Reimagining information science and technology beyond traditional boundaries in the global coronavirus pandemic situation

Abstract

Information pervades today's human activities, essentially making every sector of society an information environment. Due to the ubiquity of technological innovations and their interconnectivity, there is no aspect of lives of individuals that has not been affected. Individuals & organizations use multiple devices and networking platforms to interact with each other, businesses, and governments, as well as to search, retrieve, and consume information. Adoption and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the nature of information in general and its management and use have been topics of discussion at events such as the ASIS&T Annual Meeting. However, what is often lacking, if not missing, is a broader discussion about information and ICTs, in applied areas such as emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity.

ASIS&T THESAURUS

emerging disciplines, informatics, information science.

1. INTRODUCTION

Information science & technology has always been a diverse and multidisciplinary field partly because information, driven mainly by dynamic developments in technology, pervades almost every human activity. In addition, information science & technology is concerned, in part, with information, people, technology, and their adoption, management, access, use, and interactions among these elements. If there is anything pandemics such as COVID‐19 ¹ showed us, it is that, information science and technology is critical and necessary for public health, emergency and/or crisis management, homeland security, and cybersecurity are even more. More importantly, as information scientists and practitioners, it is our responsibility to help people identify authentic information that serve their information needs.

The main purposes of this panel session are: (a) to introduce a new iSchool and provide the ASIS&T community with an example of a community of researchers and educators who engage in interdisciplinary research and teaching that address several facets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, (b) to engage the ASIS&T Annual Meeting audience in an interactive discussion of broader issues and emerging research areas surrounding information & ICTs in the context of emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity; and (c) to seek audience input on how to formulate information policy that leverages the strengths of scholarship and practice in the emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity, in addition to information science & technology and addresses issues that align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Session is targeted at the wider information science & technology community, including academics, researchers, practitioners, iSchool administrators, and students. It could also be relevant to policy makers. Engaging in thorough and broad‐based discussions, involving practitioners, researchers, and relevant stakeholders, about critical issues that need to be addressed will aid not only in the design of technologies and social media platforms that are crucial to critical infrastructure and safety, while also ensuring the security of end users and maintaining as low a risk as possible. In addition, these discussions could benefit technology designers and/or vendors and policymakers to get the balance between the ethical, civil liberties, and privacy factors versus security (e.g., homeland, cyber, etc.) right. We believe each group will have something to contribute to, and learn from, our efforts at the new iSchool to integrate methods, theories, research problems, curricula, tools, and other relevant aspects of the two sets of fields—information science & technology and emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity.

We have assembled a distinguished panel of academics and practitioners in the fields of emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity. In a brief introduction (about 10 minutes in total), they will each share their vision of how both information science & technology and emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity have overlapping domains, methods, theories, tools, and are complementary in their approaches to research and other activities relevant to 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The brief introductions, which should take about 10 min out of the 90‐min for the panel session, will help inform the interactive discussions among the audience and key participants. We believe that audience members will have a lot to contribute to potential outcomes of the panel session which we anticipate to be concrete recommendations, including some relevant to policymakers.

The bulk of the time for the Session, 70 min in total, will be dedicated to open and interactive discussions around the following questions/prompts:

1. What are emerging policy issues or prescriptions, research paradigms, innovations/technologies, methods, and theoretical frameworks relevant to issues that align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as extend beyond traditional boundaries of information science & technology and crossover to the fields of emergency management, homeland security, and cybersecurity, public health, risk management and vice versa?

2. How can we leverage these crossovers in order to enhance the scope, effectiveness, and impact of the research/scholarship, teaching, and learning in both sets of disciplines in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development?

The final 10–15 min will be devoted to the discussion of the main takeaways and any recommendations with respect to issues/topics raised in the above questions/prompts. After the conclusion of the conference, a short summary of the discussions & recommendations will be shared with members of the audience and the larger community through a blog post.

Biographies

Abebe Rorissa is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). Prior to his current position, he worked in four countries as a lecturer and systems librarian for 17 years. He has consulted for academic institutions, national governments, and international organizations, including the United Nations. His research interests include multimedia information organization and retrieval, scaling of users' information needs/perceptions, use/acceptance/adoption and impact of information and communication technologies, and data analytics. Dr. Rorissa was a Member‐at‐Large on the ASIS&T Board of Directors and a member of its Executive Committee. He will be the moderator for this panel session.

Ming Li holds a Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from Rice University in Houston, TX. Dr. Li is currently a managing director at Marsh and McLennan Company, leading the initiative to leverage advanced data science techniques in analytics modernization. Previously, he was Global Head of Catastrophe Modeling at JLT Re, where he oversaw the global catastrophe exposure modeling practice and lead the effort to develop the cutting‐edge portfolio catastrophe risk management tools for clients. Dr. Li has almost 20 years of catastrophe modeling experience in the property/casualty insurance industry. He has performed numerous projects for insurance and reinsurance entities. Dr. Li has authored various technical papers that have covered topics such as: catastrophe reinsurance pricing, wind pool exposure risk management, role of catastrophe modeling in insurance rating, insurance portfolio growth management, etc. He will specifically focus on the connection between research and practice related to economic impact of natural and terrorism catastrophe events and current technologies available to manage the exposure to such events. He will also discuss the relevant tools and methods from information science & technology.

Michael Young is a Professor of Practice of Homeland Security at the University at Albany. Prior to his current position he worked with the Defense Intelligence Agency for 15 years on a range of influence operation and assessment topics. His presentation will highlight national security issues relevant to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

David Turetsky is Professor of Practice at the University at Albany. He has a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School, studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and has a B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College. Before joining academia in 2017, he held senior roles in government, law and business. These included service as the co‐leader of the cybersecurity, privacy and data protection practice of a global law firm; Chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, D.C and Deputy Chief of its International Bureau; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the U.S. Department of Justice; senior executive positions in the telecom industry; and 13 years as a member of the U.S. State Department's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. His research and teaching interests are in: (a) Cybersecurity: policy, regulation, public‐private partnerships and information sharing—he is currently working on a project to identify and highlight information sharing successes—international norms and standards, privacy, market incentives and enforcement, national security, elections, and; (b) Emergency communications, including the collection, analysis and use of data related to 9‐1‐1 emergency calls, and emergency alerting, response and related issues. He will highlight data and research‐related needs and opportunities related to emergency management as well as cybersecurity, privacy and other topics and concerns that are potential preludes to interactive discussion on the intersection of both disciplines, specifically shared values, beliefs, laws and norms about information and nations' access to data.

Xiaojun (Jenny) Yuan is an Associate Professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). Her research interests include human information behavior, human computer interaction, interactive information retrieval, and user interface design. Her early career grant project awarded by the federal agency‐the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) investigates the interaction between users and spoken language interfaces. Currently, she is working on a research project investigating older adults and COVID‐19. Dr. Yuan is a co‐chair of ASIST SIGUSE award committee. As a panelist whose research & teaching are mainly in information science, she will kick off discussions specific to users' interaction with various devices and how it has implications for both sets of disciplines.

Rorissa A, Li M, Young M, Turetsky D, Yuan X(J). Reimagining information science and technology beyond traditional boundaries in the global coronavirus pandemic situation. Proc Assoc Inf Sci Technol. 2020;57:e293 10.1002/pra2.293