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This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

Information and communication technologies can transform how services can be and are delivered as has already happened in other arenas, such as civil aviation, financial services and retailing. Most modern health care is heavily dependent on e-health, including record keeping, targeted information sharing and digital diagnostic and imaging techniques. However, there remains little scientific knowledge base for optimal system content and function in primary health care, particularly for children. Models of Child Health Appraised (MOCHA) aimed to establish the current e-health situation in children’s primary care services. Electronic health records (EHRs) are in regular use in much of northern and western Europe and in some newer European Union Member States, but other countries lag behind. MOCHA investigated the use of unique identifiers, the use of case-based public health EHRs and the capability of record linkage, linkage of information with school health data and monitoring of social media influences, such as health websites and health apps. A widespread lack of standards underlined a lack of research enquiry into this issue in terms of children’s health data and health knowledge. Health websites and apps are a growing area of healthcare delivery, but there is a worrying lack of safeguards in place. The challenge for policy-makers and practitioners is to be aware and to lead on the innovative harnessing of new technologies, while protecting child users against new harms.

This chapter more clearly identifies the distinction between Electronic Health Record (EHR) and Electronic Medical Record (EMR), and states their value in obtaining individual-level data. Synthetic medical records may be used as a surrogate for EHR data in order to ensure digital data privacy is maintained during the development of the LHS. Synthea is an open-source simulation tool available through GitHub.¹ Extensive descriptive analysis of synthesized data is provided as a foundation for the analysis in Chapter 7.

The user-centered approach to understanding information use and users has shaped research in library and information science (LIS). In a user-centered environment, catalogers are told to focus on users and adapt standards to meet users’ needs while following standards in order to be efficient in their jobs. This study describes three academic cataloging units as they negotiate both the demands to follow and adapt these standards to meet users’ needs. New institutional theory served as a framework for the study. The results suggest that standards and users are pressures that cataloging units negotiate in their jobs, along with demands for work efficiency and professional legitimacy. While negotiating these pressures, catalogers and cataloging units redefine their work jurisdiction and maintain legitimacy to remain relevant in a complex work environment. Understanding how catalogers negotiate the normative institutional pressures of standards and users leads to an understanding of the complex nature of work in areas that deal with issues of standards and users, shows how an area within a profession maintains legitimacy when the profession no longer values that work, and, finally, shows the limits of the user-centered focus in LIS practice.

This case study describes how one library leveraged shared resources by defaulting to a consortial catalog search.

The authors use a case study approach to describe steps involved in changing the catalog interface, then assess the project with a usability study and an analysis of borrowing statistics.

The authors determined the benefit to library patrons was significant and resulted in increased borrowing. The usability study revealed elements of the catalog interface needing improvement.

Taking advantage of an existing resource increased the visibility of consortial materials to better serve library patrons. The library provided these resources without significant additional investment.

While the authors were able to identify other libraries using their consortial catalog as the default search, no substantive published research on its benefits exists in the literature. This chapter will be valuable to libraries with limited budgets that would like to increase patron access to materials.

E-commerce is gaining popularity across the globe and Mauritian businesses are also increasingly making use of online platforms to engage in cross-border electronic transactions. However, there are several implications arising from online trading which need to be addressed, among which one is the validity of e-contracts. This research will therefore emphasise on two main components of e-contracts: choice of law and the applicable jurisdiction. While Mauritian laws were amended to give effect to digital signatures and e-agreements, there is no extensive or substantive domestic legal provision on choice of law and jurisdiction. Hence, the purpose of this study is to advocate for a greater clarity on the legal framework governing the applicable law and jurisdiction governing a conflict situation in e-contracts, with the view of increasing trust in international e-commerce and to bring in consistency with international commercial relations. This study will be carried out in the Mauritian context by adopting the black letter approach which will analyse the relevant rules and regulations concerning e-contract formation and validity. Additionally, a comparative analysis will be conducted on the legal framework relating to the applicable law and jurisdiction in e-contracts for selected countries: the European Union and the United States. These countries have been chosen for the comparison due to their high involvement in e-commerce and their advanced as well as comprehensive rules on e-commerce.

Increased attention has been placed on identifying and installing evidence-based practices (EBPs) to effectively and efficiently serve students with and at-risk for learning and behavioral challenges. Council for Exceptional Children's (CEC, 2014) Standards for Evidence-Based Practices in Special Education are often used to examine a range of strategies, practices, and programs to ascertain if they are indeed EBPs. Systematic reviews conducted to evaluate the evidence base of these potential EBPs are important as they inform practice. We contend it is important to provide well-vetted procedures for training scholars to conduct systematic reviews with replicable precision. We offer this chapter to assist scholars in conducting systematic reviews to quality appraise the methodological rigor of a body of literature using the CEC Standards for EBPs. We focus on (1) project management considerations and (2) steps and phases to support the development and dissemination of high quality, methodologically rigorous systematic literature reviews.

This chapter explores the relationship of rhetorical genre studies with archival studies, and identifies commonalities and differences between the two fields. By complementing and expanding the diplomatics approach to the analysis of the documentary reality of organizations, rhetorical genre studies provides the records disciplines with sophisticated conceptual tools that may be used to enhance understanding of how records are made, used, and transmitted in workplace contexts.

All genres are sites of continuous social, cultural, and ideological negotiations, and organizational records make no exception. By recognizing that records are culturally constructed artefacts that shape and are shaped through social interactions, and recordkeeping is an inherently ideological discursive practice, notions such as evidence and accountability take on new, more dynamic meanings. Record keepers as well as the creators and users of the records become agents who continuously engage in the production, reproduction, and transformation of the documentary reality of their organizations.

Drawing on rhetorical genre studies, this chapter offers an inclusive, situated, and dynamic view of organizational records that is in line with postmodern accounts of recordkeeping. The new reading of basic archival concepts and methods proposed in this chapter especially contributes to enrich the theoretical framework of records management, which has traditionally been represented as a technical discipline supporting unspecific ideas of organizational effectiveness.