Natalie Helbig | SUNY: University at Albany (original) (raw)
Papers by Natalie Helbig
Advances in Social Work
Social media is changing how those in the helping professions offer clinical, medical, or educati... more Social media is changing how those in the helping professions offer clinical, medical, or educational services, provide referrals, administer therapeutic interventions, and conduct research. Non-profits and government organizations working with vulnerable populations need to consider the possibility of ethical mistakes when using social media. A comparison of Facebook strategies used with the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) mandate to engage and locate current and former youth in the child welfare system was conducted. Facebook practices and strategies were examined based on the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Standards for Technology and Social Work Practice. The ethical standards examined include: obtaining consent, preserving confidentiality, verifying youth identity online, and avoiding disclosure of foster care affiliation. Findings demonstrate the importance of providing guidelines and b...
Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research
This is the second issue of the eleventh volume of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electro... more This is the second issue of the eleventh volume of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER). In this editorial we: (a) congratulate all those who are part of JTAER for the inclusion of the journal in the Social Science Citation Index; (b) briefly show increasing number of citations per year; (c) announce a forthcoming special issue; and (d) we make a call to those interested in becoming reviewers or members of the editorial board of JTAER.
Government Information Quarterly
Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Jan 3, 2007
For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and pra... more For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and practitioners have wished for research that actually helps them solve pressing problems. This is particularly true for digital government research which emphasizes positive change. Differences in professional culture and lack of mutual understanding about the nature and uses of research lead to this
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, May 1, 2014
Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP, Jan 23, 2016
Government datasets are newly available on open data platforms that are publicly accessible, avai... more Government datasets are newly available on open data platforms that are publicly accessible, available in nonproprietary formats, free of charge, and with unlimited use and distribution rights. They provide opportunities for health research, but their quality and usability are unknown. To describe available open health data, identify whether data are presented in a way that is aligned with best practices and usable for researchers, and examine differences across platforms. Two reviewers systematically reviewed a random sample of data offerings on NYC OpenData (New York City, all offerings, n = 37), Health Data NY (New York State, 25% sample, n = 71), and HealthData.gov (US Department of Health and Human Services, 5% sample, n = 75), using a standard coding guide. Three open health data platforms at the federal, New York State, and New York City levels. Data characteristics from the coding guide were aggregated into summary indices for intrinsic data quality, contextual data quality,...
The last seven to ten years has been a time of growth and formalization for digital government (D... more The last seven to ten years has been a time of growth and formalization for digital government (DG) research, spurred especially in the past five years by the existence of the NSF Digital Government Research Program. A community of DG researchers appears to be emerging that ...
Proceedings of the 13th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research - dg.o '12, 2012
Policy informatics is an emergent area of study that explores how information and communication t... more Policy informatics is an emergent area of study that explores how information and communication technology can support policy making and governance. Policy informatics recognizes that more kinds, sources and volumes of information, coupled with evolving analytical and computational tools, present important opportunities to address increasingly complex social, political, and management problems. However, while new types and sources of information hold much promise for policy analysis, the specific characteristics of any particular government information resource strongly influences its fitness and usability for analytical purposes. We therefore contend that information itself should be a critical research topic in policy informatics. This poster presentation shows how different aspects of information conceptualization, management, quality, and use can affect its "fitness" for policy analysis.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010
Information-based strategies to promote open government offer many opportunities to generate soci... more Information-based strategies to promote open government offer many opportunities to generate social and economic value through public use of government information. Public and political expectations for the success of these strategies are high but they confront the challenges of making government data "fit for use" by a variety of users outside the government. Research findings from a study of public use of land records demonstrates the inherent complexity of public use of government information, while research from information science, management information systems, and e-government offer perspectives on key factors associated with effective information use. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for information-based open government strategies as well as areas for future research.
2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07), 2007
For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and pra... more For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and practitioners have wished for research that actually helps them solve pressing problems. This is particularly true for digital government research which emphasizes positive change. Differences in professional culture and lack of mutual understanding about the nature and uses of research lead to this
Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP, Jan 7, 2014
Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make informati... more Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make information more accessible. New York is a leader, with currently the only state platform devoted to health. Although these platforms could build public health departments' capabilities to serve more researchers, agencies have little guidance on releasing meaningful and usable data. Structured focus groups with researchers and practitioners collected stakeholder feedback on potential uses of open health data and New York's open data strategy. Researchers and practitioners attended a 1-day November 2013 workshop on New York State's open health data resources. After learning about the state's open data platform and vision for open health data, participants were organized into 7 focus groups to discuss the essential elements of open data sets, practical challenges to obtaining and using health data, and potential uses of open data. Participants included 33 quantitative health researc...
Policy Practice and Digital Science, 2015
Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 2014
Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make informati... more Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make information more accessible. New York is a leader, with currently the only state platform devoted to health. Although these platforms could build public health departments' capabilities to serve more researchers, agencies have little guidance on releasing meaningful and usable data. Structured focus groups with researchers and practitioners collected stakeholder feedback on potential uses of open health data and New York's open data strategy. Researchers and practitioners attended a 1-day November 2013 workshop on New York State's open health data resources. After learning about the state's open data platform and vision for open health data, participants were organized into 7 focus groups to discuss the essential elements of open data sets, practical challenges to obtaining and using health data, and potential uses of open data. Participants included 33 quantitative health researchers from State University of New York campuses and private partners and 10 practitioners from the New York State Department of Health. There was low awareness of open data, with 67% of researchers reporting never using open data portals prior to the workshop. Participants were interested in data sets that were geocoded, longitudinal, or aggregated to small area granularity and capabilities to link multiple data sets. Multiple environmental conditions and barriers hinder their capacity to use health data for research. Although open data platforms cannot address all barriers, they provide multiple opportunities for public health research and practice, and participants were overall positive about the state's efforts to release open data. Open data are not ideal for some researchers because they do not contain individually identifiable data, indicating a need for tiered data release strategies. However, they do provide important new opportunities to facilitate research and foster collaborations among agencies, researchers, and practitioners.
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance - ICEGOV '10, 2010
As government agencies are increasingly looking to leverage Social Media (SM) to improve the qual... more As government agencies are increasingly looking to leverage Social Media (SM) to improve the quality of government services and engage citizens, they continue to face many challenges that may impede successful adoption of such emerging tools. This poster draws upon a project being conducted by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) that aims to provide government professionals with guidance
Handbook of Research on Global Diffusion of Broadband Data Transmission, 2008
Reducing the digital divide in order to build an information society for all is one of the top pr... more Reducing the digital divide in order to build an information society for all is one of the top priorities for European policymakers. A better understanding of the determinants of broadband access at the individual level represents a key starting point for any e-inclusion policy. Based on ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
Scholars from different disciplines have recently studied a phenomenon called the digital divide... more Scholars from different disciplines have recently studied a phenomenon called the digital divide. Since many of the new government information technology initiatives are based on Internet technologies and require the use of the Internet by citizens, understanding the ...
Government Information Quarterly, 2014
ABSTRACT Smart government is used to characterize activities that creatively invest in emergent t... more ABSTRACT Smart government is used to characterize activities that creatively invest in emergent technologies coupled with innovative strategies to achieve more agile and resilient government structures and governance infrastructures. However, there is no consensus in terms of what this term includes and how it is related to emergent technologies and innovation in the public sector. This introductory paper provides readers with ways to think about smart government and summarizes findings from twelve articles included in this special issue. These articles, which are the best papers of the 6th International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2012), contribute to emerging understanding of being smart in government settings. The articles span a great diversity of related topics such as smart cities, open government, and participation mechanisms. Collectively, the articles provide perspectives on the nature of smart governments and illustrate exemplar practices and initiatives on how governments are opening up and transforming service delivery to become smarter. The special issue in its entirety contributes to understanding governance structures, technical infrastructures, and other requirements geared toward supporting the operations of smarter governments around the world.
Advances in Social Work
Social media is changing how those in the helping professions offer clinical, medical, or educati... more Social media is changing how those in the helping professions offer clinical, medical, or educational services, provide referrals, administer therapeutic interventions, and conduct research. Non-profits and government organizations working with vulnerable populations need to consider the possibility of ethical mistakes when using social media. A comparison of Facebook strategies used with the National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD) mandate to engage and locate current and former youth in the child welfare system was conducted. Facebook practices and strategies were examined based on the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Standards for Technology and Social Work Practice. The ethical standards examined include: obtaining consent, preserving confidentiality, verifying youth identity online, and avoiding disclosure of foster care affiliation. Findings demonstrate the importance of providing guidelines and b...
Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research
This is the second issue of the eleventh volume of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electro... more This is the second issue of the eleventh volume of the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research (JTAER). In this editorial we: (a) congratulate all those who are part of JTAER for the inclusion of the journal in the Social Science Citation Index; (b) briefly show increasing number of citations per year; (c) announce a forthcoming special issue; and (d) we make a call to those interested in becoming reviewers or members of the editorial board of JTAER.
Government Information Quarterly
Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Jan 3, 2007
For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and pra... more For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and practitioners have wished for research that actually helps them solve pressing problems. This is particularly true for digital government research which emphasizes positive change. Differences in professional culture and lack of mutual understanding about the nature and uses of research lead to this
Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, May 1, 2014
Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP, Jan 23, 2016
Government datasets are newly available on open data platforms that are publicly accessible, avai... more Government datasets are newly available on open data platforms that are publicly accessible, available in nonproprietary formats, free of charge, and with unlimited use and distribution rights. They provide opportunities for health research, but their quality and usability are unknown. To describe available open health data, identify whether data are presented in a way that is aligned with best practices and usable for researchers, and examine differences across platforms. Two reviewers systematically reviewed a random sample of data offerings on NYC OpenData (New York City, all offerings, n = 37), Health Data NY (New York State, 25% sample, n = 71), and HealthData.gov (US Department of Health and Human Services, 5% sample, n = 75), using a standard coding guide. Three open health data platforms at the federal, New York State, and New York City levels. Data characteristics from the coding guide were aggregated into summary indices for intrinsic data quality, contextual data quality,...
The last seven to ten years has been a time of growth and formalization for digital government (D... more The last seven to ten years has been a time of growth and formalization for digital government (DG) research, spurred especially in the past five years by the existence of the NSF Digital Government Research Program. A community of DG researchers appears to be emerging that ...
Proceedings of the 13th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research - dg.o '12, 2012
Policy informatics is an emergent area of study that explores how information and communication t... more Policy informatics is an emergent area of study that explores how information and communication technology can support policy making and governance. Policy informatics recognizes that more kinds, sources and volumes of information, coupled with evolving analytical and computational tools, present important opportunities to address increasingly complex social, political, and management problems. However, while new types and sources of information hold much promise for policy analysis, the specific characteristics of any particular government information resource strongly influences its fitness and usability for analytical purposes. We therefore contend that information itself should be a critical research topic in policy informatics. This poster presentation shows how different aspects of information conceptualization, management, quality, and use can affect its "fitness" for policy analysis.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2010
Information-based strategies to promote open government offer many opportunities to generate soci... more Information-based strategies to promote open government offer many opportunities to generate social and economic value through public use of government information. Public and political expectations for the success of these strategies are high but they confront the challenges of making government data "fit for use" by a variety of users outside the government. Research findings from a study of public use of land records demonstrates the inherent complexity of public use of government information, while research from information science, management information systems, and e-government offer perspectives on key factors associated with effective information use. The paper concludes with practical recommendations for information-based open government strategies as well as areas for future research.
2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07), 2007
For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and pra... more For decades researchers have sought ways to make their work have more impact on the world and practitioners have wished for research that actually helps them solve pressing problems. This is particularly true for digital government research which emphasizes positive change. Differences in professional culture and lack of mutual understanding about the nature and uses of research lead to this
Journal of public health management and practice : JPHMP, Jan 7, 2014
Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make informati... more Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make information more accessible. New York is a leader, with currently the only state platform devoted to health. Although these platforms could build public health departments' capabilities to serve more researchers, agencies have little guidance on releasing meaningful and usable data. Structured focus groups with researchers and practitioners collected stakeholder feedback on potential uses of open health data and New York's open data strategy. Researchers and practitioners attended a 1-day November 2013 workshop on New York State's open health data resources. After learning about the state's open data platform and vision for open health data, participants were organized into 7 focus groups to discuss the essential elements of open data sets, practical challenges to obtaining and using health data, and potential uses of open data. Participants included 33 quantitative health researc...
Policy Practice and Digital Science, 2015
Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 2014
Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make informati... more Governments are rapidly developing open data platforms to improve transparency and make information more accessible. New York is a leader, with currently the only state platform devoted to health. Although these platforms could build public health departments' capabilities to serve more researchers, agencies have little guidance on releasing meaningful and usable data. Structured focus groups with researchers and practitioners collected stakeholder feedback on potential uses of open health data and New York's open data strategy. Researchers and practitioners attended a 1-day November 2013 workshop on New York State's open health data resources. After learning about the state's open data platform and vision for open health data, participants were organized into 7 focus groups to discuss the essential elements of open data sets, practical challenges to obtaining and using health data, and potential uses of open data. Participants included 33 quantitative health researchers from State University of New York campuses and private partners and 10 practitioners from the New York State Department of Health. There was low awareness of open data, with 67% of researchers reporting never using open data portals prior to the workshop. Participants were interested in data sets that were geocoded, longitudinal, or aggregated to small area granularity and capabilities to link multiple data sets. Multiple environmental conditions and barriers hinder their capacity to use health data for research. Although open data platforms cannot address all barriers, they provide multiple opportunities for public health research and practice, and participants were overall positive about the state's efforts to release open data. Open data are not ideal for some researchers because they do not contain individually identifiable data, indicating a need for tiered data release strategies. However, they do provide important new opportunities to facilitate research and foster collaborations among agencies, researchers, and practitioners.
Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance - ICEGOV '10, 2010
As government agencies are increasingly looking to leverage Social Media (SM) to improve the qual... more As government agencies are increasingly looking to leverage Social Media (SM) to improve the quality of government services and engage citizens, they continue to face many challenges that may impede successful adoption of such emerging tools. This poster draws upon a project being conducted by the Center for Technology in Government (CTG) that aims to provide government professionals with guidance
Handbook of Research on Global Diffusion of Broadband Data Transmission, 2008
Reducing the digital divide in order to build an information society for all is one of the top pr... more Reducing the digital divide in order to build an information society for all is one of the top priorities for European policymakers. A better understanding of the determinants of broadband access at the individual level represents a key starting point for any e-inclusion policy. Based on ...
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2006
Scholars from different disciplines have recently studied a phenomenon called the digital divide... more Scholars from different disciplines have recently studied a phenomenon called the digital divide. Since many of the new government information technology initiatives are based on Internet technologies and require the use of the Internet by citizens, understanding the ...
Government Information Quarterly, 2014
ABSTRACT Smart government is used to characterize activities that creatively invest in emergent t... more ABSTRACT Smart government is used to characterize activities that creatively invest in emergent technologies coupled with innovative strategies to achieve more agile and resilient government structures and governance infrastructures. However, there is no consensus in terms of what this term includes and how it is related to emergent technologies and innovation in the public sector. This introductory paper provides readers with ways to think about smart government and summarizes findings from twelve articles included in this special issue. These articles, which are the best papers of the 6th International Conference on the Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV2012), contribute to emerging understanding of being smart in government settings. The articles span a great diversity of related topics such as smart cities, open government, and participation mechanisms. Collectively, the articles provide perspectives on the nature of smart governments and illustrate exemplar practices and initiatives on how governments are opening up and transforming service delivery to become smarter. The special issue in its entirety contributes to understanding governance structures, technical infrastructures, and other requirements geared toward supporting the operations of smarter governments around the world.