthy Behaviors in Men in the Context of Light Food Consumption(2019) Smriti, Diva; Choe, Eun Kyoung; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Women are more likely than men to engage in healthy eating behaviors. However, men do strongly believe eating healthy, but this does not translate into their eating behaviors. Thus, there is a discrepancy in the health beliefs and behaviors of men, especially in the context of light food consumption. In this study, I aim to understand this discrepancy among young men in depth. I conducted a week-long diary study of the food items consumed by the participants (N = 17) who were all male, followed by semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate the lack of a verified and automated source of nutritional knowledge, misinformation about light food consumption among other themes, and design implications to the current nutrition-tracking mobile applications. This work contributes to the understudied existing literature on men’s food behaviors, the challenges faced by them in adopting healthy eating behaviors in the context of light food consumption, and the role mobile applications play in helping them do so.Item WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, AND WHY? QUANTIFYING AND UNDERSTANDING BIOMEDICAL DATA REUSE(2019) Federer, Lisa M; Shilton, Katie; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Since the mid-2000s, new data sharing mandates have led to an increase in the amount of research data available for reuse. Reuse of data benefits the scientific community and the public by potentially speeding scientific discovery and increasing the return on investment of publicly funded research. However, despite the potential benefits of reuse and the increasing availability of data, research on the impact of data reuse is so far sparse. This dissertation provides a deeper understanding of the impacts of shared biomedical research data by exploring who is reusing data and for what purpose. Specifically, this dissertation examines use requests and dataset descriptions from three biomedical repositories that require potential requestors to submit descriptions of their planned reuse. Content analysis of use requests yields insight into who is requesting data and the methods and topics of their planned reuse. Comparing use requests to the descriptions of the original datasets provides insight into the breadth of impact of data reuse and text mining of the original dataset descriptions helps determine the topics of datasets that are highly reused. This study demonstrates that patterns of reuse differ between dataset types, with genomic datasets used more frequently together in meta-analyses for topics that diverge from the original purpose of collection, while clinical datasets are used more often on their own within a context that is similar to the reason for which they were collected. While requestors do come from a range of career stages from around the world, they are not evenly distributed; most requests come from English-speaking countries, especially the United States. This study also finds that datasets that receive the most requests soon after release continue to go on to be more requested, and that datasets covering common diseases are requested more than datasets on rare diseases. These findings have implications for several stakeholders, including funders and institutions developing policies to reward and incentivize data sharing, researchers who share data and those who reuse it, and repositories and data curators who must make choices about which datasets to curate and preserve.Item SCHOOL DISTRICT LIBRARY SUPERVISORS AND THEIR ROLE IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR BUILDING-LEVEL SCHOOL LIBRARIANS: A BASELINE STUDY(2019) Kodama, Christie; Weeks, Ann C.; Butler, Brian; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The advent and ubiquity of mobile technologies, the Internet, and broadband have allowed people to access, use, and create a seemingly endless amount of information in unprecedented ways. This has led to an information world that is more connected, more complex, and more overwhelming than ever before. For children, learning how to use these 21st century advances is important not only for their current needs in and out of school, but also for their future as they go on to college and enter the workforce. As information specialists, school librarians play a unique role in ensuring students are equipped to access, use, and create information in ways that are meaningful and productive. However, with the ever-changing landscape of technology and the multiple literacies now necessary for children’s success, school librarians need to remain current in their knowledge and skills related to these topics. Continuing professional development (PD) is a way for practicing school librarians to stay up-to-date on digital literacies and information and communication technologies (ICTs) so that they are able to be the information specialists and experts the students in their school communities need. Using Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Framework for Human Development (1977, 1988, 1994) and what the education literature states is effective PD as the foundation, this dissertation first describes the multiple parties responsible for the effective PD of school librarians. It then examines the role that one party responsible in librarians’ PD, school district library supervisors, play in the planning and implementation of PD for building-level school librarians through a nationwide survey of 267 library supervisors and semi-structured follow-up interviews with 8 supervisors. School district library supervisors are those individuals who work at the district-level and are generally responsible for creating and providing PD for building-level school librarians. This dissertation is a first attempt at illustrating what PD looks like for school librarians in districts nationwide and to compare what is being done to what the literature says are effective means of PD. Findings show that supervisors are providing PD for their librarians that adheres to at least one or two of the characteristics of effective PD. Supervisors are using the affordances of technology to create avenues and spaces for their librarians to connect and collaborate with each other. Findings also showed that the content of PD sessions were widely varied and ranged from more traditional library skills that focused on traditional literacy and administrative skills to more current topics such as makerspaces and digital literacy. As a whole, supervisors revealed a need to grow in the areas of providing long-term PD for their librarians and creating a coherent plan for the PD they provided. This study also illustrated several conditions that facilitate effective PD, including having a culture of continued learning with leaders who support this growth and a budget to support these PD activities. These findings provide an initial look into the PD that is offered to school librarians as planned by the district-level library supervisor and the areas in which PD for librarians can be improved.Item Alumni Perspectives on their Membership in an Intergenerational Participatory Design Team(2018) McNally, Brenna; Druin, Allison; History/Library & Information Systems; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Participatory Design (PD) gives technology users an active role in the design of the technologies they are meant to use. PD methods have been adapted for research with children to facilitate the creation of technologies that better meet children’s desires and expectations. While the benefits HCI practitioners receive from working with children in PD can include developing more child-centric interfaces and finding surprising new innovations, research is less clear on the participants’ perceptions of their experience—such as how they perceive matters that affect them or what personal gains intergenerational PD team participants may receive from their participation. Investigating the retrospective perspectives of adult and child members of intergenerational PD teams may enable researchers to improve or develop practices that are better aligned with participant expectations. Recent work has begun to look into the gains adults perceive from their participation on traditional PD projects, and has begun to observe gains to children during their participation on PD teams. However, the retrospective perspectives of adult and child alumni who were members of intergenerational PD teams have yet to be investigated. To understand how alumni of intergenerational PD teams perceive matters that affected their membership, I conducted anonymous, online surveys and follow-up interviews with three distinct participant groups from an intergenerational PD team: child design partner alumni, parents of child alumni, and adult design partner alumni. Outcomes include new understandings of 1) the perspectives of child design partner alumni with regard to the ethics of their previous participation, 2) the gains child design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation from the perspectives of both child alumni and their parents, and 3) the gains that adult design partners experience and attribute to their PD team participation and their perspectives on membership. Throughout these findings participants describe how participation in intergenerational PD impacted their desire and perceived ability to pursue new goals and activities throughout their lives through the development of new skills, competencies, and mindsets. From these findings, I then synthesize ten recommendations toward the goal of making intergenerational PD better support the people who are involved in it.Item WHO WAS A NEIGHBOR TO THOSE FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE GLOBE?: INTERNATIONAL NEWCOMER STUDENTS’ LOCAL INFORMATION BEHAVIORS IN UNFAMILIAR ENVIRONMENTS(2018) Oh, Chi Young; Butler, Brian S; Library & Information Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the information behaviors of international newcomer students during their adjustment to new environments. In the context of newcomers’ adjustment to local environments, this study focuses on how international students need and seek information about local areas, housing, places, routes, and transportation, that is local information behavior (LIB). The first study of 20 international graduate students suggested that international students’ LIBs might vary depending on their social context. International students who had many co-nationals in their new environment tended to perceive co-nationals as their main information source, while those who had fewer local co-nationals did not. Drawing on information behavior theories and the initial study, the second study introduces a concept “socio-national context,” which is defined as the degree to which there are co-nationals in one’s local environment. By surveying a mixed sample of 149 first-year international and domestic graduate students and conducting interviews and cognitive mapping with a subset (57) of the respondents, the second study found that international newcomer students’ socio-national context interacts with their socio-technical context to shape their LIBs. International students from the top 3 most common countries, who have many local co-nationals, effectively acquired local information through their local co-nationals in offline, online, and mobile settings, while international students from other less-common countries did not engage in such local co-national interaction and social information practices. The third study, conducted as a follow-up in participants’ second year, found that international students’ LIB changed over time and the influence of socio-national context decreased. The contribution of this study also includes analyzing newcomer students’ information needs and wandering behavior through the lenses of Wilson’s information behavior models and proposing new types of information-seeking behavior. Overall, this dissertation presents how the interplay between socio-national, socio-technical, and temporal contexts shapes international newcomer students’ LIBs. In practice, more attention is needed for international newcomer students from less-common countries who may experience more information challenges. This dissertation suggests that information behavior models and theories better account for people’s socio-national context and its interactions with other contexts, if they are to be more relevant in global and migration contexts.