Other Facets of Informatics

(The links in this section are off this site. Inclusion here is for your convenience in locating more information about a topic. Inclusion does not indicate endorsement.)

Critical Thinking

Bhavnani, S. & John, B. (n.d.) From Sufficient to Efficient Usage: An Analysis of Strategic Knowledge.This article focuses on efficiency in using computer tools. Although it uses some examples for learning to use computer-assisted-drawing, the principles espoused are very pertinent to critical thinking as well as use of any tool. Their main premise is that efficiency (and possibly quality) lies in the ability to aggregate tasks and see how to accomplish them as a whole instead of in a one by one fashion.

Critical Thinking across the Curriculum Project, Longview Community College. (1996). Provides some excellent resources on this topic. One or two links may not work, but mostly they do. Well worth looking at from information on what critical thinking is as well as its various facets.
http://www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/longview/ctac/toc.htm

Critical Thinking Guidelines. As the title implies, guides that will make this concept operational. Excellent source. Includes a link to guidelines for developing a concept map. (Added January 7, 2006)
http://www.coun.uvic.ca/learn/crit.html

Decision Support / Expert Systems

Coiera, (1997). Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. This chapter is from Chapter 19 of the Guide to Medical Informatics, the Internet and Telemedicine. Provides an excellent description of the dream and reality. Addresses how AI can help medical knowledge. Unfortunately, none of the links in the article work, but the information is still valuable.
http://www.coiera.com/aimd.htm

HIMSS Clinical Decision Support Implementers' Workbook. Available on line for downloading. This workbook is designed to help healthcare organizations use clinical decision support (CDS) to measurably improve outcomes important to the organization. It helps readers guide the selection, customization, and implementation of the most usable and effective CDS interventions to address specific clinical or strategic concerns. (Added May 8, 2005)
http://www.himss.org/ASP/topics_cds_workbook.asp?faid=108&tid=14

Open Clinical Knowleldge Management for Medical Care. Besides the above, there are many links here to more information about decision support systems. Some full text white papers are available, along with a biography that links to abstracts of articles in Pub Med.
http://www.openclinical.org/home.htmld

Paniers, T. L. Selecting Appropriate Problems For Decision Support System Development in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. A one page discussion of this topic. PDF File
http://www.amia.org/pubs/symposia/D005576.PDF

Silverman, B. (199). The Initial Failure of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine (AIM), the Rise of the Grand Challenge, and a New Role for AIM Paper presented at a Human Centered Systems Workshop for the National Science Foundation Workshop, November 13-14, 1997. An interesting look at this topic.
http://www.ifp.uiuc.edu/nabhcs/abstracts/silverman.html

Nursing Decision Support and Expert Systems. A part of a course at Kwantlen College in British Columbia. The information here is excellent as are the links at the end of the page.
http://www.nursing-informatics.com/kwantlen/nrsg3110.html

Evidence Based Practice (EBP)

Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice. The University of Texas Health Sciences Consortium page about evidence-based practice. Contains Kathleen Stevens ACE Star Model of Knowledge Transformation. (Added October 25, 2006)
http://www.acestar.uthscsa.edu/Learn_model.htm

BMJ Updates provides a searchable indeix to current best evidence from medical research. Some searches will produce the full text, others, links to a site from which they may be purchased. You need to register to use this site, but it is free. You may also register for periodic emails about areas of interest. (Added July 22, 2007)
http://bmjupdates.mcmaster.ca/index.asp

Centre for Health Evidence. Users' Guides to Evidence-Based Practice. A collection of many articles about EBP including a background discussion, tips on how to get started, and many "how to's." Many resources here. Although oriented towards medicine, the principles for nursing are the same.
http://www.cche.net/usersguides/main.asp

Cochrane Collection. This was developed to provide systematic, up-to-date reviews of all relevant randomized controlled trials of health care. It is an international organization whose purpose is to help people make well informed decisions about health care by preparing, maintaining and ensuring the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of health care interventions.
http://www.cochrane.org/

ERIC Notebook. Health Care Epidemiology: Evidence-Based Practice. An excellent pdf paper that thoroughly discusses evidence-based practice in health care in a how to manner starting withframing a question, progressing to selecting studies, synthesizing the information, evaluating the studies, drawing conclusions, writing clinical recommendations, implementing the recommendations, and evaluating the implementation. (Added May 10, 2007)
http://www2.sph.unc.edu/courses/eric/notebooks/jan-feb2003.pdf

Evidence Report Topics from Evidence-based Practice Centers. The findings of meta analysis of many medical conditions that have been evaluated by the 12 Evidence-based Practice Centers.
http://www.ahcpr.gov/clinic/epcquick.htm

Techniques for Locating Evidence-Based Practice Resources. Although medically aimed, is equally applicable to nursing. Includes a definition of EBP, the terminology, and a description of the types of evidence. The links to some articles don't work for those outside the University of Washington, but other links do and are excellent. ( Added January 7, 2006)
http://healthlinks.washington.edu/howto/ebp/

Expert Systems (Added October 13, 2003)

Engelmore, R. S. & Feigenbaum, E. (1993). Expert systems and artificial intelligence. An introduction to these two topics written in easily understood language.
http://www.wtec.org/loyola/kb/c1_s1.htm

Information Literacy

Bunz, U. K. & Sypher, H. E. (n.d.)The Computer-Email-Web (CEW) Fluency Scale - Development and Validation. PDF File. Reviews fluency test, and describes the project. Includes the tool in the appendix. (30 pages).
http://bunz.comm.fsu.edu/NCA2001fluency2.pdf

Florida International University Libraries links to information literacy resources on the WWW. All links are organized into categories, and a brief description given for each site.
http://www.fiu.edu/~library/ili/iliweb.html

Information Literacy: An Overview of Design, Process and Outcomes: The Building Blocks of Research. An overview of skills, strategies for achieving and expected outcomes plus hints for curriculum design for imparting knowledge of information literacy.
http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/information/1over/infolit1.html

Information Literacy in a Nutshell: Basic Information for Academic Administrators and Faculty. Not only is an informative source, but provides links to others.
http://www.ala.org/acrl/nili/whatis.html

Humes, B. (1999). Understanding Information Literacy. A paper that addresses many aspects of information literacy including why we should be concerned about it, and implications for teaching, learning, the workplace, and society.
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/UnderLit/index.html

Information Literacy a 21st Century Skill. A good definition of information literacy and a list of behaviors seen with information literacy. Follow the link to table of contents for links to definitions and behaviors of other types of literacy including other types of digital literacy. (Added January 7, 2006)
http://www.ncrel.org/engauge/skills/infolit.htm

Online Tutorials for many different aspects of finding information. Sponsored by the Northwestern State University of Louisianna Libraries, these are very helpful. (Added October 4, 2006)
http://www.nsula.edu/watson_library/online_tutorials.htm

Process Models for Information Literacy. A comparison of the skills required in information seeking, problem solving, and research from the Washington Library Media Association.
http://www.wlma.org/Instruction/processmodels.htm

Washington Library Media Association's Benchmarks for information literacy skills. Although addressed to grades 4, 7 and 10, many of these skills can be packaged at a higher level for nursing students.
http://www.wlma.org/Instruction/benchmarks.htm

Research

ATLAS/ti. A software package for qualitative researchers, that provides a visual qualitative analysis of large bodies of textual, graphical, and audio data. Download a demo CD version. (Don't forget to click on the English tab!)
http://www.atlasti.de/

Beginner's Research Guide. This is a self-paced tutorial about nursing resources. It includes information about searching, locating books, locating article citations, finding journals, and database tutorials. (Added July 24, 2007)
http://library.nyu.edu/research/health/tutorial/beginners.html

Business Research Lab. Although maintained by a commercial organization,this site provides helpful hints
on some aspects of research.
http://www.busreslab.com/tips/tipsgen.htm

Center for Research on Chronic Illness. Under pilot projects provides abstracts of current projects with information to contact the principal investigator.
http://nursing.unc.edu/crci/

The National Institute of Nursing Research. Much information here about grants.
http://ninr.nih.gov/ninr/

Research Paper

Hamid, S. Writing a Research Paper. An excellent resource that starts by describing the process, provides information on the types of research papers, hints for underdstanding the assignment and many, many more. Helpful to first timers and experienced writers! (Added January 6, 2006)
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/

Statistics Calculators

CUErgo Statistics Helper. Has information to help you decide on an appropriate statistical test for your design as well as an online statistical program available free.
http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUSTATS/INDEX.HTM

Web Pages that Perform Statistical Calculations! Provides links to many different online stats calculators as well as a link to selecting the correct statistic. Some of the links here provide tools that can be downloaded as well as used online. Links to free online texts are also there. Even some add-ons for Excel. Worth a visit. (Added September 29, 2005)
http://members.aol.com/johnp71/javastat.html#Package

Tutorial

Nursing Resources: A Self Paced Refresher and Tutorial. Although helpful, this site is aimed at New York University students. Although the information is helpful, readers will need to substitute their own libraries for those in the tutorial. Still worthwhile. (Added September 29, 2005)
http://library.nyu.edu/research/health/tutorial/

Online References For This Chapter

(These references are from the chapter. This list only include the ones that are still available. Please report broken links to Linda Q. Thede)

American Library Association (1998). Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning In Information Power: Building Partnerships for Learning. Retrieved May 28, 2002 from http://www.ala.org/aasl/ip_nine.html

American Association of Colleges of Nursing (1999). Nursing education’s agenda for the 21st century. Retrieved June 3, 2002 from http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Publications/positions/nrsgedag.htm

Committee on Information Technology Literacy, National Research Council (1999). Being Fluent with Information Technology. Retrieved May 28, 2002 from http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6482.html

Fielding, N. (1994). Getting into computer-aided qualitative data analysis. Retrieved May 29, 2002 from http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/getting.htm.

Pillar, B. & Golumbic, N. (Eds.) (1993). Acquiring and delivering knowledge from and for patient care. In B. Pillar & N. Golumbic (Eds.) Nursing Informatics: Enhancing Patient Care. Bethesda. MD: National Center for Nursing Research, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Also available http://www.nih.gov/ninr/research/vol4/Chapter3.html

Project management tools. (n.d.) Retrieved May 30, 2002 from http://www.snc.edu/socsci/chair/333/numbers.html

QDA Resources (2002). Retrieved May 29, 2002 from http://www.ualberta.ca/~jrnorris/qda.html

Scriven, M. & Paul, R. (n.d.) A Working Definition of Critical Thinking. Retrieved May 28, 2002 from http://lonestar.texas.net/~mseifert/crit2.html

Stevens, K. R. (2001). ACE Star Model of EBP: The Cycle of Knowledge Transformation. Academic Center for Evidence-based Practice. Retrieved June 4, 2002 from
http://acestar.uthscsa.edu/Learn_model.htm

Turley, J. (1993). The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Nursing Information Systems. Retrieved April 7, 2002 from http://www.hisavic.aus.net/hisa/mag/may93/the.htm (No longer available)

For questions or broken links please email the author .

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