Madhu C.Reddy, Ph.D. |
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Research InterestsMy primary research fields are Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Medical Informatics, and Information Sciences. I am interested in a variety of issues in these areas but most of my current research focuses on two major themes: (1) Collaborative information behavior and (2) Collaboration and coordination in healthcare settings. I explore these themes utalizing qualitative methods and prototyping. If you are interested in working with me on any of these areas or want to know more about my research interests, please e-mail me. Collaborative Information Behavior Information seeking and management activities are a prominent aspect of everyday work. In organizations, information plays a vital role not only in decision-making but also in coordinating activities, contextualizing activities, and providing awareness of others' activities; consequently, organizations are paying more attention to their information seeking and management practices. Within these venues, information behavior is conceptualized from an essentially individual rather than a collaborative perspective; an individual identifies her information need and seeks the information to fill that need. However, individuals rarely work independently in organizational settings. Instead, the dominant setting for information work in these environments is interdisciplinary or multifunctional teams; people normally collaborate with others to accomplish their tasks. These teams play a vital role in an organization's ability to implement its goals; in order to successfully accomplish their activities, teams must be able to efficiently and effectively seek information. To help team members work together effectively and to design
information systems that support their work, we must examine and
understand information seeking practices within the collaborative
environments of work teams. There are two major goals to this project.
First, I would like to expand our understanding of collaborative
information behavior practices in a variety of organizational setting
using qualitative research methods. Second, I plan to incorporate
findings from the fieldwork into the design of novel collaborative
information retrieval technologies. Collaboration and Coordination in
Healthcare Settings We have also received a grant from The Commonwealth Fund to study IT adoption and coordination amongst rural hospitals.
PSU | IST | Contact | Edited December 9, 2011 |