CIS Research

For the first decade or so of its existence, CIS was an interdisciplinary research center that specialized in understanding the dynamics of socio-economic development in underserved communities, domestically and internationally, in the information age. During the past year, CIS has moved into the Information School. Over the next few months new research pillars will populate this page to reflect the broader information society mandate, beyond ICT and Development. An early draft of some of the emerging research pillars can be found in the About section.

Current research consists of the following programs and projects:

The ICTD Program at CIS investigates disparities of access to information and communication resources worldwide and the corresponding impact on socio-economic development. Key research themes include: public access, employability, community technology center program design and evaluation and methodological experiments.

  • Digital Divide

Digital divide research arises from questions of power and information, and more specifically the need to understand inequalities in the distribution of information technology, its content, use, and context. Stakeholders discuss the divide from different angles (e.g., financing, infrastructure, and skills), and few attempts have been made to construct an index that can measure the general concept of the digital divide. This research aims to construct a comprehensive measurement index of the digital divide and means to validate it.

  • Information Control (Gatekeeping)

As networks and more specifically the Internet become ubiquitous, a growing number of scholars have used the term gatekeeper commonly but when used, it is mostly done for reasons of illustration rather than using it as a part of a theoretical framework. Cyberspace has changed the identity of gatekeepers and their roles, while gatekeeping as a process has been altered as well. Research in this area consists of the development of a network gatekeeping theory which offers new definitions of gatekeeping and gatekeepers, adapting traditional concepts to a networked society.  Further research aims to perform a systematic examination of the concept of gatekeeping in the context of networks and more specifically in the Internet.

  • eGovernment and eBusiness

This thread of research deals with identifying and evaluating similarities and differences in the adaptation of Internet-based information technologies and the resulting process and policy changes in the public and private sectors. The research seeks to understand  the impacts of those technologies on information policy, information politics of decision makers, process redesign and technology diffusion approaches. Research is conducted by iSchool faculties Karine Barzilai-Nahon and Jochen Scholl. The project is currently at the end of its first phase during which several focus groups from both sectors have been completed separately. In the next phase, sector-integrated focus groups will be used for assessing and expand the results of the previous phase.

  • Digital Natives

The generation of knowledge workers now entering the workforce has grown up with extensive tools for communication, and these experiences may influence the behavioral norms exhibited in real and virtual environments.   This exploratory study characterized digital natives, their use of technology, their anticipated overall behaviors in the workplace, and tensions that may arise as more mature organizations recognize and respond to the consequences of these different behavioral norms. The study also identifies strategic and operational implications for organizations and possible approaches to ethical decision-making that would be useful for organizations through this time of rapid technological change and dynamic individual and organizational actors.