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This paper describes a middleware platform for user-generated multimedia contents which facilitates visualization and communication of vector-borne diseases (dengue, malaria, etc.). It acts as a community platform, where diverse users from geographically distributed locations can collaborate to seek and contribute multimedia contents of such diseases and related issues (breeding sites, etc.). Some of the essential services supported by the system are display of live hotspots, timeline, multimedia and Twitter-feed visualization, and location based services for both users and authorities. As a proof-of-concept, dengue disease was selected to build services using this platform to observe its capabilities.

In this chapter, the narrative is defined and the elements of the narrative are elucidated. Three lenses through which one can view the role of narratives in healthcare are discussed. First, organizational narratives help to foster social capital in the organization and, therefore, contribute to the people aspect of the knowledge management initiative in the organization. Second, the recuperative and relationship building roles of illness narratives are described. Third, narratives from the practice of narrative medicine are explored. The chapter concludes by proposing four requirements for narratives to be effective, namely, effective listening skills, the availability of time and place for storytelling, and the codification of narratives.

In this paper, we introduce Rec4LRW, a recommender system (RS) for assisting researchers in finding research papers for their literature review and writing purposes. This system focuses on three researcher tasks – (1) Building a reading list of research papers, (2) Finding similar papers based on a set of papers, and (3) Shortlisting papers from the final reading list for inclusion in manuscript based on article type. A set of intermediate criteria are proposed to capture the relations between a research paper and its bibliography. The recommendation techniques for the three tasks in Rec4LRW are specifically devised on top of the intermediate criteria. The Rec4LRW workflow along with the screen designs for the three tasks is provided in this paper. The recommendation techniques in the system will be evaluated with state-of-the-art approaches along with user-based evaluation in subsequent studies. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version

Research in recent years has focused on examining the acceptance as well as the appropriation of technologies amongst older adults, especially in how technologies alleviate issues of functional declines, loneliness, and financial difficulties brought about by ageing. Yet such studies have often overlooked meaningful appropriation or disappropriation of technologies amongst older adults. By drawing on a longitudinal study of ten older adults who were given a smartphone under a corporate social responsibility program by a telecommunications company, we followed the use of smartphones by ten older adult users using in-depth interviews lasting one to two hours each. Our findings revealed a mix of appropriation and disappropriation, which are linked to everyday technological use and routines, attitudes to technology, and social support. Accepted version

Dengue affects scores of people in Sri Lanka and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. This paper reports preliminary findings from the pilot test of a novel Android-based dengue prevention system called Mo-Buzz. Developed in collaboration with Sri Lanka’s largest telecom company and the city municipal council, this system integrates three components: civic engagement, predictive surveillance and health education. The study was conducted among a sample of 80 potential consumers in Colombo, Sri Lanka. We evaluated potential user acceptance and obtained general feedback on the system adapting the Technology Acceptance Model and Expectation Confirmation Theory. While predictive surveillance and civic engagement modules were high on likability, perceived utility and future use, the construct scores for the health education module were low. Differences in perceived ease-of-use, usefulness and intention-to-use were observed by gender, age and income. Implications of consumer feedback on further design of the dengue prevention system are discussed. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Published version

is not available in fulltext. NRF (Natl Research Foundation, S’pore) Accepted version

Malaria and dengue are vector-borne infectious diseases that affect millions of adults and children and consume thousands of lives in India every year. Despite their recurring annual threat, evidence-based approaches to communication strategies that positively influence protective behaviors remain to be established. This study describes a national survey (n=1000) of five large metropolitan cities on health information seeking preferences and attitudes towards scientific and indigenous methods of personal protection. Our findings show that despite high perceived effectiveness of preventive methods, their actual practice remains low. We found that individuals are most likely to seek health information from television followed by newspapers and mobile phones. Attitudes related to Malaria (severity, susceptibility), prevention methods (response efficacy) and media use significantly predicted actual practice of prevention methods. Implications for future design and development of health communication initiatives promotion Malaria prevention are discussed. Accepted version

Every year millions of people in south Asia and other tropical regions face the threat of vector-borne infectious diseases (VBD) such as Malaria and Dengue. Existing prevention strategies use principles of epidemiology and health communication separately, despite the fact that new technological capabilities may enable us to integrate the two disciplines. This paper describes an ongoing effort in Singapore that plans to integrate hotspot mapping, civic engagement and health communication to extend the boundaries of participatory epidemiology in VBD prevention. We chronicle the research that informed our approach, present the conceptual underpinnings from a participatory epidemiological lens, and describe the challenges and opportunities encountered. It is our hope that, when actualized, this trans-disciplinary model integrating insights from public health, communication and sociology will provide a holistic solution for policymakers and health prevention agencies tackling VBD threats in south Asia. Published version

This paper presents two case studies of how the Bohra community and the East Indian community in Mumbai, India make use of social tools that include their own customized community online portals, Facebook and YouTube to create and manage social content for their respective communities. The aim is to contrast and identify learning points with regard to the usefulness and effectiveness of social tools for community engagement, and to infer design and development factors for building social innovations for communities in the future. The findings suggest that five area are of perticular importance: (1) Content and knowledge creation, (2) Preservation of cultural identity, (3) Design for social structures, (4) Engendering community trust, and (5) Adapting appropriate integrated-hybrid models. Accepted version

Malaria and Dengue (M&D) affect more than 1.5 million people in India annually. Our study informs M&D prevention efforts by understanding knowledge, attitudes and practices related to preventive behaviours and health information-seeking patterns among a cross-section of Mumbai's middle-of-pyramid population. Our survey reveals low knowledge of M&D vectors and substantial discrepancies between perceived effectives and actual performance of preventive behaviours. We found that television and mobile phones offer opportunities for enhancing awareness and influencing beliefs and intentions. Implications for theory-based communication interventions using mobile social media are discussed. Accepted version

This paper describes the design and development of a Virtual Archival Exhibition System (VAES) that facilitates the authoring of web-based virtual exhibitions that can be tailored to serve the needs of various user groups. VAES is a joint collaborative project between the National Archive of Singapore (NAS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Based on an XML-based metadata database, VAES provides tools for users to create, update, extract, and search metadata of artifacts and exhibitions stored in the database. The actual digital artifacts (information objects) are reused by referencing as necessary without duplicating the artifacts. Dublin Core (DC) elements and non-DC elements with layered tags are used to describe and provide tailored information of each artifact for different users. In VAES, a virtual exhibition is created based on the pre-defined exhibition metadata and artifact metadata stored in the database. An authoring tool provides a direct manipulation work area for users to browse, display and layout the exhibition page content that is extracted from the database. XML’s Extended Style Sheets (XSL) and Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) are then applied to the layout to yield the final exhibition in HTML format. By using different information layers, reusing the layout setting, and the application of different style sheets, it is easier for authors or archivists, especially for those who are less proficient in IT, to create multiple versions of the same exhibition that vary in content, layout and presentation to meet the varying information needs of a range of different user communities. Published version

Digital libraries (DLs) are a resource for answering complex questions. Up to now, such systems mainly support keyword-based searching and browsing. The mapping from a research question to keywords and the assessment whether a retrieved article is relevant to the research question are completely the responsibility of the user. In this paper, we present a two-layered DL model. The aim is to enhance current DLs to support different levels of human cognitive acts, thus enabling new kinds of knowledge exchange among library users. The lower layer of the model, namely, the tactical cognition support layer, is intended to provide users with requested relevant documents, just as in searching and browsing. The upper layer of the model, namely, the strategic cognition support layer, not only provides users with relevant documents but also directly and intelligently answers users' cognitive questions. On the basis of the proposed model, we divide the DL information space into two subspaces, i.e., a knowledge subspace and a document subspace, where documents in the document subspace serve as the justification for the corresponding knowledge in the knowledge subspace. A detailed description of the knowledge subspace is discussed.

Groupware systems can be classified under four distinct classes, namely, messaging, conferencing, decision-making and co-authoring systems [Rodden, 1991]. In this project we have developed/configured four systems for the four classes of groupware for study. They are: MEmail:-a heterogeneous multimedia electronic message system; MacGroupie;- a Macintosh-based desktop conferencing system; GroupSystem V :- a GUI-based GDSS; CommIT :- a PC-based shared whiteboard/group editor. This project aims to explore the design and implementation issues related to these four different classes of groupware. RP 5/92

This study reviewed a number of open source CMS with the aim to identify suitable one to develop a customized CMS for the School of Communication and Information. The customized system is intended to support the academic documents management which comes in various formats, submitted by faculty, graduates and students, with the aim to keeping a value-added repository of up-to-date resources for specific disciplines in the school (such as digital libraries, information storage and retrieval, and others). A total of four open source CMS were reviewed and the OpenCms at last was selected for final implementation. It employed both the qualitative & quantitative research approaches to identify the project goals and software functional requirements. Rational Unified Process has been employed to develop the customized CMS and much of the system analysis, design and development works was focused on the integration of existing product functions, user interface and separated user management. Although, this study identified the most suitable software to meet the current specific requirements and successfully developed a new system for use, the developed system can be further improved to incorporate new functions such as fuzzy search and load balancing for better performance. Master of Science (Information Studies)

Some of the shared digital artefacts of digital research are executable in the sense that they describe an automated process which generates results. One example is the computational scientific workflow which is used to conduct automated data analysis, predictions and validations. We describe preservation challenges of scientific workflows, and suggest a framework to discuss the reproducibility of workflow results. We describe curation techniques that can be used to avoid the `workflow decay' that occurs when steps of the workflow are vulnerable to external change. Our approach makes extensive use of provenance information and also considers aggregate structures called Research Objects as a means for promoting workflow preservation.

Knowledge sharing is an essential element of organisational learning, knowledge creation, and knowledge management. It prevents the reinvention of the wheel in the organisation, ensures the spread of best practices throughout the organisation, and avails private knowledge to the problem-solving process. Unfortunately, knowledge sharing is often problematic, and has been labeled as “unnatural acts”. Research so far has surfaced two main conclusions about knowledge and people. First, knowledge is sticky in that it is stubbornly immobile, and transferring it from one person to another is often difficult and slow. Second, people are generally stubborn, refusing to share their knowledge, preferring to rely on it as their power base (the “knowledge is power” syndrome) and refusing to use knowledge that they did not create themselves (the “not invented here” syndrome). In this research, an in-depth case study was carried out to develop a grounded theory for voluntary and informal knowledge sharing (VIKS) in an academic context. VIKS is a specific type of knowledge sharing characterised by serendipity (VIKS occurs without pre-planning), spontaneity (participation in VIKS is one’s choice), and extemporaneousness (participation in VIKS is unrehearsed). As such, VIKS is a narrower and more focused form of knowledge sharing. Data were elicited through semi-structured interviews with twenty-four academics from the College of Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The respondents were selected from seven categories of academics, namely, non-tenured academics, academics without PhD, academics who teach ancillary subjects, female academics, newly hired academics, academics who pursued their doctoral studies in a language other than English, and academics holding administrative positions. The data were transcribed, and analysed using the coding procedures prescribed by the grounded theory methodology. Doctor of Philosophy (SCI)

Between July 2005 to December 2007, some 87 exhibitions had been held at the National Library’s new premises at Victoria Street. Out of these, 11 of them (13 percent) were curated entirely by staff of the National Library while the rest were collaborations with other agencies. Considering several years have passed since the opening of the new National Library, it is worthwhile to study at this juncture, how organizing and hosting exhibitions have benefited the collection development of the reference collection as well as how the workflow for planning and implementing exhibitions could be further streamlined, directed or leveraged to enhance collection development. The study will attempt to find out how effective exhibitions have been as an avenue to fill collection gaps; whether the librarians’ knowledge of the subject have expanded and deepened following their involvement in exhibitions; and whether the workflow to capture the knowledge generated is properly documented and accumulated to contribute to collection development. Interviews and surveys were conducted to collect the qualitative data required for this study. Interview guides and questionnaires were used to achieve consistency in the data collected. There are basically two data collection phases. Firstly, staff who were involved in exhibitions were interviewed using a standard interview guide. Semi-structured questionnaires were also given to some of the staff before the interview session. A total of 17 staff were interviewed face-to-face and 15 of them completed the questionnaires from September to December 2007. The second data collection phase involved visitors to the exhibitions. For six weekends from September to December 2007, visitors who spent more than 10 minutes viewing the exhibitions between levels 7 and 11 were given a semi-structured questionnaire to fill up. In all, 41 responses were collected. The results of this study show that exhibitions have contributed positively to collection development of the reference collections. The findings revealed that the scale and duration of the exhibitions do not have a direct or proportional relationship to the extent of the contributions towards collection development; that is, the larger the scale of the exhibition does not mean the greater is their contribution to collection development. In fact, it has been noted that contributions to collection development are greater from the mid-scale exhibitions and exhibitions curated by external parties. This study has also unearthed that the processes entailed in developing an exhibition was not clear to all staff. There was also a lack an integrated set of procedures encompassing all the stages of planning, development and implementing exhibitions in relation to collection development. In order to maximize the benefits of exhibitions to collection development, the acquisition processes have to be strengthened. It is proposed that the National Library make collection development one of the key objectives of holding exhibition to leverage on their positive impact in this area. Master of Science (Information Studies)