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Applications of ICT in Social Sciences

by Biljana Mileva Boshkoska (Volume editor)
©2015 Conference proceedings 138 Pages

Summary

In social sciences the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) is an ever growing phenomenon. Emanating from the need of knowledge about society and economy, we are constantly striving to create ideas and methods for a better use of information. This study analyses different practices such as business process management, business process modelling or relationship marketing. It also discusses the use of ICT in a variety of examples taken from different fields such as education, web clipping, public safety, tactic knowledge, or protection of intellectual property and offers an outline of state-of-the-art applications of ICT in social sciences.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the Editor
  • About the Book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Acknowledgments
  • Contents
  • Preface
  • Social Media Knowledge Influence on a Loosely Coupled System: A Case Study of an Informal Humanitarian Initiative
  • The Connection between a Process Model and a Data Model: A Metamodelling Approach
  • Business Process Management: Evolution Blueprint and Practical Implementation
  • Secondary School Students and Printed Textbooks
  • Inclusion of Tacit Knowledge in the Simulation of Business Processes
  • A Research Voucher Case Study: Web Clipping
  • Sharing Personal Information on the Internet Empowers Relationship Marketing
  • An Extension of BPMN 2.0 Conversation Diagrams for Modeling Organizational Communication
  • Remodeling the Preparation Phase of Intellectual Property Processes via an Activity Table

Preface

The usage of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the field of social sciences is a growing phenomenon, emanating from today’s need for knowledge about society and the economy, and as a result we are striving to create ideas and methods for the better use of information. This book includes some of the latest practices from business process management and modelling to relationship marketing. Covering a variety of examples taken from real life, such as education, web clipping, public safety, tactic knowledge, and the protection of intellectual property, this book outlines state-of-the-art social sciences applications and their implementation with ICT. ← 9 | 10 → ← 10 | 11 →

Nadja Damij and Jernej Agrež

Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto, Slovenia

Social Media Knowledge Influence on a Loosely Coupled System: A Case Study of an Informal Humanitarian Initiative

Abstract: Notwithstanding that in Slovenia there is no conceptual solution that would integrate social media within formal emergency operating procedures, social media has become a tool for supporting official responses during emergencies. In this chapter, we introduce a conceptual optimization of natural disaster standard operating procedures, which reveals points at which it is possible to integrate social media with the formal response process. We take as a case study the ice storm that affected Slovenia in the beginning of 2014, which, because of the downfall of communication lines and the electrical power grid, caused the isolation of the whole region. Running in parallel with the official response, social media enabled emerging of informal loosely coupled initiatives that reacted to the humanitarian aid and the call for power generators. The efficiency of the social media-based response was high, and successfully complemented official activities. This is the first optimization approach of this kind in Slovenia, and we expect it to serve as a base ground for further research on the connection between social media and emergency management.

Keywords: Social media, knowledge influence, loosely coupled systems, natural disasters

1Introduction

The prevalence and global reach of social media enables a viral spread of published information in audio visual, graphic or textual form. Woerndl et al. (2008, p. 34) argues that social media constitutes a core infrastructure for viral spread, supported by peer to peer interaction that selector-specifies message targets and avoids transmission dead-ends. It provides online users with tools that make information sharing virtually effortless, contributing to viral share by “encouraging the user to share feedback, provide comments, rate products, provide reviews and download item[s] for sharing with friends” (Gilfoil 2012, p. 70). Viral information spread allows decision-makers who work in a specific field to obtain important information ← 11 | 12 → about that field almost immediately after the information has been published. Similar to the phenomena of social influence, whereby “individuals’ behaviors or opinions are affected by their social environment” (Xia & Liu 2013, p. 1), important information will affect the decision taken, just as it would in the case of a specific decision-maker intentionally using social media as an information source. When decisions are urgent, with high and diverse stakes, with considerable uncertainty and ignorance involved, and when trust is fragile, “decision-making needs to be understood as a process with multiple sources of information and research evidence” (Grossberndt 2012, p. 2), and social media nowadays represents an important information and knowledge source. While the worldwide reach of social media on the one hand increases the information pool for an individual decision-maker, on the other hand, it involves a crowd becoming a constantly present, yet loosely organized, decision support mechanism. “To make crowdsourcing work, there is a basic requirement to make external parties aware of the challenges or problems that need to be solved. Various digital marketing tools, especially social media platforms, provide new ways to foster the interaction between the parties” (Simula, Töllinen & Karjaluoto 2013, p. 122).

Details

Pages
138
Publication Year
2015
ISBN (PDF)
9783653053043
ISBN (MOBI)
9783653971958
ISBN (ePUB)
9783653971965
ISBN (Softcover)
9783631660171
DOI
10.3726/978-3-653-05304-3
Language
English
Publication date
2015 (May)
Keywords
Usage of information protection of intellectual property business process management
Published
Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien, 2015. 138 pp., 11 tables, 30 graphs

Biographical notes

Biljana Mileva Boshkoska (Volume editor)

Biljana Mileva Boshkoska is Assistant Professor of Computer Science, and Vice Dean for Education at the Faculty of Information Studies in Novo mesto (Slovenia). She holds a PhD degree from the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana.

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Title: Applications of ICT in Social Sciences