The 2010 earthquake in Haiti, which killed an estimated 316,000 people, offered many lessons in mass-fatality management (MFM). The dissertation defined MFM in seeking information and in recovery, preservation, identification, and disposition of human remains. Specifically, it examined how mass fatalities were managed in Haiti, how affected individuals sought information about fatalities, and what needs motivated them. Data from 28 in-depth, partially structured interviews, conducted during two field visits ending 21 weeks after the earthquake, were included in a case study. The data analysis revealed the MFM was severely inadequate. One interviewee, a senior UN official, stated, "There was no fatality management." The analysis also indicated a need to learn whereabouts of the deceased motivated individuals to visit spots the deceased were last seen at. It sought to illumine information-seeking practices, as discussed in the works of J. David Johnson and others, by developing a new model of information flow in MFM. In addition, it reaffirmed Donald Case and Thomas Wilson's theoretical proposition – that need guides any seeking of information – in the case of Haiti. Finally, it produced recommendations regarding future directions in MFM for emergency managers and information scientists, including possible use of unidentified body parts in …

The web information behaviors of users as they interacted with a metadata navigator, the Personal Information (PI) Agent, and reflected upon their interaction experiences were studied. The process included studying the complete iterative (repeated) cycle of information needs, information seeking, and information use of users interacting with an internet-based prototype metadata PI Agent tool. Detlor’s theory of web information behaviors of organizational users was utilized as a theoretical foundation for studying human-information interactions via the PI Agent tool. The qualitative research design allowed for the use of triangulation within the context of a one-group pretest-posttest design. Triangulation occurred in three phases: (a) observe, (b) collect, and (c) reflect. Observations were made as participants solved three problem situations. Participants’ computer log and print screen data were collected, and follow-up interviews were conducted once all posttest sessions ended to enable users to reflect on their experiences. The three triangulation phases ensured saturation of data and greater depth regarding the participants’ information behaviors. Content analysis occurred via exploratory pattern analysis using the posttest Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) log data and on the six interviewees’ follow-up interview data. Users engaged in iterative cycles of information needs, information seeking, and information use to resolve the …

In today’s economy, organizational knowledge is a fundamental factor for remaining competitive and managing intellectual capital. Knowledge Management aims to improve organizational performance by designing the work environment with necessary tools. Yet, significant amount of knowledge resides within the people in different forms such as experience or abilities. Transferring individual knowledge within members or into organizational repositories is so difficult. Knowledge sharing only occurs under certain circumstances: People share knowledge when they believe it is beneficial for them, when they feel safe and secure, and when they trust. Since knowledge is power, and brings respect to its bearer, knowledge sharing needs suitable environment. In this context, this study investigates intention to knowledge sharing among forensics in the Turkish National Police (TNP) and the factors -such as perceived organizational justice, organizational citizenship behaviors, subjective norms, and attitudes toward knowledge sharing- affecting their intentions. The researcher utilized a model developed from Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1975; 1980) theory of reasoned action (TRA). To test this model, a self-administered questionnaire survey was administered in Turkey In order to analyze the quantitative data; SPSS version 19 was used for all preliminary analyses and LISREL 8.8 was used for Regression Analysis and Path Analysis The fit …

This research investigated issues related to normalizing punctuation marks from a text retrieval perspective. A punctuated-centric approach was undertaken by exploring changes in meanings, whitespaces, words retrievability, and other issues related to normalizing punctuation marks. To investigate punctuation normalization issues, various frequency counts of punctuation marks and punctuation patterns were conducted using the text drawn from the Gutenberg Project archive and the Usenet Newsgroup archive. A number of useful punctuation mark types that could aid in analyzing punctuation marks were discovered. This study identified two types of punctuation normalization procedures: (1) lexical independent (LI) punctuation normalization and (2) lexical oriented (LO) punctuation normalization. Using these two types of punctuation normalization procedures, this study discovered various effects of punctuation normalization in terms of different search query types. By analyzing the punctuation normalization problem in this manner, a wide range of issues were discovered such as: the need to define different types of searching, to disambiguate the role of punctuation marks, to normalize whitespaces, and indexing of punctuated terms. This study concluded that to achieve the most positive effect in a text retrieval environment, normalizing punctuation marks should be based on an extensive systematic analysis of punctuation marks and punctuation patterns and …

This study examines adolescent students at an American international school and observes student use of social networking programs as well as physical actions in the search process. The study specifically observed multitasking behavior and organizational skills among students, as well as linkages made through social networking sites. Student observations, student interviews, analysis of Facebook entries, and a survey on multitasking yielded rich data. Students appear to be far more organized than previously suggested in the literature, and in this study, the organization proved to be largely self-taught. Students used their social networks to build a kind of group expertise that compensated for their youthful naivety. Students exhibited self-control within the search to the degree that they could focus on what they wanted to find, and they used heuristics—mental shortcuts—to achieve what they needed. Searches also suggest creativity in that students were flexible in their search methods and used a number of tools to gather information. Students could balance the needs of the academic or imposed search with their own online lives, meaning that they made compensations for social media and media multitasking when it was deemed necessary.

Social media offers numerous opportunities to companies, organizations and government agencies to communicate with people outside their organization, to promote their interests and to better serve their customers, or as in the case with government agencies, to better serve their citizens. However, little is known about how police departments in particular use social media. This research study explores why police departments use social media, how they manage their social media tools, and the problems and challenges experienced as they use social media. This qualitative study is largely guided by grounded theory. The data were collected from a study population using local police departments in the Dallas-Fort worth (DFW) area principal cities using both individual interviews with police departments’ social media officers and observations of these departments’ online social media tools (in particular, Facebook and Twitter). This study has shown that the DFW area city police departments are using social media quite extensively to keep the public informed and often for investigative purposes. There are some success factors to adopting and using these tools, such as the motivation of department staff and their benefits, successful implementation of the tools, the simplicity of using tools and that it is absolutely free.