Browsing by Author "Sheetz, Steven D."
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- Assessing Agile Methods: Investigating Adequacy, Capability, and Effectiveness (An Objectives, Principles, Strategies Approach)Soundararajan, Shvetha (Virginia Tech, 2013-06-10)Agile methods provide an organization or a team with the flexibility to adopt a selected subset of principles and practices based on their culture, their values, and the types of systems that they develop. More specifically, every organization or team implements a customized agile method, tailored to better accommodate its needs. However, the extent to which a customized method supports the organizational objectives, i.e. the 'goodness' of that method, should be demonstrable. Existing agile assessment approaches focus on comparative analyses, or are limited in scope and application. In this research, we propose a systematic, comprehensive approach to assessing the 'goodness' of agile methods. We examine an agile method based on (1) its adequacy, (2) the capability of the organization to support the adopted principles and strategies specified by the method, and (3) the method's effectiveness. We propose the Objectives, Principles and Strategies (OPS) Framework to guide our assessment process. The Framework identifies (a) objectives of the agile philosophy, (b) principles that support the objectives and (c) strategies that implement the principles. It also defines (d) linkages that relate objectives to principles, and principles to strategies, and finally, (e) indicators for assessing the extent to which an organization supports the implementation and effectiveness of those strategies. The propagation of indicator values along the linkages provides a multi-level assessment view of the agile method. In this dissertation, we present our assessment methodology, guiding Framework, validation approach, results and findings, and future directions.
- Between a Rock and a Cell Phone: Social Media Use during Mass Protests in Iran, Tunisia and EgyptKavanaugh, Andrea L.; Yang, Seungwon; Sheetz, Steven D.; Li, Lin Tzy; Fox, Edward A. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2011-05-01)In this paper we examine the use of social media, and especially Twitter, in Iran, Tunisia and Egypt during the mass political demonstrations and protests in June 2009, December 2010 - January 2011, and February 2011, respectively. We compare this usage with methods and findings from other studies on the use of Twitter in emergency situations, such as natural and man-made disasters. We draw on our own experiences and participant-observations as an eyewitness in Iran (first author), and on Twitter data from Iran, Tunisia and Egypt. In these three cases, Twitter filled a unique technology and communication gap at least partially. We summarize suggested directions for future research with a view of placing this work in the larger context of social media use in conditions of crisis and social convergence.
- Building CTRnet Digital Library Services using Archive-It and LucidWorks Big Data SoftwareChitturi, Kiran (Virginia Tech, 2014-03-27)When a crisis occurs, information flows rapidly in the Web through social media, blogs, and news articles. The shared information captures the reactions, impacts, and responses from the government as well as the public. Later, researchers, scholars, students, and others seek information about earlier events, sometimes for cross-event analysis or comparison. There are very few integrated systems which try to collect and permanently archive the information about an event and provide access to the crisis information at the same time. In this thesis, we describe the CTRnet Digital Library and Archive which aims to permanently archive crisis event information by using Archive-It services and then provide access to the archived information by using LucidWorks Big Data software. Through the Big Data (LWBD) software, we take advantage of text extraction, clustering, similarity, annotation, and indexing services and build digital libraries with the generated metadata that will be helpful for the system stakeholders to locate information about an event. Through this study, we collected data for 46 crises events using Archive-It. We built a CTRnet DL prototype and its services for the ``Boston Marathon Bombing" collection by using the components of LucidWorks Big Data. Running LucidWorks Big Data on a 30 node Hadoop cluster accelerates the sub-workflows processing and also provides fault tolerant execution. LWBD sub-workflows, ``ingest" and ``extract", processed the textual data present in the WARC files. Other sub-workflows ``kmeans", ``simdoc", and ``annotate" helped in grouping the search-results, deleting the duplicates and providing metadata for additional facets in the CTRnet DL prototype, respectively.
- A Campus Situational Awareness and Emergency Response Management System ArchitectureChigani, Amine (Virginia Tech, 2011-04-06)The history of university, college, and high school campuses is eventful with man-made tragedies ensuing a tremendous loss of life. Virginia Tech's April 16 shooting ignited the discussion about balancing openness and safety in open campus environments. Existing campus safety solutions are characterized by addressing bits and pieces of the problem. The perfect example is the recent influx in demand for Electronic Notification Systems (ENS) by many educational institutions following the tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University. Installing such systems is important, as it is an essential part of an overall solution. However, without a comprehensive, innovative understanding of the requirements for an institution-wide solution that enables effective security control and efficient emergency response, the proposed solutions will always fall short. This dissertation describes an architecture for SINERGY (campuS sItuational awareNess and Emergency Response manaGement sYstem) – a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based network-centric system of systems that provides a comprehensive, institution-wide, software-based solution for balancing safety and openness on any campus environment. SINERGY architecture addresses three main capabilities: Situational awareness (SA), security control (SC), and emergency response management (ERM). A safe and open campus environment can be realized through the development of a network-centric system that enables the creation of a COP of the campus environment shared by all campus entities. Having a COP of what goes on campus at any point in time is key to enabling effective SC measures to be put in place. Finally, common SA and effective SC lay the foundation for an efficient and successful ERM in the case of a man-made tragedy. Because this research employs service orientation principles to architect SINERGY, this dissertation also addresses a critical area of research with regards to SOA; that area is SOA security. Security has become a critical concern when it comes to SOA-based network-centric systems of systems due the nature of business practices today, which emphasize dynamic sharing of information and services among independent partners. As a result, the line between internal and external organization networks and services has been blurred making it difficult to assess the security quality of SOA environments. In order to do this evaluation effectively, a hierarchy of security indicators is developed. The proposed hierarchy is incorporated in a well-established evaluation methodology to provide a structured approach for assessing the security of an SOA-based network-centric system of systems. Another area of focus in this dissertation is the architecting process. With the advent of potent network technology, software/system engineering has evolved from a traditional platform-centric focus into a network-centric paradigm where the “system of systems” perspective has been the norm. Under this paradigm, architecting has become a critical process in the life cycle of software/system engineering. The need for a structured description of the architecting process is undeniable. This dissertation fulfills that need and provides a structured description of the process of architecting a software-based network-centric system of systems. The architecting process is described using a set of goals that are specific to architecting, and the associated specific practices that enable the realization of these goals. The architecting process description presented herein is intended to guide the software/system architects.
- CTRnet Final ReportFox, Edward A.; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Kavanaugh, Andrea L.; Ramakrishnan, Naren (2013-08-26)The CTRnet project team has been developing a digital library including many webpage archives and tweet archives related to disasters, in collaboration with the Internet Archive. The goals of the CTRnet project are to provide such archived data sets for analysis, including by researchers who are seeking deep insights about those events, and to support a range of services and infrastructure regarding those tragic events for the various stakeholders and the general public, allowing them to study and learn.
- A Database Driven Initial Ontology for Crisis, Tragedy, and RecoverySheetz, Steven D. (2011-05-01)Many databases and supporting software have been developed to track the occurrences of natural disasters, manmade disasters, and combinations of the two. Each of the databases developed in this context, define their own representations of a disaster that describe the nature of the disaster and the data elements to be tracked for each type of disaster. The elements selected are not the same for the different databases, yet they are substantively similar. One capability common to many ontology development efforts is to describe data from diverse sources. Thus, we began our ontology development process by identifying several existing databases currently tracking disasters and derived the "ontology in situ" of their database. That is, we identified how the designers of the databases classify the types of disasters in their systems. We then merged these individual ontologies to identify an ontology that includes all of the classifications from the databases. Several aspects of disasters from the databases were highly consistent and therefore fit well together, e.g., the types of natural disasters, while others, e.g., geographic descriptions, were idiosyncratic and do not fit together seamlessly. The resulting ontology consists of 185 elements and has the potential to support data sharing/aggregation across the databases considered.
- Design Study to Visualize Stock Market Bubble Formations and BurstsIyer, Sruthi Ganesan (Virginia Tech, 2014-06-23)The stock market is a very complex and continuously changing environment in which many varying factors shape its growth and decline. Studying interesting trends and analyzing the intricate movements of the market, while ignoring distracting and uninteresting patterns has the potential to save large amounts of money for individuals as well as corporations and governments. This thesis describes research that was conducted with the goal to visualize stock market data in such a way that it is able to show how behavior and movement of various market entities affects the condition of the market as a whole. Different visualizations have been proposed, some that improve on existing traditional methods used by the Finance community and others that are novel in their layout and representation of data and interactions. The proposed design, by the use of interactive multiple coordinated views showing overviews and details of the stock market data using animated bubble charts and statistics, aims to enable the user to visualize market conditions that lead to the formation of a bubble in the market, how they lead to a crash and how the market corrects itself after such a crash.
- An Examination of Decision Aid Reliance in a Dynamic EnvironmentBriggs, John Whitfield (Virginia Tech, 2003-12-11)Computerized decision aids are powerful tools to assist with decision-making. Decision models are designed to incorporate and analyze available data in order to present a recommended solution to a problem. Business decision makers, including accountants, have much to gain from integrating decision support technology with their own skills and experience. Several studies have determined that there are many instances in which these decision aids perform favorably to human decision-makers. Despite this fact, studies have shown that reliance upon these aids is incomplete, even when they process data in a highly efficient manner. On the other hand, decision aids have limitations. If such a decision support system is not updated to match changing conditions, relying on the aid can lead to suboptimal decision-making. This study uses a laboratory experiment involving a managerial accounting task: prediction of manufacturing overhead costs. In the experimental scenario, a decision support system's recommended solutions become inaccurate due to a shift in environmental conditions. The first research objective is to determine whether subjects rely on the aid's advice before this change and, to their detriment, after the change. The second research objective is to examine whether the feedback environment, the timing of the decision aid's inclusion into the task, or the inherent confidence level of the task participant affect the tendency to rely on the aid in both of these environmental conditions. The results of the study provide evidence that decision-makers rely on decision aids, and are susceptible to over-reliance on them. These findings add to the results of prior studies that only examine a single trial task. Additionally, it is determined that the timing of a decision aid's recommendation can affect the degree to which it is relied upon. Next, there is evidence that feedback environment can help reliance and mitigate over-reliance. There is no evidence that task confidence affects reliance. Lastly, decision aids result in longer amounts of time used to complete the task.
- Examining the Continued Usage of Electronic Knowledge Repositories: An Integrated ModelLin, Hui (Virginia Tech, 2008-03-19)Knowledge has long been recognized as one of the most valuable assets in an organization. Managing and organizing knowledge has become an important corporate strategy for organizations to gain and maintain competitive advantages in the information age. Electronic knowledge repositories (EKRs) have become increasingly popular knowledge sharing tools implemented by organizations to promote knowledge reuse. The goal of this study is to develop and test a research model that explains users' continued usage behavior of EKRs in public accounting firms. Theoretically grounded in the expectation-confirmation model (ECM) and commitment-based model, the research model presented in this study integrates both of these theoretical perspectives to study users' EKR continuance intentions. This study surveyed 230 EKR users from four large public accounting firms. Partial least squares regression was used to test the hypotheses and the explanatory power of the model. Results indicate that perceived usefulness and commitment exhibit a sustained positive influence on continuance intention. Additionally, subjective norms are positively related to calculative commitment and moral commitment. Organizational identification is positively related to affective commitment and moral commitment. Perceived usefulness is positively related to affective commitment and calculative commitment. The model comparisons with the technology acceptance model (TAM) and ECM demonstrated that the integrated model presented in this research explained 1.6% and 0.8% additional variance in continuance intention than both ECM and TAM respectively. Additional multi-group analyses were also conducted to examine the differences between knowledge seekers and contributors and the differences between knowledge novices and experts. This study raises theoretical implications in the area of knowledge management in general and EKRs in particular. It represents one of the first attempts to empirically examine users' continuance intention of knowledge management applications. This study has presented a different perspective on technology acceptance/continued usage by introducing commitment to explain continued IS usage. By integrating commitment and ECM, this study offers a useful framework for future studies on technology use. It demonstrates that both user commitment and perceived usefulness are strong predictors of EKR continuance intention. The results also raise interesting implications for practitioners interested in knowledge management and particularly for public accounting firms how to leverage EKRs to gain a competitive advantage.
- Explaining Developer Attitude Toward Using Formalized Commercial Methodologies: Decomposing Perceived UsefulnessHenderson, David Lockhart III (Virginia Tech, 2007-09-07)Although methodology use generally leads to fewer software defects and reductions in development time, the introduction of a formalized systems development methodology is often met with substantial resistance. Motivated by the purported benefits of methodology use, yet resistance to the introduction of a methodology, this study explains developer attitude toward using a formalized commercial methodology. An important variable for explaining attitude is perceived usefulness, defined as the degree to which using a methodology will enhance a developer's job performance. If, however, a benefit of using a methodology is different than increased job performance, then limiting the definition of perceived usefulness to beliefs surrounding job performance may provide an incomplete representation of what makes a methodology useful to developers. A methodology may be perceived as a rational process, used to achieve objectives such as increasing job performance or as a political process used to achieve objectives particular to one person or group. In order to determine what makes a methodology useful to developers, the perceived usefulness construct was expanded to include benefits of methodology use related toward achieving political objectives. In addition to broadening the perceived usefulness construct, this research also broke down perceived usefulness into its referent dimensions. Decomposing perceived usefulness provided a deeper understanding of what makes a methodology useful to developers and revealed the relative importance of each dimension of perceived usefulness. The study surveyed 120 developers. Partial least squares regression was used to test the antecedents of developer attitude as well as the hypothesized structure of perceived usefulness. Results indicate that developers will have more favorable attitudes toward methodologies they perceive as useful, easy to use, and consistent with the way they like to develop systems. Additionally, findings suggest that developers may find methodologies not only useful for achieving rational goals such as increasing system quality, raising productivity, and enhancing communication, but also useful for achieving political goals such as increasing career opportunities, showing others that professional development practices are being used, reducing anxiety, and defending against unreasonable user demands.
- Integrated Digital Event Archiving and Library (IDEAL): Preview of Award 1319578 - Annual Project ReportFox, Edward A.; Hanna, Kristine; Kavanaugh, Andrea L.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Shoemaker, Donald J. (2014-07-09)The goals of this project are to ingest tweets and Web-based content from social media and the general Web, including news and governmental information. In addition to archiving materials found, the project team will build an information system that includes related metadata and knowledge bases, consistent with the 5S (Societies, Scenarios, Spaces, Structures, Streams) framework, along with results from our intelligent focused crawler, to support comprehensive access to event related content. With the support of key partners, the IDEAL team will undertake important research, education, and dissemination efforts, to achieve three complementary objectives: 1. Collecting: The project team will spot, identify, and make sense of interesting events. We also will accept specific or general requests about types of events. Given resource and sampling constraints, we will integrate methods to identify appropriate URLs as seeds, and specify when to start crawling and when to stop, with regard to each event or sub-event. We will integrate focused crawling and filtering approaches in order to ingest content and generate new collections, with high precision and recall. 2. Archiving & Accessing: Permanent archiving, and access to those archives, will be ensured by our partner, Internet Archive (IA). Immediate access to ingested content will be facilitated through big data software built on top of our new Hadoop cluster. 3. Analyzing & Visualizing: We will provide a wide range of integrated services beyond the usual (faceted) browsing and searching, including: classification, clustering, summarization, text mining, theme and topic identification, and visualization.
- Memory Bias in the Use of Accounting Information: An Examination of Affective Responses and Retrieval of Information in Accounting Decision MakingMcBride, Freda D. H. (Virginia Tech, 1998-04-30)This dissertation is based on the Kida-Smith (1995) model of "The encoding and retrievability of numerical data." It is concerned with the variable conditions under which a positive affective response (i.e., a decision or opinion that results in a positive valence) on previously viewed accounting information may and may not influence current decision-making. An affective response to accounting numbers may adversely influence decisions made based on those numbers. Prior research has found that individuals recall information that is consistent with prior decisions more readily than they recall inconsistent information. Research has also shown that current judgements are biased toward prior decisions or judgements. These biases may cause current decisions to be suboptimal or dysfunctional. Two 2x2 experiments were conducted to examine four hypotheses. These hypotheses concerned (1) the influence of an affective response on an investment decision when the differences between two sets of accounting numbers are small and when the differences are large, (2) the influence of an affective response on the recall of numerical data, (3) the influence of time on the recall of numerical data given an affective response, and (4) the influence of an affective response on an investment decision when the level of cognitive processing at the time the affective response is produced is low and when the level of processing is high. The first experiment used graduate students in an accounting course to investigate the influence of differences between numerical amounts on decision making. It also investigated the influence of time between the encoding and retrieval on recall of numerical amounts. The second experiment used accounting practitioners to investigate the influence of differences between numerical amounts on decision making, and to examine the influence of different levels of cognitive processing at the time of encoding on decision making. Results indicate that an affective response does produce suboptimal decisions. In the case of accounting practitioners, however, the influence of the affective response is mitigated when the magnitude of the difference between the accounting numbers previously viewed and those undergoing current examination is large rather than small. The affective response did not significantly influence the recall of numerical amounts. There was no significant change in the influence of the affective response on recalled amounts with increased time between encoding and retrieval. Also, there were no significant changes in decision-making with increased processing at the time of encoding.
- Microblogging in Crisis Situations: Mass Protests in Iran, Tunisia, EgyptKavanaugh, Andrea L.; Yang, Seungwon; Li, Lin Tzy; Sheetz, Steven D.; Fox, Edward A. (2011-05-01)In this paper we briefly examine the use of Twitter in Iran, Tunisia and Egypt during the mass political demonstrations and protests in June 2009, December 2010 and January 2011 respectively. We compare this usage with methods and findings from other studies on the use of Twitter in emergency situations, such as natural and man-made disasters. We draw on my own experiences and participant-observations as an eyewitness in Iran, and on Twitter data from Tunisia and Egypt. In these three cases, Twitter filled a unique technology and communication gap at least partially. We summarize suggested directions for future research with a view of placing this work in the larger context of social media use in conditions of crisis or social convergence.
- NSF 2nd Year Report: CTRnet: Integrated Digital Library Support for Crisis, Tragedy, and RecoveryFox, Edward A.; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Kavanaugh, Andrea L.; Ramakrishnan, Naren (2011-07-01)One of the important parts of this project is to collect and archive as much information as possible about various events that are related to crises, tragedies, and recovery (CTR). In order to do long-term archiving of information, we have worked with the Internet Archive (IA), a non-profit organization, whose goal is to archive the Internet. IA provides access to web crawlers that can be used to selectively crawl and archive webpages. In disaster situations, it is well known that people use micro-blogging sites such as Twitter to reach their family and friends especially when their cell phones are not working due to high volume of traffic on the cell phone network. For this reason, tweet posts sometimes report CTR events faster than the mainstream news media. Those tweets often contain more detailed information, too, reported by the affected people on the site. We have been archiving tweets (i.e., posts from Twitter.com) for both man-made and natural disaster events. Collected tweets can be exported in various formats including XSL, JSON, and HTML -- to be analyzed later using software tools.
- NSF 3rd Year Report: CTRnet: Integrated Digital Library Support for Crisis, Tragedy, and RecoveryFox, Edward A.; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Kavanaugh, Andrea L.; Ramakrishnan, Naren (2012-07-01)The Crisis, Tragedy and Recovery (CTR) network, or CTRnet, is a human and digital library network for providing a range of services relating to different kinds of tragic events, including broad collaborative studies related to Egypt, Tunisia, Mexico, and Arlington, Virginia. Through this digital library, we collect and archive different types of CTR related information, and apply advanced information analysis methods to this domain. It is hoped that services provided through CTRnet can help communities, as they heal and recover from tragic events. We have taken several major steps towards our goal of building a digital library for CTR events. Different strategies for collecting comprehensive information surrounding various CTR events have been explored, initially using school shooting events as a testbed. Many GBs worth of related data has been collected using the web crawling tools and methodologies we developed. Several different methods for removing non-relevant pages (noise) from the crawled data have been explored. A focused crawler is being developed with the aim of providing users the ability to build high quality collections for CTR events focused on their interests. Use of social media for CTRnet related research is being explored. Software to integrate the popular social networking site Facebook with the CTRnet digital library has been prototyped, and is being developed further. Integration of the popular micro-blogging site Twitter with the CTRnet digital library has proceeded well, and is being further automated, becoming a key part of our methodology.
- NSF Year 1 Report for CTRnet: Integrated Digital Library Support for Crisis, Tragedy, and RecoveryFox, Edward A.; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Kavanaugh, Andrea L.; Ramakrishnan, Naren (2010-07-08)The Crisis, Tragedy and Recovery network, or CTRnet, is a human and digital library network for providing a range of services relating to different kinds of tragic events. Through this digital library, we will collect and archive different types of CTR related information, and apply advanced information analysis methods to this domain. It is hoped that services provided through CTRnet can help communities, as they heal and recover from tragic events. We have taken several major steps towards our goal of building a digital library for CTR events. Different strategies for collecting comprehensive information surrounding various CTR events have been explored, using school shooting events as a testbed. Several GBs worth of school shootings related data has been collected using the web crawling tools and methodologies we developed. Several different methods for removing non-relevant pages (noise) from the crawled data have been explored. A focused crawler is being developed with the aim of providing users the ability to build high quality collections for CTR events focused on their interests. Use of social media for CTRnet related research is being explored. Software to integrate the popular social networking site Facebook with the CTRnet digital library has been prototyped, and is being developed further. Integration of the popular micro-blogging site Twitter with the CTRnet digital library is being explored.
- Political Participation in a Digital Age: An Integrated Perspective on the Impacts of the Internet on Voter TurnoutCarter, Lemuria D. (Virginia Tech, 2006-04-12)E-government is the use of information technology, especially telecommunications, to enable and improve the efficiency with which government services and information are provided to its constituents. Internet voting is an emerging e-government initiative. It refers to the submission of votes securely and secretly over the Internet. In the United States some areas have already used Internet voting systems for local and state elections. Many researchers argue that one of the most important social impacts of Internet voting is the effect it could have on voter participation. Numerous studies have called for research on the impact of technology on voter turnout; however, existing literature has yet to develop a comprehensive model of the key factors that influence Internet voting adoption. In light of the gradual implementation of I-voting systems and the need for research on I-voting implications this study combines political science and information systems constructs to present an integrated model of Internet voter participation. The proposed model of Internet voting adoption posits that a combination of technical, political and demographic factors amalgamate to influence the adoption of I-voting services. The study was conducted by surveying 372 citizens ranging in age from 18-75. The findings indicate that an integrated model of I-voting adoption is superior to existing models that explore political science or technology adoption constructs in isolation. Implications of this study for research and practice are presented.
- Protection Motivation Theory: Understanding the Determinants of Individual Security BehaviorCrossler, Robert E. (Virginia Tech, 2009-03-19)Individuals are considered the weakest link when it comes to securing a personal computer system. All the technological solutions can be in place, but if individuals do not make appropriate security protection decisions they introduce holes that technological solutions cannot protect. This study investigates what personal characteristics influence differences in individual security behaviors, defined as behaviors to protect against security threats, by adapting Protection Motivation Theory into an information security context. This study developed and validated an instrument to measure individual security behaviors. It then tested the differences in these behaviors using the security research model, which built from Protection Motivation Theory, and consisted of perceived security vulnerability, perceived security threat, security self-efficacy, response efficacy, and protection cost. Participants, representing a sample population of home computer users with ages ranging from 20 to 83, provided 279 valid responses to surveys. The behaviors studied include using anti-virus software, utilizing access controls, backing up data, changing passwords frequently, securing access to personal computers, running software updates, securing wireless networks, using care when storing credit card information, educating others in one's house about security behaviors, using caution when following links in emails, running spyware software, updating a computer's operating system, using firewalls, and using pop-up blocking software. Testing the security research model found different characteristics had different impacts depending on the behavior studied. Implications for information security researchers and practitioners are provided, along with ideas for future research.
- Social Media for Cities, Counties and CommunitiesKavanaugh, Andrea L.; Fox, Edward A.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Yang, Seungwon; Li, Lin Tzy; Whalen, Travis; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Natsev, Apostol; Xie, Lexing (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 2011)Social media (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube) and other tools and services with user- generated content have made a staggering amount of information (and misinformation) available. Some government officials seek to leverage these resources to improve services and communication with citizens, especially during crises and emergencies. Yet, the sheer volume of social data streams generates substantial noise that must be filtered. Potential exists to rapidly identify issues of concern for emergency management by detecting meaningful patterns or trends in the stream of messages and information flow. Similarly, monitoring these patterns and themes over time could provide officials with insights into the perceptions and mood of the community that cannot be collected through traditional methods (e.g., phone or mail surveys) due to their substantive costs, especially in light of reduced and shrinking budgets of governments at all levels. We conducted a pilot study in 2010 with government officials in Arlington, Virginia (and to a lesser extent representatives of groups from Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia) with a view to contributing to a general understanding of the use of social media by government officials as well as community organizations, businesses and the public. We were especially interested in gaining greater insight into social media use in crisis situations (whether severe or fairly routine crises, such as traffic or weather disruptions).
- Social Media Use by Government: From the Routine to the CriticalKavanaugh, Andrea L.; Fox, Edward A.; Sheetz, Steven D.; Yang, Seungwon; Li, Lin Tzy; Whalen, Travis; Shoemaker, Donald J.; Natsev, Paul; Xie, Lexing (2011-06-01)Social media (i.e., Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube) and other services with user-generated content have made a staggering amount of information (and misinformation) available. Government officials seek to leverage these resources to improve services and communication with citizens. Yet, the sheer volume of social data streams generates substantial noise that must be filtered. Nonetheless, potential exists to identify issues in real time, such that emergency management can monitor and respond to issues concerning public safety. By detecting meaningful patterns and trends in the stream of messages and information flow, events can be identified as spikes in activity, while meaning can be deciphered through changes in content. This paper presents findings from a pilot study we conducted between June and December 2010 with government officials in Arlington, Virginia (and the greater National Capitol Region around Washington, DC) with a view to understanding the use of social media by government officials as well as community organizations, businesses and the public. We are especially interested in understanding social media use in crisis situations (whether severe or fairly common, such as traffic or weather crises).