Academic Publications: Information Technology
Managing Risk of IT Disruptions in Healthcare Settings: A Continuity of Operations Planning Process
Scott Dynes, Stephen Pixley, Douglas Madory
Proceedings of the 2009 AMCIS
Over the last few decades, a rapid adoption of information technologies in nearly every facet of patient care in healthcare settings has taken place; the recent U.S. government emphasis on the utilization of IT in healthcare will only serve to increase the dependency of care providers on IT. As IT becomes increasingly central to clinical and business practice, health care institutions must become increasingly vigilant about preparations for continuity of operations when normal IT functions are disrupted. In this paper we describe the development and use of a process designed to manage the risk to patient safety and clinical operations due to IT and communications failures; this process includes identifying critical applications and formulating plans for organizational and departmental responses in cases of IT and communication failures. Lessons learned will be discussed in the context of enabling other healthcare organizations to use this process.
in PDF Format (648K)
Topics: Information Technology, Risk
Cyber Security: Are Economic Incentives Adequate?
Scott Dynes, Eric Goetz, Michael Freeman
Critical Infrastructure Protection, Springer, editors Eric Goetz and Sujeet Shenoi, 2008
Protecting national critical infrastructure assets from cyber incidents is an important challenge. This article examines the threats faced by for-profit critical infrastructure entities, the incentives and drivers that influence investment in cyber security measures, and how policy initiatives might influence cyber preparedness in critical infrastructure entities.
Overview in PDF Format (1319K)
The Evolution of the Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Industry and the Security Risks for Users
M. Eric Johnson, Dan McGuire,
Proceedings of the 41st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2008
This paper examines the peer-to-peer file sharing phenomena, including an overview of the industry, its business models, and evolution. The authors describe the information security risks users’ face including personal identification disclosure and leakage of proprietary business information.
Overview in PDF Format (353K)
Topics: Data, Information Security, Information Technology, Risk
TeCFlow - A Temporal Communication Flow Visualizer for Social Network Analysis
Peter A. Gloor, MIT Center for Coordination Science, Yan Zhoa
ACM CSCW Conference, 2004
This paper introduces an approach for organizational redesign and optimization of communication flows basedon temporal analysis of communication patterns in groups of people. Our Temporal Communication Flow Visualizer automatically generates interactive movies of communication flows among individuals by mining email log files and other communication archives. Combining those movies with measures of social network analysis such as the change over time in group between centrality (GBC) and group density leads to deep insights into organizational dynamics. In addition we have defined a contribution index, which measures the activity of an individual as a sender and receiver of messages relative to a team. Based on these findings we can make predictions on the productivity of teams and suggest interventions for improved performance.
Paper in PDF Format (99K)
Topics: Change, Communication, Information Technology, Organization, Performance, Social Media