Task-based Information Access in Molecular Medicine
Description
The project focuses on the information interaction in molecular medicine.Information seeking is seldom a means to an end itself, but serves a larger work task. To be able to design effective information access and analysis tools for molecular medicine and biotechnology, designers need to have a thorough understanding about the work processes and information interaction occurring during the task performance. The aims of the project are: 1) to describe the information environment in the field, 2) to study information interaction and the system use in work task processes, 3) to investigate what kinds of barriers the researchers encounter in their work tasks, and 4) to develop suitable data collection and analysis methods for real-life research settings of this kind.
So far a little attention has been paid to information interaction during work task processes. The researchers in molecular medicine were shadowed during their work performance in a molecular medicine research unit in Finland. Qualitative methods were used to analyze the data. During their task performance, the researchers in molecular medicine have to cope with a rather complex information environment consisting of a myriad of information systems available via Web. The systems are used in an integrated, concerted way, and often this is done manually. They encounter technological, syntactic and conceptual barriers in a task, system integration and single system contexts. One solution is adding more automatic features to system integration, which could ease the task performance processes and help to overcome the barriers.
Duration
2007-2013
Researchers
Mrs. Sanna Kumpulainen - supervisor Prof. Kalervo Järvelin
Publications:
- Kumpulainen, S. & Järvelin K. (2011). Barriers to task-based information access in molecular medicine. Journal of American Society for Information Science and Technology. [Submitted]
- Kumpulainen, S., Järvelin, K. (2010). Information Interaction in Molecular Medicine: Integrated Use of Multiple Channels. Information Interaction in Context Symposium 2010. New Brunswick, NJ, USA, August 18-22 2010. (Best Paper Award, IIiX'10).
Updated 31.08.2010 Responsibility for updating: KK
