David J Saab

Pennsylvania State University | Penn State · College of Information Sciences and Technology

One way to help trainees develop expertise is to let them see the world through the eyes of experts. However, the tasks of gaining access to the expert's cognition and then of making experts available for training are daunting and impractical. Recently, however, Hintze (2008) developed a technique to allow trainees to shadow the thinking of experts...

As many NGOs find themselves responding to the same crises, they have realized the potential benefits of coordinating their information and communication technology (ICT) activities—sharing satellite communications and internet access, sharing disaster assessment information—and have created cross-organizational coordination bodies. Coordination at...

The traditional view of data, information, and knowledge as a hierarchy fosters an understanding of information as an independent entity with objective meaning—that while information is tied to data and knowledge, its existence is not dependent upon them. While traditional conceptions assume a static nature of information, expressed by the equation...

Social bookmarking sites as Flickr, del.icio.us, and CiteULike have incorporated the use of tags as way for users to retrieve photos, URLs, and citations in a way that is personally meaningful and which doesn't require learning taxonomies constructed by professionals. These tag sets, or folksonomies, have the potential to enhance interoperability a...

The iSchool movement is an academic endeavor focusing on the information sciences and characterized by a number of features: concern with society-wide information problems, flexibility and adaptability of curricula, repositioning of research towards interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary exchange (Harmon, 2006). Teaching information ethics in an i...

In this chapter we will investigate the nature of abstraction in detail, its entwinement with logical thinking, and the general role it plays for the mind. We find that non-logical capabilities are not only important for input processing, but also for output processing. Human beings jointly use analytic and embodied capacities for thinking and acti...

In this chapter we will investigate the nature of abstraction in detail, its entwinement with logical thinking, and the general role it plays for the mind. We find that non-logical capabilities are not only important for input processing, but also for output processing. Human beings jointly use analytic and embodied capacities for thinking and acti...

Humans think and communicate in very flexible and schematic ways, and a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the Amazon and associated information system ontologies should reflect this flexibility and the adaptive nature of human cognition in order to achieve semantic interoperability. In this paper I offer a conceptual investigation of SDI and ex...

Upon what philosophical foundation are semantic network graphs based? Does this foundation allow for the legitimization of other semantic networks and ontological diversity? How can we design our computational and informational systems to accommodate this ontological diversity and the variety of semantic networks? Are semantic networks segmentation...

Ontologies are being used by information scientists in order to facilitate the sharing of meaningful information. However, computational ontologies are problematic in that they often decontextualize information. The semantic content of information is dependent upon the context in which it exists and the experience through which it emerges. For true...

IT artifacts are connected to our lives in significant and complex ways. The consideration of culture in designing information systems for a global context will become increasingly important. This paper develops the concept of cultural values in relation to information, technology, and people (ITP). In an effort to facilitate a more robust analysis...

Information is a critical component to improved inter-agency coordination during disaster response. Coordinated information and communication technologies deployments as well as coordinated information management processes are important tools in the provision of this information. However, multilateral agency coordination faces many challenges, whic...

Human-computer interaction research often includes a significant design component. In cases where software or other tools are developed and described, but no empirical evaluation is provided, the research consists almost entirely of the knowledge marshaled in support of and as a result of design activities. Very little analysis has been carried out...

Maps are not representations of reality, per se, rather they are representations of space and the objects and entities therein. What we identify as objects and entities in space is dependent upon the cultural schemas we employ. Schemas about space are deeply embedded in our cognition. Spatial schemas regulate boundaries for social interaction, the...

A cultural study of the Passamaquoddy Tribe of Sipayik and Motahkomikuk, Maine portrayed through the metaphor of traditional dance.

Social bookmarking sites such as Flickr, del.icio.us, and CiteULike have adopted folksonomic systems where users tag entities with keywords. These tagging systems replace traditional taxonomic systems that employ hierarchical categorization schemes. While there are some differences in how these tagging systems are constructed, e.g., as broad or nar...