purpose: the aim of this study was to investigate the barriers to information seeking behaviors (in the phases of needs identification, information seeking, designing search strategy formula, and using information) of faculty members of islamic azad university of shiraz based on the expansion of dervin’s sense making theory (kari’s theory). methodology: this is an applied study using the survey...

Proper use of climatic forecast information in planning and implementing agricultural activities is critical for the improvement of the wellbeing of smallholder farmers whose livelihoods depend on rain-fed agriculture. This study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design involving 12 focus group discussions and 255 household interviews to determine the extent to which smallholder farmers in...

Privacy policies in sectors as diverse as Web services, finance and healthcare often place restrictions on the purposes for which a governed entity may use personal information. Thus, automated methods for enforcing privacy policies require a semantics of purpose restrictions to determine whether a governed agent used information for a purpose. We provide such a semantics using a formalism base...

The availability of informational materials to aid consumer health care purchasing decisions is increasing. Organizations developing and disseminating materials include public- and private-sector employers, providers, purchasing cooperatives, State agencies, counseling programs, and accreditation bodies. Based on case study interviews with 24 organizations, we learned that 10 included consumer ...