Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / The study is on non-profit organizations use of data to analyze and plan projects. It looks at Geographical Information Systems as a tool that could benefit organizations in their data management, project creation, and community collaboration. Case study research was used to analyze three different tree maps created by non-profit organizations. The case studies looked specifically at the organizations’ use of GIS in the data management, project creation, and community collaboration aspects of the maps. By looking at these aspects, it was concluded that GIS is a beneficial tool for non-profit organizations, even on the most basic level. As the organizations become more financially able to afford better software, the GIS capabilities become more beneficial. Non-profits should try to incorporate GIS at any level into their organization.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to provide a structured process to evaluate data sharing opportunities. In doing so, we provide a three phase process that assists data owners to increase utilisation of their resource, as well as introducing the possibility to scale such a process to other industries through future research. Method – To gain insights, thematic analysis was used on data collected through a single case study in three separate waves of interviews, as well as through observations. A total of 13 respondents were involved, all industry experts from a global pharmaceutical company working actively with the researched question. Findings – The findings resulted in 25 challenges with the current evaluation process, segmented into 11 sub themes and four main themes: Unstructured process for evaluating data sharing, Unclear information gathering requirements, Lack of objective evaluation criteria, and Uncertain decision making. Theoretical contribution – This study contributes to the existing literature by conceptualising challenges with evaluating data sharing opportunities. Furthermore, by applying principles and logic of Stage-Gate methodology, the thesis introduces a more structured way of evaluating data sharing opportunities. Practical contribution – This study introduces a process for data owners and companies within the pharmaceutical industry that facilitate a smoother and more efficient workflow when faced with data sharing opportunities. Our three phase process promotes utilisation to increase development through data sharing. Limitations of the study – The case study was limited to a single company that imposed the risk of bias and misguided focus. We propose future research to trial the recommended process in other companies within the pharmaceutical industry as well as introduce it to other data focused industries. / Syfte - Syftet med den här studien är att tillhandahålla en strukturerad process för att utvärdera möjligheter till datadelning. Därmed tillhandahåller vi en process i tre faser som hjälper dataägare att öka utnyttjandet av sina resurser och som ger möjlighet att skala upp en sådan process till andra branscher genom framtida forskning. Metod - För att få insikter användes tematisk analys av data som samlats in genom en enda fallstudie i tre separata intervjuer samt genom observationer. Totalt deltog 13 respondenter, alla branschexperter från ett globalt läkemedelsföretag som arbetar aktivt med den aktuella forskningsfrågan. Resultat - Resultaten resulterade i 25 utmaningar med den nuvarande utvärderingsprocessen, uppdelade i 11 underteman och fyra huvudteman: Ostrukturerad process för utvärdering av datadelning, otydliga krav på informationsinsamling, brist på objektiva utvärderingskriterier och osäkert beslutsfattande. Teoretiskt bidrag - Den här studien bidrar till den befintliga litteraturen genom att konceptualisera utmaningar med att utvärdera möjligheter till datadelning. Genom att tillämpa principerna och logiken i Stage-Gate-metodiken introducerar avhandlingen dessutom ett mer strukturerat sätt att utvärdera möjligheter till datadelning. Praktiskt bidrag - I denna studie introduceras en process för dataägare och företag inom läkemedelsindustrin som underlättar ett smidigare och effektivare arbetsflöde när de ställs inför möjligheter till datadelning. Vår process i tre faser främjar utnyttjandet för att öka utvecklingen genom datadelning. Begränsningar i studien - Fallstudien var begränsad till ett enda företag, vilket medförde en risk för bias och missriktad fokus. Vi föreslår framtida forskning för att testa den rekommenderade processen i andra företag inom läkemedelsindustrin samt införa den i andra datafokuserade branscher.

With Industrial Internet, businesses can pool their resources to acquire large amounts of data that can then be used in machine learning tasks. Despite the potential to speed up training and deployment and improve decision-making through data-sharing, rising privacy concerns are slowing the spread of such technologies. As businesses are naturally protective of their data, this poses a barrier to interoperability. While previous research has focused on privacy-preserving methods, existing works typically consider data that is averaged or randomly sampled by all contributors rather than selecting data that are best suited for a specific downstream learning task. In response to the dearth of efficient data-sharing methods for diverse machine learning tasks in the Industrial Internet, this work presents an end-to end working demonstration of a search engine prototype built on PriED, a task-driven data-sharing approach that enhances the performance of supervised learning by judiciously fusing shared and local participant data. / Master of Science / My work focuses on PriED - a data sharing framework that enhances machine learning performance while also preserving user data privacy. In particular, I have built a working demonstration of a search engine that leverages the PriED framework and allows users to collaborate with their data without compromising their data privacy.

The movement towards open access has allowed academic researchers to communicate and share their scholarly content more widely by being freely available to Internet users. However, there are still issues of concern among faculty in regards to making their scholarly output open access. This study surveyed Virginia Tech faculty (N = 264) awareness and attitudes toward open access practices. In addition, faculty were asked to identify factors that inhibited or encouraged their participation in open access repositories. Findings indicate that while the majority of Virginia Tech faculty are seeking to publish in open access, many are unaware of the open access services provided by the university and even less are using the services available to them. Time, effort, and costs were identified as factors inhibiting open access and data sharing practices. Differences in awareness and attitudes towards open access were observed among faculty ranks and areas of research. Virginia Tech will need to increase faculty awareness of institutional open access repositories and maximize benefits over perceived costs if there is to be more faculty participation in open access practices. / Master of Arts / The movement towards open access has allowed academic researchers to communicate and share their scholarly content more widely by being freely available to Internet users. However, there are still issues of concern among faculty in regards to making their scholarly output open access. This study surveyed Virginia Tech faculty (N = 264) awareness and attitudes toward open access practices. In addition, faculty were asked to identify factors that inhibited or encouraged their participation in open access repositories. Findings indicate that while the majority of Virginia Tech faculty are seeking to publish in open access, many are unaware of the open access services provided by the university and even less are using the services available to them. Time, effort, and costs were identified as factors inhibiting open access and data sharing practices. Differences in awareness and attitudes towards open access were observed among faculty ranks and areas of research. Virginia Tech will need to increase faculty awareness of institutional open access repositories and maximize benefits over perceived costs if there is to be more faculty participation in open access practices.

This presentation was given at the 2012 Open Access Week program, “The Open Data Revolution: Challenges and Innovations” on October 23, 2012. Open Access Week is a world-wide event where academic institutions explore Open Access – the ideal of free, full-text, immediate, online access to peer-reviewed scholarship and research results so new ideas and information can be obtained rapidly and freely by everyone. Many funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, and journal publishers, such as Nature, require researchers to share data produced during the course of their research. When researchers share their data, other researchers can reuse it to answer new questions, opening up new interpretations and discoveries. Sharing data may also lead to sharing research processes, workflows and tools and may make research articles and papers more useful and citable by others.

Presentation given on October 27, 2016 at Data Reproducibility: Integrity and Transparency program as part of Open Access Week 2016. / We describe a study into the extent to which Computer Systems researchers share their code and data. Starting with 601 papers from ACM conferences and journals, we examine the papers whose results were backed by code to see for what fraction of these we would be able to obtain and build the code. Based on the results of this study, we propose a novel sharing specification scheme that requires researchers to specify the level of sharing that reviewers and readers can assume from a paper.

This research started with a realization that two organizations in Saudi Arabia were spending large amounts of money, millions of dollars in fact, in acquiring separate sets of geospatial data that had identical basemap components. Both the organizations would be using the data for similar engineering purposes, yet both would be independently outsourcing the data gathering. In all probability, resources are being wasted through two organizations each developing and operating stand-alone geographic information systems and then populating the databases with geospatial data obtained separately. Surely with some cooperation, a shared database could be established, with a diffusion of economic benefits to both organizations. Preliminary discussions with representatives from both the organizations revealed high levels of enthusiasm for the principle of sharing geospatial data, but the discussions also revealed even higher levels of scepticism that such a scheme could be implemented. This dichotomy of views prompted an investigation into the issues, benefits and the barriers involved in data sharing, the relative weight of these issues, and a quest for a workable model. Sharing geospatial data between levels of government, between governmental and private institutions, and within institutions themselves has been attempted on large and small scales in a variety of countries, with varying degrees of accomplishment. Lessons can be learned from these attempts at data sharing, confirming that success is not purely a function of financial and technical benefits, but is also influenced by institutional and cultural aspects. This research is aimed at defining why there is little geospatial data sharing between authorities in Saudi Arabia, and then presenting a workable model as a pilot arrangement. This should take into account issues raised in reference material; issues evidenced through experience in the implementation of systems that were configured as independent structures; issues of culture; and issues apparent in a range of existing data sharing arrangements. The doubts expressed by engineering managers towards using a geospatial database that is shared between institutions in Saudi Arabia have been borne out by the complexity of interrelationships which this research has revealed. Nevertheless, by concentrating on a two party entry level, a model has been presented which shows promise for the implementation of such a scheme. The model was derived empirically and checked against a case study of various other similar ventures, with a consideration of their applicability in the environment of Saudi Arabia. This model follows closely the generic structure of the Singapore Land Hub. The scalability of the model should allow it to be extended to other, multi-lateral data sharing arrangements. An alternative solution could be developed based on a Spatial Data Infrastructure model and this is suggested for ongoing investigation. Major unresolved questions relate to cultural issues, whose depth and intricacy have the potential to influence the realization of successful geospatial data sharing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In the past decade efforts to develop spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) have migrated from the initial “top-down” national approaches to “bottom-up” and cross jurisdictional efforts at the sub-national level. Although national SDI developments are fundamental to building the SDI culture and policy, it is sub-national and local SDI development that will deliver the immediate benefits to citizens and the community. In countries which have highly decentralised federations of states such as Australia, United States and Canada, the challenge is how to co-ordinate the literally thousands of often small local government jurisdictions which are important contributors to state and local SDIs. In recent years, a number of co-operative spatial data sharing partnerships between local and state government have emerged in various countries around the world. These partnerships are relatively new initiatives that have been established to facilitate more effective sharing of spatial data between organisations, but also as a mechanism to contribute to SDI development. To maximise the benefits from these partnerships it is essential to understand the factors that contribute to their successful operation and sustainability. Therefore, the focus of this research is to understand these collaborative arrangements so that future data sharing initiatives can be improved and sustained.

Cybercrimes have been rapidly increasing over the past decade becoming more sophisticated and increasing victimization, resulting in an increased load of the police in the effort to prevent and stop these crimes. This study explores the challenges the Danish police encounter facing cybercrime and their approach to preventing it. The data were collected through interviewing individuals on a managing level in two different departments dealing with cybercrime within the Danish police force. The data were analyzed thematically to identify key issues. The main challenges found being; the time frame the police has to act upon in reference to the nature of the data, the culture that exists on the internet and distinguishing jokes from threats, the effortlessness of criminals justifying once actions, and the visible presence of the police on the internet. The primary focus of prevention to deal with some of these issues is moving towards creating a healthy network between the police and the private sector, in an effort to create a shared responsibility and a forum of which information can be shared to create a possible united front towards cybercrime.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The generation of biomedical research data on the African continent is growing, with numerous studies realizing the importance of African genetic diversity in discoveries of human origins and disease susceptibility. The decrease in costs to purchase and utilize such tools has enabled research groups to produce datasets of significant scientific value. However, this success story has resulted in a new challenge for African Researchers and institutions. An increase in data scale and complexity has led to an imbalance of infrastructure and skills to manage, store and analyse this data