Global governance and inter-organizational relationships in the nuclear safety sector

In response to global challenges the interconnectedness between different organizations is seen as the sine qua non, and one of the most important aspects of the organizational environment is cooperation and conflicts between organizations. This paper aims at contributing to an emerging ‘inter-organizational turn’ in world politics by studying the relationship between the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the paper suggests that inter-organizational cooperation and conflict are based on flows of information, trust, resource dependencies, and how responsibilities and roles are divided between organizations. Moreover, the paper indicates that organization type and organization size are important to understand patterns of cooperation and conflicts between organizations operating at the global level, and the paper also suggests that organizational birthmarks are important to understand why tensions are triggered.

Trust in information sources during the COVID-19 pandemic. A Romanian case study

Higher levels of trust in credible sources of information in times of crisis such as the current COVID-19 pandemic increase public compliance with official recommendations, minimizing health risks and helping authorities manage the crisis. Based on a national survey (N=1160), this article explores (a) actual levels of trust in various sources of information (government websites, legacy media, social media, and interpersonal communication) during the pandemic and (b) a number of predictors of such trust. Results show that during the period studied government websites were the most trusted source of information. Trust in an information source is correlated with consumption of COVID-19–related news from that specific source, media fact-checking, and self-perception about the incidence of COVID-19–related fake news. Only income and age are significant trust predictors, and only with respect to specific source types.

Exploring critical factors of the perceived usefulness of a learning analytics dashboard for distance university students

Learning analytics dashboards (LADs) can provide learners with insights about their study progress through visualisations of the learner and learning data. Despite their potential usefulness to support learning, very few studies on LADs have considered learners’ needs and have engaged learners in the process of design and evaluation. Aligning with that, there is a limited understanding of what specific student cohorts, in particular distance and online learners, may seek from LADs to effectively support their studies. In this study, we present findings from 21 interviews with undergraduate distance learners, mainly high performers, that aimed to capture student perceptions about the usefulness of specific LAD features and the factors that explain these perceptions. Our findings revealed that amongst the LAD features favoured by students was the potential to receive study recommendations, whereas comparison with peers was amongst the least favoured elements, unless informed by qualitative information. Factors including information trust, attitudes, age, performance and academic self-confidence were found to explain these perceptions.

Model of Mitigation: Strategies to Utilise Unique Insider Research Opportunities

Insider research has in the past challenged researchers in terms of blurred lines, objectivity, bias confidentiality and maintaining professional working relationships. The opportunities it presents however include access to information, trust in the data collection, insider and intimate knowledge, and the ability for rich inside data collection. This paper discusses these opportunities and challenges, then makes recommendations for ten strategies to assist in data collection by an insider researcher. These strategies include communication, mixed methods, reflections, debrief, distance, confidentiality, interview technique, social network, voluntary and objectivity. The research concludes with the creation of a Model of Mitigation, which posits the ten mitigation strategies along with the four opportunities to assist insider researchers to overcome obstacles when conducting insider research, as insider research has been shown to collect rich data and enable organisations to reflect on the research findings and to implement recommendations made on an individual but organisation wide basis.

The information trust formation process for informal caregivers of people with dementia: a qualitative study

PurposeThis paper provides new insights on trust formation during information-seeking processes of informal caregivers of people with dementia and identifies the sources of information deemed as trustworthy by caregivers.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopts a phenomenological qualitative approach in the form of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a sample of 20 informal caregivers.FindingsCaregivers trust sources that are perceived as authoritative and particularly value the information and advice provided by other caregivers. Trust in information can be divided into subjective and objective, but both are important precursors to the actual use of the information. The information available to caregivers is sufficient in quantity but inadequate in terms of ease of use, clarity and usefulness. Often, some key information needs remain unsatisfied due to the lack of timeliness, relevance and personalisation of the information.Practical implicationsThis paper provides recommendations for information and healthcare providers on how to improve communication and information relevance for informal caregivers of people with dementia.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to a more comprehensive perspective on caregivers’ information trust formation processes, which takes into account both the characteristics of the information and caregivers’ individual factors.

The problem of prevention

Most people aspire to healthy living but staying healthy and preventing illness carry a cost—counted in money, time, effort, information, trust, and willpower. The principles of prevention can be framed as a conditional, testable hypothesis: prevention is more likely to be favoured when individuals or populations can choose, given the constraints presented in any setting, a low-cost, high-efficacy method of averting a large, probable, imminent threat to health. The decisions that people make about health depend, not only on quantified options, risks, hazards, and timing, but also on the incentives, motives, powers, and values of everyone who has a stake in the outcome—individuals, governments, non-governmental organizations, businesses, and others. Data presented in this chapter suggest that more money and effort are invested in prevention today than is commonly thought, but the enormous, persistent, avoidable burden of ill health is a reason to seek ways of investing still more.

TOOP Trust Architecture

While information security nowadays represents a core concern for any organization, Trust Management is usually less elaborated and is only important when two or more organizations cooperate towards a common objective. The overall Once-Only Principle Project (TOOP) architecture relies on the concept of trusted sources of information and on the existence of a secure exchange channel between the Data Providers and the Data Consumers in this interaction framework. Trust and information security are two cross-cutting concerns of paramount importance. These two concerns are overlapping, but not identical and they span all of the interoperability layers, from the legal down to the technical, passing through organizational and semantic layers. While information security aims at the preservation of confidentiality, integrity and availability of information, trust establishment guarantees that the origin and the destination of the data and documents are authentic (authenticity) and trustworthy (trustworthiness), and that data and documents are secured against any modification by untrusted parties (integrity). In this chapter, the TOOP Trust Architecture is presented, starting from a simple abstract model of interaction between two agents down to the detailed end-to-end trust establishment architecture, modeled onto the Toop Reference Architecture presented in the previous chapter.