Information Service

Telecommunication and more specially mobile phones have the potential to provide solution to the existing information asymmetry in various lagging sectors like Agriculture. India’s agricultural sector suffers from low growth rates and low productivity. Issues in access to information is a week point at every stage of the agrisupply chain. For small farmers base economy like India, access to information can possible enable better incomes and productivity to the farmers. This paper through focus group discussions and in-depth interview with farmers in villages of India, has tried to find answers to the use and impact of mobile and mobile enabled services on agricultural productivity. The answers to these questions are of relevance to develop better policy environment conducive for the small and medium farmers and has implications for mobile operators, for information service providers, and for policy-makers. The results show that although, mobiles can act as catalyst to improving prod...

Poisoning in children is a common accident and poison information services should be aware of the toxic agents responsible for poisoning in the community. A retrospective hospital based study was performed, before-the establishment of the National Poisons Information Centre in Sri Lanka. There were 4,556 admissions of poisoning to the selected hospitals in the Western Province in 1986 and of this, 540 (11.4%) were below 15 years. Males accounted for 66%. Kerosene oil was responsible for 47% of the poisoning cases in less than 5 years age group, while kerosene oil, pesticides and plants/mushrooms were the commonest toxic agents in the 5 to 14 years age group. The case fatality rate was 3.2%.

SUMMARY This paper presents ACIS, an Autonomous Community Information System. ACIS is a proposition made to meet the rapidly changing users’ requirements and cope with the extreme dynamism in current information services. ACIS is a decentralized bilateral-hierarchy architecture formed by a community of individual end-users (community members) having the same interests and demands at specified time and location. It allows those members to mutually cooperate and share information without loading up any single node excessively. In this paper, autonomous decentralized community construction and communication technologies are proposed to assure a productive cooperation, a flexible and timely communication among large number of community members. The main ideas behind the proposed communication technology are: content-code communication (service-based) for flexibility and multilateral benefits communication for timely and productive cooperation among members. All members communicate produ...

This paper describes a quantitative method of measurement and evaluation of the information provided by hotel websites. It aims to measure the richness of specific and comprehensive information dimensions, which as a whole constitute the information services offered through the web. Data from an extended web search along with responses of hotel managers regarding the importance of the offered information services are used. A conceptual model that describes the hotel web sites information features is used in order to summarize the data and to present the overall information volume offered. The applied model combines seven data dimensions: facilities information, customer contact information, reservation and prices information, surrounding area information, management of the web site, company information and communication. Hotel managers’ perceptions are used to weight the relative importance of both the information services and the seven dimensions. We apply the model to Greek hotel ...

Features of online social information services show promises for overcoming obstacles in current knowledge management practices. This paper first discussed the potential efficacy and emerging practices of such technologies in the domain of knowledge management. Then a quality model of online social information systems was derived from prior literature on online information service quality and analyses of characteristics of emerging technologies.

... DOI: 10.1108/09684880910929926 (Permanent URL). Quality assurance in distance learning libraries. The Authors. Manorama Tripathi, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India. VKJ Jeevan, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, India. Abstract. ...

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology http://jcc.sagepub.com/ Power Distance, Individualism/Collectivism, and Job-Related Attitudes in a Culturally Diverse Work Group Stephen Bochner and Beryl Hesketh Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 1994 25: 233 DOI: ...

This paper considers the change in information seeking behaviour of tourists as a result of the increased use of the World Wide Web as an information resource in the context of information services provided by visitor information centres (VICs). The theoretical approach adopts the model of expectation-disconfirmation effects on web customer satisfaction. The paper proposes that visitor information centres are

The vast amount of heterogeneous information sources available on the Internet demands advanced solutions for acquiring, mediating, and maintaining relevant information for the common user. Intelligent information agents are autonomous computational software entities that are especially meant to (1) provide pro-active resource discovery, (2) resolve information impedance of information consumers and providers, and (3) offer value-added information services and products. These agents are supposed to cope with the difficulties associated with the information overload of the user, preferably just in time.Based on a systematic classification of intelligent information agents, this paper presents an overview of the basic key enabling technologies needed to build such agents, and respective examples of information agent systems currently deployed on the Internet.

Background.African Americans have traditionally made little use of the Cancer Information Service (CIS), an information and education program of the National Cancer Institute, for smoking cessation assistance. This study evaluated whether a targeted communications campaign utilizing strategically placed radio and television advertisements in combination with community outreach could lead more adult African American smokers to call the CIS for smoking cessation information and materials.Methods.Fourteen communities, served by four CIS regional offices, were carefully matched on demographic variables and then randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Six radio advertisements targeting African American smokers to call the CIS for help in quitting smoking were developed and pretested for three different black-oriented formats. One television spot also was produced and pretested. The audio portion of the television ad was utilized as a seventh radio spot for the general programming formats. These advertisements were placed on selected radio and television stations reaching predominantly African American adult audiences. Also, copies of a videotape designed to motivate African American smokers to quit and to call the CIS for help in quitting were widely disseminated through community-based organizations in each experimental market. The aim was to increase the number and proportion of quitting-related calls to the CIS from African Americans within experimental communities.Results.The call volume from African American smokers was significantly higher in the experimental communities than in the control communities (P< 0.008). The call rate from African American men was higher than typically observed. Overall, African Americans in the experimental communities reported radio more often than television as the way they heard about the CIS.Conclusion.The results suggest that paid targeted advertising, using radio as a primary channel, is an effective method of reaching an underserved population at risk. Future research directions are discussed.

Aims:  To explore the information needs and information seeking behaviour of family doctors, identifying any differences in attitudes and behaviours deriving from membership of a training practice and investigating the impact of a practice librarian.Methods:  A case study of general practitioners (GPs) in Aylesbury Vale incorporated a quantitative study of use of the medical library, and two qualitative techniques, in-depth interviews and group discussions.Results:  A total of 58 GPs, almost three quarters of those in the Vale, participated; 19 via individual interviews and a further 39 via two group discussions. Family doctors are prompted to seek information by needs arising from a combination of professional responsibilities and personal characteristics. A need for problem-orientated information, related to the care of individual patients, was the predominant factor that prompted these GPs to seek information. Personal collections remain the preferred information resource; electronic sources rank second. The study demonstrated low use of the medical library. However, both vocational training and the employment of a practice librarian impacted on library use.Conclusions:  The study illuminates the information needs and preferences of GPs and illustrates the contribution that librarians may make at practice level, indicating the importance of outreach work.