Information Management

Exploring Local Information Inequality in South Korea through AI-Enhanced Visualization and Public Library Data

The goal of the project is to understand information inequality across geographical regions in South Korea and visualize them using an AI-backed visualization tool. Our plan, spanning three years, revolves around the development of an intuitive platform for the purpose of visualizing these disparities. During the first year, we aim to construct comprehensive metrics for assessing the level of informational inequality, based on the theory of local information landscapes (LIL theory).

The NYC311 App & Community Engagement in Coproducing Municipal Services

In the public sector, governments and the people they serve increasingly collaborate to coproduce public services. To support the coproduction of municipal services, specifically, local governments have incorporated various digital technologies into their information systems. How do digital technologies affect community residents' engagement in coproducing municipal services?

Mapping Information Ecology: Understanding the Fragmentation of Disability Service Information

As organizations and individuals provide various information to multiple systems within a region, the information becomes fragmented, making it difficult for people to access the necessary information. Individuals have limited resources to navigate all the sources and use only part of the available ones. Disability service information is further fragmented due to diverse actors, ranging from government agencies to for-profit organizations, who often provide only partial information.

Towards an Expectation-Oriented Model of Public Service Quality: A Preliminary Study of NYC 311

The 311 system has been deployed in many U.S. cities to manage non-emergency civic issues such as noise and illegal parking. To assess the performance of 311-mediated public service provision, researchers developed models based on execution time and the status of execution. However, research on user satisfaction suggests that the level of individuals’ perception is asymmetric with respect to the quality of services, because negative experiences have a stronger impact on people’s dissatisfaction than positive experiences do for satisfaction.

Understanding the Present and Designing the Future of Risk Prediction IT in Fire Departments

This research will develop and design new data-driven risk prediction principles and management (DDRPM) tools that anticipate and manage a variety of community risks, which fire departments are increasingly required to respond to, including medical, fire, and safety emergencies. Today, much of their work focuses on community risk reduction (CRR), a paradigm that seeks to mitigate risks before they lead to emergencies in the first place. The CRR paradigm will leverage new data-driven risk prediction and management (DDRPM) tools to predict and respond to a variety of community risks.

Social Justice & Technical Efficiency: The Role of Digital Technology in Boston's 311 System

Does digital technology help or hinder the realization of social justice in government services? Applying theories of distributive justice, we analyzed data from Boston's 311 system (for residents to make requests for non-emergency services) paired with data from the American Community Survey. We found that, as residents used the system's digital channels (website and mobile app) more frequently, the number of requests they submitted increased.

In Search of Social Justice: The Role of Digital Technology in a Government Information System

In producing and providing services to local residents, municipal governments increasingly incorporate digital technology into their Information Systems (IS). In these digitally-enhanced government IS, how does digital technology affect social justice in the use and outcomes of the systems? By applying theories of distributive justice and analyzing data collected from Boston's 311 system for residents to request non-emergency services, we have found significant and lasting disparities between wealthy and poor communities in the use of the system's digital channels (mobile app and website).

The Effects of Socioeconomic Deprivation on Public Library Book Circulation: A Community-level Study

This study analyzes the effects of community-level socioeconomic deprivations (SED) on public libraries’ book circulation in the Seoul metropolitan area. The study design draws upon the theory of local information landscapes, which explains the relationship between community characteristics and information behavior. Using four-year (2015-2018) open government and public library circulation data, we constructed a socioeconomic deprivation index by adjusting a multi-dimensional deprivation index and generated other variables.

Crowdsourcing Behavior in Reporting Civic Issues: The Case of Boston's 311 Systems

Many cities in the United States use civic technologies like 311 systems as part of their public service systems for monitoring non-emergency civic issues. These systems have enhanced the city's monitoring capability by diversifying communication channels. However, the data created through these systems is often biased because of differences in people's use of technology (i.e., digital divide) and individuals' behavioral patterns in providing types of information to the systems.

A Visualization Tool and Assessment Framework for Civic Technology Use in the DMV Area: The Case of 311 Systems During the COVID-19 Outbreak

The 311 systems that city officials currently deploy can efficiently detect non-emergency civic issues such as potholes and trash. From a socio-technical perspective, residents can re-appropriate the technology for their own purpose adding new capacities and affordances not initially intended. For example, when Hurricane Irma hit Miami in 2017, residents used 311 systems to report disaster-related issues, which led city officials to adapt the system by creating a new category.

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